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Kolmar Korea became the first Korean cosmetics company to exhibit at Première Vision Paris, showing colour cosmetics and beauty technology at the trade fair’s newly launched Cosmetic Village from 1 to 3 September at Parc des Expositions de Villepinte.
The company was also the only Korean beauty business invited this year. More than 900 companies took part across eight specialised sections spanning yarns, fabrics, design, accessories, leather, and smart creation.
Première Vision’s exhibitor base has long run toward fabric mills and leather and textile suppliers, and Kolmar’s presence marked the first time a Korean cosmetics name had a place inside that lineup.
The edition of Première Vision centred on Inno-Tech, its theme exploring how artificial intelligence, advanced materials, digital tools, and automation are reshaping product creation and manufacturing across fashion and textile industries. Organisers ran two talk stages and a prospective area built to look past fashion into adjacent industries.
Florence Rousson, chair of Première Vision’s management board and managing director of GL Events’ fashion division, pointed to Kolmar’s participation as part of a wider push toward new collaborations this edition. She said the show’s enriched programme and its new partnership with Cosmetic Valley were creating conditions for companies to develop growth opportunities and anticipate fashion’s future through an increasing number of cross-industry collaborations.
Cosmetic Village opened as a new section this year, occupying a 150-square-metre space designed to bring fashion and beauty businesses into direct contact. Ten beauty companies presented there. French firms made up much of the Cosmetic Village lineup, and Kolmar stood out as the sole company representing Korea. Organisers created the space specifically to connect colour forecasting and materials sourcing with the people who develop finished cosmetic products.
Kolmar built its exhibit around the theme Beauty Meets Fashion, displaying 27 colours developed to align with Première Vision’s fall-winter 2027-28 trend forecasts. The company paired the palette with its broader colour cosmetics and technology offering. Kolmar also brought seasonal makeup products, giving visitors a broad view of how the palette could apply across a full product range. Visitors mixed their own colour combinations at the booth and sampled lip products, and interest extended beyond the colours themselves to how a fashion-driven palette could translate into finished cosmetic formulas.
A Kolmar Korea official framed the appearance as a chance to reach an audience the company does not typically address directly. “The exhibition gave us an opportunity to introduce our technology and colour cosmetics development capabilities to the global market,” the official said, adding that the company intends to keep building on that footing.
Kolmar pioneered the ODM manufacturing model, in which a company builds a beauty product for a client brand starting from the original concept. Its work covers initial trend analysis and product planning, then moves through R&D and into manufacturing. The company has operated for more than 36 years, expanding from skincare into makeup and later into sun care. It runs manufacturing operations in Korea and North America, with further capacity in China supporting its international client base.
Chroma Kolmar Studio is the company’s proprietary colour research and development platform. Kolmar uses it to build colour strategy into a product from the earliest development stages, treating each shade as a piece of a brand’s identity. Kolmar Korea describes colour there as a language, the way a brand first speaks to a customer before any product claim or ingredient list comes into view. That process matches how Première Vision itself operates, with fabric mills and material suppliers presenting colour and texture directions months before finished garments exist.
France remains the world’s leading exporter of perfumes and cosmetics, with 22.4 billion euros in exports projected for 2025. Kolmar’s booth sat inside a market defined by that scale, and it did so as the only Korean beauty company represented at Première Vision this year.
K-beauty’s visibility in Western markets has mostly run through retail partnerships and celebrity collaborations, the deals that tend to draw headlines. The US overtook China in 2025 as Korea’s top cosmetics export destination for the first time. The UK has moved just as fast: Boots named K-beauty a strategic growth category in its 2026 Beauty and Wellness Trend Report. COSRX reunited with Courrèges backstage at Paris Fashion Week FW26, releasing a limited-edition collaboration kit tied to the show.
Kolmar’s appearance at Première Vision puts a Korean cosmetics manufacturer directly in front of designers and brand teams, along with the buyers who source materials for upcoming seasons. Buyers who attend Première Vision often work months ahead of a season’s rollout, deciding on textures or finishes well before a single garment or cosmetic reaches production.
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