Within three years of moving into its current headquarters, the Korean beauty brand has acquired a second building, adding research, creative and retail space, and a workplace designed for the international team behind the brand.
SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- AXIS-Y, the Korean beauty brand, is scheduled to move into a second headquarters building in Cheongdam in May 2027, following an acquisition of approximately KRW 22–23 billion. The purchase comes less than three years after the company moved into its current Cheongdam-dong headquarters, acquired for approximately KRW 25–26 billion, and reflects the pace of a rapidly growing team with roots in more than 20 countries.
The AXIS-Y team at the brand's The Climate of You event.
Rendering of AXIS-Y’s second headquarters, scheduled for completion in May 2027.
Rendering of the interior of AXIS-Y’s second headquarters.
Rendering of the R&D lab in AXIS-Y’s second headquarters.
That international mix is central to how AXIS-Y works and to why it is investing in a larger home. The new building will bring together an R&D laboratory, an in-house content studio, a first-floor flagship store and extensive shared spaces designed for colleagues from many backgrounds to work, meet and exchange ideas.
A team with roots in 20+ countries
A Korean beauty brand. A Seoul address. A team from more than 20 countries.
For anyone curious about working in K-beauty, AXIS-Y offers a view beyond the products and campaign images. Inside its headquarters, employees bring different cultural backgrounds, experiences and ideas to the work of building a brand for consumers around the world.
The international mix is part of what makes working here distinctive. Colleagues can be working toward the same goal while approaching it from very different starting points. How they talk about beauty, what they notice in a campaign and what feels familiar to them as consumers can all differ. At AXIS-Y, those differences are something the company wants people to bring to work.
A global brand, seen from different seats
Working alongside people from different countries means there is more than one perspective in the room. It also means an opportunity to reconsider things that might otherwise be taken for granted.
How would someone in another market understand a phrase? Does a visual communicate what the team intends? What might a colleague's own experience reveal about the person on the other side of the campaign? These are the kinds of questions an international team brings into the everyday work of a beauty brand, and AXIS-Y encourages employees to contribute those perspectives, connecting the company's Korean roots with the different communities it hopes to reach.
For a brand that sells in more than 100 countries, that internal range is a practical asset. A company seeking to understand consumers across markets benefits from hearing different viewpoints before a product or campaign reaches them, and AXIS-Y sees the willingness to share and consider those viewpoints as part of how it supports its growth.
Learning goes both ways
For employees, the experience is also about encountering ways of thinking beyond their own. An international team brings regular opportunities to explain a reference, question an assumption or learn why a colleague approaches a task differently.
Those exchanges require curiosity and a willingness to listen, the same qualities the company encourages when employees offer feedback on the work itself. The value lies in what people learn from each other, and in what the team does with it.
Even the newest person has a perspective
Joining a beauty company can mean learning an unfamiliar industry, a new role or, for some employees, a new working culture. At AXIS-Y, the invitation to contribute starts while that learning is still happening.
The company encourages interns and junior colleagues to share opinions and suggest alternatives, and employees are welcome to offer constructive pushback, including when their view differs from leadership's. An open office layout and the CEO's open-door policy reflect the same intention: making leadership accessible and creating room for conversation. Team members have the freedom to propose different ways of reaching a shared objective.
Investing in the work behind the brand
The second headquarters gives that collaborative work more room. For consumers, a beauty brand takes shape through its products, campaigns and shopping experiences. Behind each is an ongoing process of evaluation, development and creative work.
A planned R&D laboratory will support sample preparation, formulation testing and product evaluation, while an in-house content studio will provide a setting for the photography, video and storytelling that bring those products to audiences. Research and creative production will each have a permanent home within a building designed for the next stage of the business.
A fuller expression of AXIS-Y in store
A planned first-floor flagship will build on AXIS-Y's existing retail presence with a more dedicated beauty shopping environment. Integrated displays, a testing sink and spaces for hands-on exploration are designed to help visitors move from understanding the brand to experiencing its products.
The design draws on AXIS-Y's climate-inspired philosophy, which considers how environment and daily life shape individual skin needs. Nature and climate imagery, textured surfaces, green glass and signature mint accents translate that thinking into a physical setting, while warm stone tones, natural wood and curved forms give the proposed store a welcoming character. Within Cheongdam's established landscape of fashion flagships and beauty destinations, the store is intended to offer a fuller expression of AXIS-Y's own point of view.
Spaces built for exchange
The attention to environment continues inside the building. The CEO personally selected the interiors, furniture and lighting with employee wellbeing in mind, and warm materials, softened edges and indirect lighting create a consistent visual language across work, meeting and break spaces.
That approach is most tangible across two basement levels, where plans include a pantry, lounge areas, informal meeting spaces and a stepped gathering area. The tiered seating can host town halls, training and presentations, while surrounding areas allow for smaller discussions and quieter moments away from the desk.
For an international team, these spaces matter. As the organization grows, making room for everyday exchanges across roles, languages and backgrounds becomes part of supporting how the company works.
What comes next
The second headquarters brings several dimensions of AXIS-Y's development together: capacity for a larger team, dedicated space to evaluate products and create content, and a retail environment that lets consumers experience the brand more fully. Its significance lies in the work the building will support each day, in a formulation being evaluated, a campaign being produced, a customer exploring a product, or colleagues from different countries gathering to exchange ideas.
So what is it like to work at a K-beauty brand? At AXIS-Y, the answer will sound a little different depending on whom you ask. A new intern, an international colleague and a team leader will each have their own version. Together, their experiences offer a picture of a Korean brand shaped by the people building it, and a workplace that invites its next colleagues to bring a perspective of their own.
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