It started with a product review. A woman ordered a Balmacaan coat from HIS HAZZYS — a Korean menswear label targeting men in their 20s and 30s — as a birthday gift for her husband. Before wrapping it, she tried it on. She didn't give it back.
"I was looking for an oversized coat with some thickness," she wrote in the review. "I think women could get a beautiful fit just by choosing a small size."
That one comment captures a shift that Korean fashion retailers have been quietly tracking for years — and are now publicly responding to.
More women in Korea are buying menswear. Not because of any campaign or trend cycle, but because menswear consistently delivers something that womenswear often doesn't — better fabrics, cleaner silhouettes, and the kind of relaxed, oversized fit that actually looks intentional rather than like it was designed for a different body type.
Allegri, a premium Italian-origin menswear brand in Korea, introduced women's outerwear for the very first time in its 2025 fall-winter season after repeated requests from female shoppers visiting stores with their partners. These women weren't asking for a women's version of Allegri — they wanted Allegri. The two styles released, priced around 1.3 million won (roughly $980), sold through at over 80 percent. The flagship fur down jumper nearly sold out completely. Allegri is now officially launching a full women's line for the 2026 spring-summer season — and an LF official confirmed they won't be adding excessive femininity to it. The plan is to keep the same modern, restrained identity that women came for in the first place.
HIS HAZZYS, a Gen Z menswear sub-label, had women account for 30 percent of all purchases last year without even having a dedicated women's line. It has since launched its first womenswear capsule at a pop-up built around what it calls a "genderless mood."
Korean minimalist brand Coor launched Coor Women in 2024 after women started buying its men's pieces in smaller sizes. First-year sales hit around 2 billion won. Draw Fit — known for its boyfriend-look silhouettes since 2014 — launched Draw Fit Women in 2023. French brand Ami, which entered Korea through menswear, opened its first standalone women's store last May.
An industry official put it plainly: for casual brands, the crossover comes through oversized silhouettes that work for anyone. For premium labels, women enter through the aesthetic — drawn by quality and restraint that womenswear rarely bothers with.
Nobody planned any of this. Women walked into menswear stores, tried things on, and didn't leave. The brands that noticed early are now redesigning entire seasons because of it.