SEOUL, South Korea - One look at young fashion designer Ha Sang Beg and you know what he's about: Color, comfort and couture. But you have to talk to him before you understand what makes him different from his predecessors: His address.

Designer Ha Sang Beg hopes his designs will go global.

"I choose Korea as my headquarter," says Ha, his second language of English draped with a British lilt from his years studying in the UK. "I'm Korean and I feel comfortable in Korea. There is lot of merit in Korea."

He's not alone. Flip through the latest fashion magazines and you'll find a new breed of designers, who are attempting to make a global mark from Seoul.

"That's exciting to see," says Vogue Korea's Kwangho Shin. Shin says young talent used to leave Seoul and work from established fashion cities like London or New York. But this generation feels differently about their home country and the possibility of success from home.

"It concerns me as to how long it will last," says Shin. "Our challenge is digging up new talent and supporting their skills."

Seoul has focused on developing its automotive and high tech sector, and more recently, green technology. But fashion has been the forte of neighbors Tokyo and Hong Kong, who have more successfully built the business ties with the global fashion world. Shin says if Korea wants to keep up and coming talent like Beg at home, it needs to offer more.

Korea's government, trying to do that, named the fashion industry as one of the six new-growth power industries for the country, calling its goal the globalization of Seoul fashion. In this week's Seoul Fashion Week, the government worked with the industry to create not just a show, but a business event with the goal of becoming "World Fashion City, Seoul."

Ha hopes his government succeeds in building enough of an infrastructure to keep him busy at home. He predicts he's about to hit his global stride and hopes to take his country's image with him. "I'm still warming up, rather than going for it," he says. "My stage is warming up, just before running."