LF

Hazzys of LF (CEO Koo Bon Keul, www.lfcorp.com), a main Korean traditional casual brand, will advance into the Chinese children’s clothing market of about KRW 24 trillion in scale through its children’s clothing brand, Hazzys Kids. 

LF and Beijing Jiaman Dress, a Chinese children’s clothing company, signed a licensing contract for the full advancement of Hazzys Kids into the Chinese market on June 2 at the LF office building in Apgujeong-dong, Seoul, Korea. 

Hazzys Kids is a premium brand that specializes in children’s clothing and was launched last year based on a traditional casual concept through LF’s subsidiary company, Pastel World, which specializes in children’s clothing. Many of its stores surpassed the revenue of KRW 100 million within six months of its launching as a brand newly rising in the Korean premium children’s clothing market. 

LF has reviewed for long the justifiability of advancing into the Chinese children’s clothing market, which is a promising market annually growing by 30% as 18 million new babies are expected to be born each year because of the Chinese government’s alleviation of the policy limiting the number of children a family can have in 2013. The market is a large market with KRW 24 trillion in scale. Given that the Chinese highly prefer traditional casual and premium brands, LF decided to have Hazzys Kids advance into the Chinese market. 

LF decided to have Hazzys Kids advance into the Chinese children’s clothing market by signing a licensing contract with Jiaman, a company with abundant know-how and system in the local business. This is based on its experience of having had Hazzys advance into the Chinese market and settle there in a short period also through a licensing contract with Baoxiniao Group, the third largest fashion company in China, which specializes in ready-made clothes, in 2007. 

Jiaman, which will showcase Hazzys Kids in China, is a company that specializes in children’s clothing established in Beijing in 1992. It not only has its own brand, “Souhait,” but also sells over 10 premium imported children’s clothing brands such as “Hugo Boss Kids” and “Armani Junior.” It has about 800 stores nationwide in China, and it is a company with abundant know-how and exclusive system for planning, production, logistics, and sales in the children’s clothing business. 

Hazzys Kids plans to open five stores in large shopping malls and department stores in central economic cities of China, such as Beijing and Shanghai. It will attract young high-income parents, aging between 30 and 45 and with young children, to develop the brand into a mid to large brand with about 100 stores in China by 2020. 

“Hazzys Kids’ advancement into the Chinese market is highly meaningful in that it is part of Hazzys’ strategy to expand globally and in that it will provide children, who will grow into major consumers in the Chinese market in the future, the opportunity to gain a positive experience of the brand while they are still young,” LF President Oh Kyu-sik said. “Based on our official partnership with Jiaman, which boasts of excellent local know-how in developing brands, we expect to not only create a fever for traditional casual clothes led by Hazzys Kids in the Chinese children’s clothing market but also positively impact the mother brand of Hazzys, which has already advanced into the Chinese market,” he continued.