South Korea’s content distributor and media platform provider KVLY joined up with China’s largest online fashion mall Hstyle to carry out a joint fashion project in another sign of pickup in normalization of business relations between China and Korea.

According to industry sources on Thursday, KVLY and Hstyle signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday at KVLY’s headquarters in central Seoul to develop and distribute a collaborative fashion brand in cooperation with Korean designers, social media influencers and designers.

Hstyle was founded in 2006 when Korean culture’s popularity reached its peak in China. Korean top stars also widely known in the country such as Jeon Ji-hyun, Park Shin-hye and Ji Chang-wook have been working as advertising models for the brand. The company has about 70 million members, higher than Korea’s entire population of 51.78 million, and more than 1 million customers buy products at the mall every day. It raked in 600 million yuan ($87.3 million) in sales during last year’s Single’s Day, China’s biggest shopping event that falls on November 11.

KVLY is a media platform provider owned by Kosdaq-listed VT GMP, the owner of cosmetics brand VT Cosmetics promoted by K-pop superstar BTS. “It is the first fashion project based on Korean Wave and the partnership will contribute to improving relations of China and Korea,” an official from the company said, adding that they plan to launch the brand within the first half of the year.

By Lee Yoon-jae and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]