1. Introduction

Dongdaemun Market (“DDM”) is a symbol of both domestic and foreign fashion markets. It is one of the world's largest fashion clusters with an annual turnover of 15 trillion won (USD 11 Billion), having 26% of Korean clothing industry workers being 170,000 people working within a 2km radius, and about 10,000 different types of clothes are being manufactured daily.

However, due to the recent COVID 19 situation, the overall consumption behavior has rapidly changed from offline to the non-face-to-face transaction which caused the reduction of offline sales at DDM which has resulted in a 30% “vacancy rate” in the DDM wholesale fashion sector that accounts for 20% of Korea's textile fashion industry market, and in accordingly it has raised some serious economic and job losses. Thus far, without innovation in the distribution paradigm, the entire commercial district of DDM could be threatened.

Furthermore, Dongdaemun Fashion Cluster (“DDFC”) is a fashion valley that is unique and hard to find anywhere in the world, it is currently facing limitations on future growth due to the persistent in keeping the old-fashioned style of business culture, cash-oriented analog operation method, and restriction on the nightly operation time.

Nevertheless, the advent of a new B2B platform (i.e., a new brand market, link shops, brandy, etc.) that seeks to provide an online platform and systemize the value of Dongdaemun, a new fashion cluster, is beginning to form a shape for a new transition. Promoting the digitalization of the Dongdaemun fashion industry, due to the COVID 19 changes in non-face-to-face consumption behavior, and the emergence of various cross-border platforms could be the perfect timing and the real opportunity for DDM (K-Fashion) to enter a new era of globalization.

Aftermath of Information Technology (IT) Revolution of Industry 3.0, we are now in the era of Industry 4.0, whereby the key technologies such as Metaverse, Blockchain, Big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and IoT. Especially due to the recent COVID-19 crisis, Industry 4.0 has taken to a new level. Among the big trend of digital transformation, we would like to take an initiative to innovate the current status and further create a new opportunity for DDM.

Thus far, the new DDM (DDMTOWN) will be realized with a Blockchain-Based Metaverse, Web 3.0, and will be established as a typical virtual convergence economy ecosystem in the future that could overcome the borders and limitations of the boundaries of region and country, and virtual and reality. Through this, DDMTOWN Metaverse will be the world's first landmark place for a global fashion brand where reality and virtual become one.