Korean stockings in Japan: sales more than quadruple on Qoo10's Megawari

In Seoul on 6 November, Jang Won-young opened a RolaRola store in white lace tights with grey leg warmers pushed down over them. In Japan, that kind of picture now turns into orders. According to eBay Japan, reported by Hankyung on 9 November 2026, sales of Korean-made stockings in Qoo10 Japan's third-quarter Megawari sale were more than four times those of the same sale a year earlier. Here are the figures, what drives them and what they leave out.

The numbers

Qoo10 Japan is the online marketplace run by eBay Japan, and Megawari is its quarterly discount event. In the third-quarter 2026 edition, Hankyung reports, sales of Korean socks and legwear rose 48% on the same event in 2025. Within that, Korean stockings sales grew more than fourfold. Across the whole third quarter, the paper adds, sales were up 235% year on year.

Hankyung gives growth rates only: no units, no yen and no list of best-selling products. The figures come from eBay Japan and cover its own platform, not the Japanese legwear market as a whole.

Why Japan is buying

The industry explanation, as Hankyung reports it, comes in three parts. First, function: compression stockings and shaping styles, sold on stretch and on the way they smooth the leg. Second, socks and stockings as fashion: coloured and patterned pairs layered with trainers or boots. Legwear also has fewer size and body-shape constraints than clothes and costs less, which makes it an easy first purchase from a foreign brand.

The third part is social media. Hankyung writes that products and styling worn by K-pop idols and Korean influencers are shared with Japanese shoppers, and that on Qoo10 Japan the top sellers range from K-pop-themed designs to plain everyday socks and stockings. "Recently, beyond K-clothing, K-fashion accessories have been drawing attention as a new market in Japan, and legwear is growing fastest among them," said Kim Su-a, head of eBay Japan's Korea sales division. Through social and short-form video, she added, idols' ways of styling legwear reach Japan's Gen Z "in real time".

Jennie and Jang Won-young, the reference

Hankyung's headline puts it in shoppers' words: they want to dress like Jennie and Jang Won-young. The paper illustrates the story with two social media photos, Jennie in black tights with a gold print and Jang Won-young in black floral lace tights. Neither picture credits the tights.

The pattern holds in looks we have covered. Jang Won-young wore white floral lace tights under grey ribbed leg warmers for RolaRola in Seoul, the photo at the top of this page and in the post above. Jennie wore sheer leopard-print tights with a leopard mini skirt on The Jennifer Hudson Show in 2025. In both cases the tights are not credited, which is part of the appeal for a marketplace: the look is easy to search for and cheap to copy.

What it means

Japan is not short of tights. It has Atsugi, Gunze and a deep culture of fine-denier legwear. What Korea sells there is something else: an idol's styling at a sale price, in colours, lace and layers. For the brands Seoul actually wears, from BYC to Musinsa Standard and Romantic Tiger, see our guide to Korean tights; to read the denier on a Korean pack, start with our denier guide.

The photos

The Instagram post at the top is RolaRola's own, from the Le Cabinet opening on 6 November 2026. The two Getty Images embeds show Jang Won-young at the same event (Han Myung-Gu/WireImage) and Jennie on The Jennifer Hudson Show (Chris Haston/WBTV). The sales figures and Kim Su-a's quote come from Hankyung (Park Su-rim, 9 November 2026), based on eBay Japan data; the translation from Korean is ours. The cover circle shows Jang Won-young at the RolaRola 'Le Cabinet' opening (still from the K-POPIT 케이팝잇 YouTube channel, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons).

A pair of lace tights bought in Seoul's style, delivered in Tokyo after a sale: that is the trade the numbers describe.