What COEX Mall is known for
Starfield COEX Mall brings shopping and dining together in Seoul's Gangnam district near Samseong Station. Its directory includes fashion shops and beauty retailers, while the Starfield Library provides a space to browse books between shops. The aquarium and cinema are separately listed attractions within the complex, alongside the neighbouring convention facilities.
Starfield COEX Mall sits beneath Gangnam and works less like a shopping centre than a district with a roof over it. Around 320 brands fill it. The range runs from the big international fast-fashion names through street labels to a deep stretch of beauty. Walking it tells you what Seoul is wearing at the moment.
The centrepiece is not a shop. At the centre of the mall is an open library, free to enter, built as a place to rest and meet as much as to read. It programmes talks and performances by figures from literature and the arts rather than simply shelving books.
For a great many visitors that library is the reason to come at all, and it costs nothing to walk into.
Eating is treated as seriously as shopping. There are roughly a hundred restaurants and cafes, among them American-style Asian dining and two of the names that led Korean coffee culture. Beyond the retail the complex carries a cinema and an aquarium, along with exhibition space and a hotel. Three hundred brands without a plan will take a day you had not meant to spend.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Gangnam shopping and dining with a stop at Starfield Library
South Korea.
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Hand-curated for ORBIS · no paid placement