The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2019–2026
Pastel World (파스텔세상), children's fashion leader, lost its licenses and mall in 2026
Daks Kids and Hazzys Kids carried Pastel World to ₩117B in sales — when the licenses ended in 2024, revenue fell 63% and the mall closed by 2026.
Pastel World (파스텔세상, LF Networks) · 2026-05-31
What happened
Pastel World was an LF Networks affiliate that ran Korea's leading licensed children's fashion brands — Daks Kids, Hazzys Kids, Bonpoint, Peter Jensen — and was managed by Koo Bon-jin and Koo Bon-soon, brothers of LF chairman Koo Bon-gol. Sales reached ₩117.3 billion in 2022 with a ₩6.7 billion profit.
The licenses were the business. When the Daks Kids and Hazzys Kids contracts ended in 2024, sales fell 63.3% to ₩36.27 billion, the net loss widened to ₩9.48 billion, and total assets dropped 62.1% to ₩18.86 billion. Low birth rates — a total fertility rate of 0.72-0.80 — shrank the whole children's market, and online competition made a small self-run mall unaffordable.
Pastel Mall, launched in 2019 by merging the Pastel World and Trybones online malls, closed on 31 May 2026 after about seven years. The company remains alive but is restructuring around its core brands.
Why it happened
- Owned nothing: the flagship children's lines were licensed from LF's Daks and Hazzys, so when the contracts ended in 2024, the customers went with the names.
- Demographics turned against the whole category: with Korea's fertility rate at 0.72-0.80, the children's apparel market shrank faster than any strategy could offset.
- A mall with no margin: the 2019 Pastel Mall merger never escaped price competition from bigger online players, and a business with falling sales could no longer carry it.
The lesson
Licenses are borrowed brands: when the Daks Kids and Hazzys Kids contracts ended in 2024, Pastel World lost the names customers came for — and a ₩117B business shrank to a third overnight.
Aftermath
Pastel Mall closed on 31 May 2026, ending the mall launched in 2019 from the merged Pastel World and Trybones online stores. The parent, an LF Networks affiliate, had relied on the Daks Kids and Hazzys Kids licenses that ended in 2024: sales fell from ₩98.76 billion in 2023 to ₩36.27 billion in 2024 (-63.3%), the net loss widened to ₩9.48 billion, and total assets dropped 62.1% to ₩18.86 billion. Korea's fertility rate stood at 0.80 in 2025, keeping the children's apparel market structurally weak. The company itself continues to operate, restructuring around its core brands.
Sources
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