The campaign is titled “Welcome the New Light”.

For its 2026 New Year campaign, Shinsegae Duty Free has drawn on one of South Korea’s most revered traditional crafts – najeonchilgi (mother-of-pearl lacquerware) – to demonstrate how heritage materials can be reinterpreted through a contemporary visual lens.

Titled “Welcome the New Light”, the campaign has been created in collaboration with Daehyun Sohn, South Korea’s first officially designated master of najeonchilgi. The project presents lacquer art as a living aesthetic system shaped by light, rhythm and material sensitivity. It is being rolled out across physical retail spaces, digital platforms and social channels.

Central to the campaign is najeon, the intricate technique of embedding finely cut shell into layers of hand-applied lacquer. Unlike pigment-based colour, mother-of-pearl generates luminosity through reflection and refraction, producing shifting tones that have long symbolised vitality, longevity and understated luxury in Korean decorative culture.

Shinsegae Duty Free’s campaign aims to translate these qualities into a visual language that prioritises light and movement over ornamentation. Inspired by Sohn’s contemporary interpretation of the Sipjangsaeng (Ten Symbols of Longevity) motif, the imagery extends luminosity beyond the object’s surface, evoking renewal and transition for the year ahead.

Sohn’s career spans more than six decades. He was named as South Kore’s first najeonchilgi master in 1991. His works feature in major institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he has collaborated with global luxury houses such as Gucci, Cartier and Vacheron Constantin.

The campaign also integrates generative AI developed in-house by Shinsegae Duty Free. Rather than replicating traditional patterns, the technology analyses the luminosity, texture and rhythm of Sohn’s mother-of-pearl surfaces to generate abstract motion and sound elements – positioning heritage not as imagery to be copied, but as a sensorial system to be reinterpreted.

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