SE OUL
Total trade between the UK and South Korea was worth
BILLION last year – up 4.1 per cent on 2017.
14.6 E
verything about Seoul’s Gangnam District screams modernity. It’s a high-rise, hi-tech fantasy land where giant screens blare
out K-pop videos and the streets bustle with strutting, selfi e-snapping social media infl uencers. This neon forest of karaoke bars, gaming arcades and fashion boutiques is also the home from home of a British brand that’s seriously hip in South Korea right now: the Denby Pottery Company, established in rural Derbyshire in 1809. The fi rm shifts well over two million units a year in South Korea. Denby products feature heavily in some of the country’s most popular soap operas, while young foodies here delight in sharing pictures of its understated stoneware on Instagram. The company has even attracted talent away from the likes of L’Oréal and Chanel.
Denby’s success is down to two key factors: social media users who want cool crockery to complement their arty food photos; and Korean cuisine, which typically features several small side dishes (banchan). “South Korea is home to 51 million people. If every household here needs eight bowls per person, that’s many bowls,” says the company’s managing director, Sebastian Lazell. “And that’s a lot of clay carried all the way from Derbyshire’s soil to Seoul.” It’s a remarkable – and, at fi rst glance, somewhat unlikely – success story. But then so is that of South Korea. The local proverb “when whales fi ght, the shrimp’s back is broken” refers to the travails of a small country unfortunate enough to be sandwiched between heavy-hitting rivals Japan and China. These quarrelsome leviathans have historically overshadowed their neighbour, but the “shrimp” has been punching well above its weight since the turn
34
director.co.uk
Bowling them over: the Denby Pottery Company sells more than two million products a year in South Korea
Gangnam style: the lively and affluent district of Seoul is widely seen as the cultural centre of modern South Korea
of the millennium. South Korea is now the world’s 12th-largest economy, according to research published in April by the International Monetary Fund.
Having recently established the world’s fi rst 5G network, South Korea is arguably the most digitally connected nation, while homegrown electronics giants Samsung and LG are known around the world, making innovative gadgetry that’s challenging the dominance of American and Japanese companies in their sector. The “soft power” of its culture is pervasive too: singing in their native language, K-pop group Bangtan Boys (also known as BTS) have topped both the UK and US albums charts. In June the seven-piece band sold out Wembley Stadium for two nights. All of the above – plus the fact that South Korea imported British goods totalling £6 billion in 2018 – hasn’t been lost on the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT). This summer South Korea, rather than China or Japan, became the fi rst Asian nation to agree a trading pact with the UK since the Brexit referendum. Once ratifi ed,
ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK
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