Korean brand MCM re-enters Harrods after 16 years

On Aug. 31,MCMre-enters Harrods, the high-end U.K. department store, after 16 years. It will compete with designer brands such as Mulberry and Marc Jacobs in the center of global finance and oil money.

Kim Sung-joo, 56, the chairwoman of Sungjoo Group, said this in an interview with The Dong-A Ilbo in London Tuesday. We will target young professionals, the new luxury brand consumers, by adding fun, mobility and innovative design to German traditions embedded in MCM.

Young professionals refer to those aged between 25 and 35 who frequently travel for business and leisure.

MCM is a masstige (a luxury brand targeting the general public) created in Germany in 1976. Kim, who used to buy its products under a licensing contract from 1991, eventually acquired the brand in 2005 as the first Asian woman to take over a European brand.

She went to London for MCM Brand Experience, an event that a Rootmaster wrapped with MCMs pattern visetos and decorated with an exhibition inside circles in downtown London for promotion July 7-16.

Its all the more special because this event falls in the same year of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Summer Olympics, Kim said. A 66-square meter store will open at the luxury hall of Harrods at the end of next month.

Ironically, 70 to 80 percent of the British department stores revenue comes from customers from China, the Middle East and Russia. The growing buying power of China and the Mideast helped MCM to generate 360 billion won (315.2 million U.S. dollars) in revenue last year, up around 25 percent despite the slumping global economy.

Kim said, We will increase the number of stores in China to 100 and revenue to 600 billion to 700 billion won (525.3 million to 612.9 million dollars) within five years. In the Middle East, we will continue to be recognized as a luxury brand as is the case with an MCM store in the upstairs of a Hermes branch in Dubai Mall.

We will open stores at Printemps and Lafayette in France next year and a high-end boutique shop in Tokyo`s Ginza district within two years.