French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s iconic bicorn hat that was auctioned off to South Korea’s conglomerate Harim Group Chairman Kim Hong-kuk will be put on display at the group’s home shopping unit NS Shopping’s office building in Pangyo, South of Seoul starting early next year.

Harim Group announced on Monday that a permanent exhibition hall for the two-horned hat and other materials related to Napoleon such as photos is under construction on the first floor of NS Shopping’s building. The hall is scheduled to open early next year, an official from the group said.

The building, completed last year, is an 8-story building with two underground floors. The second to sixth floors are used as parking spaces and the seventh and eighth floors house its home shopping broadcasting center. The first floor hosts just a bank so the company decided to have a showroom for the hat on the first floor.

Kim bought the hat previously owned by a Monaco royal family for around 1.88 million euros ($2.1 million) at auction in 2014, the highest price in the history of a hat auction. He said that he had thought highly of Napoleon’s spirit of ‘nothing is impossible’ and bought the hat to reawaken entrepreneurial spirit.

However it was not easy for the group to bring the hat to Korea due to the opposition from the French public arguing the French relic should not leave its territory. The hat was finally brought to Korea in October last after a long struggle, and now is reportedly kept at a private security firm.

Harim initially planned to put the hat on display at its new office building in Gangnam, southern Seoul, but changed the place to Pangyo building because Pangyo is a place where many people opt for weekend outings with their family or friends, the company official said.

By Seo Jin-woo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]