PARIS — Simply 9 months after unveiling its first Paris flagship for males, Korean luxurious model Songzio has doubled down on its presence within the French capital with a second stand-alone retailer devoted to womenswear.
Positioned at 10 rue Charlot within the coronary heart of the Marais, the two-level, 1,615-square-foot area sits adjoining to the boys’s retailer and displays the identical architectural codes as conceived by model inventive director Jay Songzio, who additionally served because the venture’s lead architect.
Songzio calls it “stripped classicism,” and the inside follows the uncooked metal and concrete classic-meets-Brutalist design of the boys’s flagship subsequent door. Working with Studio AMV, which has additionally collaborated with Balmain, Songzio performed with brightness and circulation, and added wooden to his materials palette. Curved partitions and rounded furnishings soften the shop’s in any other case extreme aesthetic.
The growth got here serendipitously. Shortly after the boys’s retailer opened in December, its neighbor, a longtime impartial hatmaker, closed up store, providing the proper timing for a retailer devoted to Songzio’s new ladies’s line, launched simply two months later.
Whereas the boys’s retailer is extra enclosed and “nearly looks like a vault,” Songzio mentioned, the constructing housing the ladies’s unit boasts a big central courtyard. He wished to make the most of the standard Parisian architectural attribute to usher in pure mild.
Inside Songzio’s ladies’s flagship in Paris.
Robin Lefebvre / Courtesy of Songzio
Songzio continues to personally design all the model’s shops, although this newest venture additionally concerned a brand new inventive associate in Belgian furnishings designer Arno Declercq, who is thought for his minimalist work in burnt wooden and patinated metal.
“You’ll immediately acknowledge that his work resonates quite a bit with our model’s aesthetic,” mentioned Songzio. “With each angle [in the store] there’s a chunk, and I believe that creates a way more artisanal look, as a result of typically these concrete shops can look a bit chilly.”
Opening bodily shops in Paris has grow to be a key technique for the model. “This explicit retailer [is] arguably an important retailer for me and for the model internationally,” he mentioned, each in establishing the ladies’s line in addition to Songzio’s general worldwide presence.
Previous to the boys’s opening, Songzio’s Paris presence had largely been restricted to runway exhibits. That flagship has allowed him to deepen ties with native prospects.
Firm knowledge exhibits that 70 p.c of in-store prospects are native, he mentioned, with American vacationers making up the vast majority of the worldwide clientele.
Inside Songzio’s ladies’s flagship in Paris.
Robin Lefebvre / Courtesy of Songzio
That direct reference to prospects has yielded invaluable perception. “We get nearly every day suggestions about what the French prospects need. It’s helped sharpen my understanding of what individuals need from a model like ours, which isn’t at all times what we imagined from Korea,” he mentioned.
The retail expertise has helped him refine the gathering and product combine for the worldwide market, which focuses on fundamentals and classics and prefers a degree of consistency.
That’s in stark distinction to the home Korean market, the place Songzio has opened 16 ladies’s stand-alone shops over the past yr, with two extra doorways deliberate earlier than December.
“Korean prospects need new issues each season, each month, even each week,” Songzio mentioned. “To maintain up with that vitality, it’s important to transfer quick in Korea.”
That tempo has fueled the fast retail growth. “In case you don’t have sufficient shops to start with if you find yourself attempting to check the market, you’re going to be lifeless within the water in a yr or two, since you wouldn’t have sufficient selection in comparison with the rivals,” he mentioned.
This urge for food for fixed novelty is a stark distinction to European shopping for habits, and generally is a design problem for Songzio, who grew up in Paris. Nevertheless, designing the ladies’s assortment has pushed him into new territory.
Songzio, males’s spring 2026
Courtesy of Songzio
“It’s actually modified the silhouette that I used to be sort of caught on for some time — very outsized, very angular,” he mentioned. “Engaged on womenswear within the final yr or so has actually made our [core men’s] assortment far more fluid.”
Songzio beforehand said a 1 million euro annual gross sales goal for the primary yr of the boys’s retailer, however the model surpassed that aim inside the first eight months, he mentioned, partially as a result of it’s the solely manner for purchasers to get their fingers on the products outdoors of Seoul.
“Worldwide shoppers actually have nowhere to buy however our first flagship,” Songzio mentioned. “That has been very instrumental.”
For now, meaning no world e-commerce. Songzio will reassess that technique in about six months, primarily based on the success of the ladies’s retailer, he added.
Nevertheless native, the Paris flagship will import one success issue from the Seoul retailer: rotating artwork displays. “It brings a brand new vitality, and we wished to duplicate this expertise in Paris as effectively,” he mentioned.
In Seoul, the shop has hosted seven artists to this point. The primary Paris exhibition is slated for November, together with a three-way collaboration between the model, an unnamed artist, and a Copenhagen-based model. “We’re prone to do like a trilateral collaboration to create a extra immersive expertise.”
That forthcoming collaboration can also be a key a part of Songzio’s progress technique. The model generated good buzz with its capsule assortment with Anti-Social Social Membership. Proven on the runway final season, it is going to be obtainable within the Paris flagship.
A collaboration with a Japanese model can also be within the works for 2026. “These collaborations actually assist us develop our presence internationally,” he added.
Songzio’s marketing campaign with Seonghwa from Ateez.
Courtesy of Songzio
The model has additionally introduced on board key ambassadors, together with Seonghwa from the Okay-pop group Ateez. He debuted in a marketing campaign in July. The connection blossomed naturally after Seonghwa attended a present and have become a loyal buyer; now the 2 are buddies. “It wasn’t a calculated transfer like, ‘We’d like a Okay-pop star proper now,’” he joked. “It got here very naturally.”
The model additionally introduced its first feminine ambassador, Korean actress Choi Heejin, for its fall marketing campaign.
Paris is barely the start of the model’s worldwide growth. A deliberate New York Metropolis flagship continues to be on monitor, Songzio added, anticipated to open within the fourth quarter of 2026.
