G-Dragon Draws Chinese Crowds to Clothing Store

Chinese fans of G-Dragon line up outside an 8 Seconds store in Myeong-dong, Seoul in August.

The flagship store of clothing brand 8 Seconds in Seoul's shopping district of Myeong-dong was teeming with Chinese tourists on Monday who had come all the way to buy hats and T-shirts branded boy band rapper G-Dragon.

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G-Dragon, of BigBang, was tapped as a new model for the brand in August, and daily sales in the Myeong-dong store soared to W200 million ahead of Big Bang's 10th-anniversary concert on Aug. 20 (US$1=W1,106).

"Before hiring G-Dragon it took us at least 10 days to achieve such sales", a staffer said.

Chinese fans also made up a majority of the 65,000 who packed World Cup Stadium in northwestern Seoul for the anniversary concert.

The duty free shop at Shinsegae Department Store in Myeong-dong, which G-Dragon also advertises, racked up record sales of W1.6 billion on the day of the concert. And YG Store, which sells Big Bang merchandise, saw sales rise more than five-fold.

While fan meets with Korean Wave stars such as Park Shin-hye and Song Joong-ki have been canceled in China amid a spat over the U.S.' Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery to be stationed in Korea, a concert in China by Big Bang member Taeyang proceeded without a hitch.

G-Dragon is to visit Shanghai on Sept. 30 to open 8 Seconds' first store in the city.