The flower-patterned padded vest, long dismissed as quaint, has resurfaced as a fashion item among younger generations. On November 18, data from Naver DataLab showed that searches for “Kimjang vest” and related keywords among people aged 19 to 34 hit a historic peak of 100 the previous day. Naver uses 100 as the benchmark to display relative changes; after having fallen to zero in December, search interest has surged again since mid last month.

Data from BlackKiwi also shows that Kimjang vest searches rose by roughly sevenfold (about 699.85%) from the previous month. Among age groups, those in their 20s accounted for 13.2% and those in their 30s for 36.0%, together about half of all ages, while women made up a dominant 84.3%.

As a result, Kimjang vest products have climbed to top-selling positions on online fashion platforms, with Zigzag and Ably continuing to rank highly among 20-something women. Prices range from roughly 5,000 to 40,000 won. BYC collaborated with the dog clothing brand Gariyas to launch dog Kimjang vests at a COEX pop-up, drawing significant attention.