YG Enters Model Industry… Hand in Hand with K PLUS
[OSEN=표재민 기자] YG Entertainment (“YG”), one of the major entertainment management companies in Korea, has signed a contract for strategic partnership and share investment with K PLUS, Korea’s best model agency.
On the 18 this month, YG’s president Yang Min Suk announced the news and said, “Korean models have been coming under the global spotlight as much as K-pop and Korean Wave TV dramas have, so we expect a bigger growth potential and promising future in this field. We will secure a pool of manpower in the fashion model field through the strategic partnership with and share investment in K PLUS, thereby implementing a win-win strategy for the diversification and a bigger synergy of our business”.
K PLUS was established in 2008 by Ko Eun Kyung, fashion model-turned-CEO, who has nurtured hundreds of top models including Cha Seung Won and Park Dool Sun for the past 20 years. She is also famous as a planner for events at New York Carnegie Hall and in Pyeongyang, as well as for Seoul Fashion Week.
K PLUS is Korea’s leading model agency that has been doing planning for professional fashion shows, model arrangement for TV, magazine, and advertisement, model management including models’ entrance into overseas markets, and nurturing of professional fashion models. The company now manages 170 models including Jang Ki Yong who appeared in the music video of IU’s “The Red Shoes”, Choi Sora who is the final winner of cable channel OnStyle’s “Korea’s Next Top Model Season 3” show, Stephanie Lee who has drawn attention with her appearance in “Neutrogena”’s CF, as well as Park Hyung Sup and Lee Sung Kyung.
YG’s decision for such strategic partnership and investment will help the company upgrade its efforts to evolve into a global total entertainment agency. Notably, model-turned-actors such as Kang Dong Won, Kim Woo Bin, and Cha Seung Won who was recently scouted to YG as the company is enhancing its actor management business, are enjoying great popularity for their appearance in TV dramas and films recently. So, YG is expected to produce next-generation stars who can follow the footsteps of Cha Seung Won and Kim Woo Bin through its expansion into the model industry.
Plus, as YG is soon to penetrate into the clothing market through its new brand Natural9 that was established with Samsung Cheil Industreis (now Everland), the company can expect the creation of a new profit model through its partnership with K PLUS, a group of fashion model professionals.
K PLUS will expand the sphere of activities for its models by utilizing YG’s support and investment and will strengthen its model academy to more actively nurture rookies and penetrate into the global market.
K PLUS Academy has established itself as a model academy that nurtures professional models who can be recognized not only in Korea but also in overseas markets. The academy finds talented new models and promising actors through its fashion model course that includes classes of walking, photo poses, and introduction to modeling, as well as actor training course that includes acting, camera working, and management.
Recently, more Korean models stand on the runway of famous collections held in Paris, Milan, and New York, like Chanel, Gucci, and Prada. Plus, China is shedding a bigger spotlight on Korean models as it is emerging as the new major market of global fashion with rising consumption of brand-name goods. Under these circumstances, K PLUS will contribute to the evolution of “fashion Korean Wave” with the support from YG.
It is also remarkable that now a new environment where the “encounter of fashion and music” can grow into globally-popular contents is being established, as shown in the case of “Victoria’s Secret” show and G-DRAGON’s music production for “Mugler” show that was held in January last year in Paris.
Now YG is armed with fashion icons such as BIGBANG, 2NE1, and Cha Seung Won, so the company will be able to further solidify its image as the opinion leader in the fashion industry and to trigger the next round of Korean Wave in both singer and actor industries with the new global recognition and business capabilities created through the strategic partnership with and investment in K PLUS.
2014. 2. 18.
