[On the scene] A Christmas trip without flying to New York... New York comes to The Hyundai Seoul

[Financial News]“Is this Seoul or New York?”
On the morning of the 9th, at Sounds Forest on the fifth floor of The Hyundai Seoul in Yeouido, Seoul, the entrance to the Christmas village “H Village,” reminiscent of a New York City subway station, caught the eye. Beyond the entrance, rows of red-brick buildings came into view. A yellow taxi, a New York icon, sat between the buildings, while newspapers and vintage signboards were displayed throughout the streets.
H Village is a Christmas-themed space that Hyundai Department Store creates at The Hyundai Seoul every year at year-end. Since launching “Harry’s Grain Warehouse” in 2022, it has presented spaces with new stories each year, including “Harry’s Dream Shop,” “The Moving Grand Theater” and “Harry’s Christmas Workshop.” This year’s theme is “Christmas in New York City,” set in New York. Reinterpreting New York’s streets and culture of the 1980s and 1990s, it recreates a New York street steeped in Christmas atmosphere in the heart of downtown Seoul.
The village is densely filled with 13 red-brick buildings, each up to 10 meters tall. Neon signs, weathered signboards and graffiti throughout the buildings create the distinctive atmosphere of New York’s streets. Newspapers were placed in front of shops, and sculptures resembling real pigeons were installed on the building walls. In particular, the newspapers featured a Christmas story from 1985, the year Hyundai Department Store first opened, adding to the fun of discovering stories hidden around the village.
A variety of shops and interactive spaces have been set up inside the buildings. They include a gift shop, a listening space where visitors can enjoy LP records, pet-related shops and a candy store selling sweets and chocolates. Christmas trees installed throughout the streets also add to the festive atmosphere, decorated with lights in a range of colors—not just red and green, but pink, purple and blue as well.
This Christmas village also tells the story of cats helping deliver presents for “Baby Bear Harry,” Hyundai Department Store’s signature character. The premise is that, in New York, where the lights stay on all night, cats living in the alleys deliver the presents while avoiding people’s notice in place of Harry, who is struggling to make the deliveries. Around 40 cats are hidden throughout the village, inviting visitors to explore the space by following their traces.
The year-end draw of visitors is behind Hyundai Department Store’s investment in Christmas content. Since its launch in 2022, The Hyundai Seoul’s H Village has drawn a cumulative total of more than 1.5 million visitors over the four years through last year and is regarded as having established itself as a leading year-end destination. This year, the strategy is to attract more customers by combining shopping, food and interactive experiences.
Jeong Min-gyu, a senior designer on Hyundai Department Store’s VMD team, said, “We started with the question, ‘What is the most romantic Christmas moment that people remember for a long time?’ and found the answer in the city of New York. This year, The Hyundai Seoul will invite you to the streets of New York as they were in that era—a time when Hyundai Department Store first opened in 1985 and film, music, fashion and culture came together to make Christmas in New York a dream for people around the world.”


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