Clothing from the social impact fashion brand ISTORY, left, and organic material brand Agahoho / Courtesy of ISTORY and Ryu Ae  

The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant hardships to many businesses. Despite such adversities, North Korean defectors living in South Korea are striving to find a way to start their own businesses.

“96 Percent Cosmetics” and “Ryu Ae” are two startups founded by Koreans who left their homes in the North. They pitched their products this February at Tongil Start-up Demo Day, a promotional event organized by The Bridge, a nonprofit organization.

Park Jin-hee, who used to work as a journalist specializing in North Korean issues for a local news outlet after defecting, found a new life as the CEO and founder of the beauty startup, 96 Percent Cosmetics.

During the Demo Day, Park showcased the brand’s skincare treatment product – disposable mask sheets sold in pull-up tissue packages. This quick, one-step skincare method targets consumers in their 30s and 40s who have hectic lives.

Ahn Myeong-hee, the founder and CEO of Ryu Ae / Courtesy of Ryu Ae

The fashion startup Ryu Ae, founded by Ahn Myeong-hee, displayed its line of clothes Agahoho, which offers eco-friendly baby garments. Using her background working in a tailor shop in China after fleeing the North, Ahn started her own brand in 2019 to provide organic clothing made without bleach, dyes or toxic chemicals.

Another former North Korean, Jessie Kim, founded a food startup called Jessie Kitchen in 2020 with a mission to “find the missing half of Korean cuisine.” The 30-year-old CEO used to hold cooking classes on how to prepare North Korean dishes after she escaped and settled in Seoul in 2014. Using her signature dish dububap (tofu stuffed with rice), she started her own brand that sells prepared meals to introduce North Korean food to South Koreans.

Jessie Kim, the founder and CEO of Jessie Kitchen / Courtesy of Jessie Kitchen

For Kang Ji-hyun, a fashion designer and the CEO of a social impact fashion brand called ISTORY, her new brand is a way to unfold the story of her life through fashion. Under the slogan “the most personal thing is the most beautiful,” the 31-year-old CEO aims to use her clothing line to share the personal stories of North Korean defectors – who are often viewed with bias and stigma in the South.

The brand’s signature elbow patches incorporate designs and illustrations that encapsulate unique life stories told by North Koreans.

Kim Ria, another North Korean refugee who escaped hard labor back home to settle in the South, put her love for flowers into her business Flower is Ria (Kim Ria). She arranges flowers that have been dried and preserved via a special method that retains their shapes and colors longer than with more common processes.

Defector-turned-startup CEO Joseph Park’s business emerged from his work helping fellow defectors settle into South Korean society. He is the head of the social venture Yovel, whose mission is to provide a bridge between Koreans from the North and their new community in the South by offering job training programs and employment opportunities.

Since its founding in 2014, Yovel has run different businesses, including two cafes that employ North Korean defectors.

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