Licensed casual apparel brands' luster fades in Korea

The fad for licensed casual fashion brands appears to be cooling in South Korea, where American sports clubs, broadcasting networks and documentary channels were reborn as apparel brands.

The rise of the so-called old money aesthetic, often characterized by not showing brand labels, also put a damper on the crowded market.

The MLB apparel brand, licensed from the US Major League Baseball by Korean retailer F&F Co., reported a 13% on-year drop to 66.2 billion won ($49 million) in sales in the fourth quarter of 2023.

That marked its second straight quarter with a double-digit slide in sales, reversing single-digit sales growth in the first half of last year.

Its sales at duty-free shops plummeted by 30% on-year in the second half of last year.

MLB reinvented itself into a fashion brand in Korea in 2017 after F&F Co. signed a licensing agreement with the MLB brand. It wrote a success story as an apparel brand not originating from a fashion company, raking in over 1 trillion won in sales in its first few years.

However, 27 years since its founding, it has now become an outdated brand. Chinese tourists’ lessening enthusiasm for the brand drove its sales lower for the first time since its launch.

The same goes for its other licensed fashion brand Discovery Expedition. The brand suffered its first annual sales drop since it hit the market in 2012.

The National Geographic clothing brand under The Nature Holdings Co. posted its first decline in sales since its launch in 2016 as well.

The licensed brand’s sales declined 2% on-year in 2023, reversing the 22% jump in 2022. The poor results pulled The Nature Holdings’ operating profit 27% lower on-year to 65.7 billion won in 2023.

The Nature Holdings also imports other popular apparel brands such as Jeep, NFL and Vera Wang.

“As the number of licensed brands in Korea exceeded 600, the competition has intensified. Moreover, the consumption pattern is changing to hiding logos, so licensed brands are likely to continue to struggle for the time being," said a Korean department store merchandise buyer.

Write to Jae-Kwang Ahn at ahnjk@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.