What Is the BTS DALMAJUNG 2026 Collection?
A lyric from a BTS album track is about to become a museum-shop object. On Sept. 29, HYBE and the National Museum Foundation of Korea put a 13-piece line on sale that borrows its entire visual language from a Joseon-dynasty painting genre.
The 2026 BTS DALMAJUNG (달마중) collection is a 13-product merchandise line co-produced by HYBE and MU:DS (뮷즈), the merchandise brand of the National Museum Foundation of Korea, going on sale Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026 . HYBE announced it on Sept. 22–23, and a pop-up store opens the same day as the on-sale date at HYBE's Yongsan headquarters in Seoul, running through Oct. 11, 2026 .
The design system reworks munjado (문자도) — a Joseon-era folk-painting genre in which animals, plants and auspicious symbols are drawn inside and around the strokes of written characters — using source artifacts held by the National Museum of Korea. It renders three words in Hangul-based typography: "BTS," "ARIRANG," and 흉즉대길 (heungjeukdaegil, roughly "misfortune turns to great fortune"), the last lifted directly from the lyrics of "Aliens" on the album ARIRANG .
Three sales channels open around the same window: the HYBE Yongsan pop-up, the National Museum of Korea's merchandise shop, and Weverse Shop online . No prices appear in any outlet covering the announcement, Korean or English; expect pricing to publish when Weverse Shop opens.
Why a Museum Chose an ARIRANG Lyric as Its Canvas
The design system behind the 2026 DALMAJUNG collection is munjado (문자도), a Joseon-dynasty folk-painting genre in which animals, plants and auspicious symbols are drawn inside and around the strokes of Chinese characters, so that the word itself becomes the picture. The source artifacts are munjado works held by the National Museum of Korea, and the collection's graphic layer renders three words — "BTS," "ARIRANG," and "흉즉대길" — in that tradition . That is what separates this line from generic "Korean-style" branding: it points at a specific genre and specific holdings, not a mood.
흉즉대길 (heungjeukdaegil) translates roughly as "misfortune turns to great fortune," and it is not a slogan written for merchandise — it is a lyric from "Aliens," a track on ARIRANG , the album BigHit Music released on March 20, 2026 . Putting that phrase inside munjado strokes is the literal mechanism of the "centuries of Korean art" framing: a 2026 lyric occupies a compositional format that Joseon-era painters used for words like filial piety and loyalty.
The surrounding imagery follows the same logic. Cranes, deer and stylized clouds appear across the line, and those are sipjangsaeng motifs — the Ten Symbols of Longevity, a fixed iconographic set in Korean folk art rather than a free-hand illustration choice . Read together, the grammar of the collection is consistent:
- Format: munjado — text as image, symbols nested in character strokes, drawn from National Museum of Korea holdings .
- Words: "BTS," "ARIRANG," and the lyric 흉즉대길 from "Aliens" .
- Motifs: cranes, deer and clouds from the sipjangsaeng longevity set .
There is a second thread running underneath this. The album itself already reached into museum collections: the ARIRANG track "No. 29" is built on a field recording of the Sacred Bell of King Seongdeok , and RM explained that the track runs 1:37 because that is how long the bell's sound takes to fade out after being struck . A March 2026 merchandise collection drew on the same bell's donor figure and cloud patterns . The September line swaps a bronze bell for a painted character — different artifact, same method of borrowing.
The foundation frames the arrangement as a continuing one rather than a one-off licensing deal.
"Building on the meaningful success of the 'Dalmajung' series — launched in 2024 through our first collaboration with HYBE — in promoting the beauty and excellence of Korean cultural heritage abroad, we are continuing our collaboration again this year. Moving forward, we will actively discover opportunities where the brand value of artists and the value of our cultural heritage can shine together," — Choung Yong-suk, President of the National Museum Foundation of Korea (source: The Korea Times, 2026-09)
Worth noting what the sources do not say: no outlet reports how the specific munjado pieces were selected, which works were consulted, or how museum curators and HYBE's design team divided the work. The public record covers the genre, the words and the motifs — the process behind them has not been detailed.
What's Actually in the 13-Piece Line
The 2026 BTS DALMAJUNG collection comprises 13 products , and the items named so far are household objects rather than standard K-pop merchandise. Confirmed across multiple outlets are a desk-sized miniature broom, a ceramic jar, a pollock-shaped magnet, a mini pouch modeled on that jar, and a gonggi pouch holding seven playing stones . Each carries a folk-belief function, which is the through-line that separates this line from a logo drop.
- Miniature broom (desk size) — a sweeping object scaled for a desk, tied to the idea of sweeping in good fortune .
- Ceramic jar — associated in Korean tradition with dispelling bad energy and drawing in wealth .
- Pollock-shaped good-luck magnet — dried pollock is a long-standing Korean talisman hung against misfortune; here it is reduced to a fridge magnet .
- Mini pouch — a fabric pouch modeled on the shape of the ceramic jar .
- Gonggi pouch with seven stones — the Korean jacks-style game, packaged as a carry pouch containing seven playing stones .
Two more items are visible rather than listed. The press image HYBE supplied to media shows incense sticks and an incense holder, which are not named in the written announcements but appear in the photograph distributed with them . Counting those, roughly half of the 13 pieces are accounted for publicly.
The rest have not been individually enumerated in any coverage available at the time of writing — Korean or English. That gap matters for anyone planning a purchase: the named items skew toward small desk objects and talismans, but a 13-piece line almost certainly extends past that category, and the full roster only becomes visible when the Weverse Shop listing goes live. Korean coverage adds one specific detail on that front, reporting a keyboard as an online-exclusive item sold through Weverse Shop rather than at the physical pop-up . That detail comes from a single Korean outlet and is not in HYBE's own announcement, so treat it as reported rather than confirmed.
Pricing is the other blank. No outlet — Korean or English — has published a price for any of the 13 items, and HYBE's announcement did not include a price list . Figures circulating ahead of the on-sale date are not sourced to HYBE or the National Museum Foundation; the first authoritative numbers arrive with the shop listing itself.
Where to Buy It in Seoul, and When Each Channel Opens
The 2026 BTS DALMAJUNG collection sells through three channels, each with its own opening time. The HYBE Yongsan pop-up store opens Sept. 29, 2026 and runs through Oct. 11, 2026; the National Museum of Korea's merchandise store carries the line on a longer reported window through Nov. 30, 2026; and Weverse Shop opens online at a reported 11 a.m. KST on Sept. 29 . Korean coverage also reported that advance pop-up reservations opened via Weverse at 2 p.m. KST on Sept. 22 .
| Channel | Location | Opens | Runs through | Sourcing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DALMAJUNG pop-up store | HYBE headquarters, 1F, Yongsan, Seoul | Sept. 29, 2026 | Oct. 11, 2026 | HYBE announcement, multiple outlets |
| Museum shop | National Museum of Korea, Shop 2, permanent exhibition hall | Sept. 29, 2026 | Nov. 30, 2026 (reported) | Single Korean-press source |
| Weverse Shop (online) | Global, online | 11 a.m. KST, Sept. 29, 2026 (reported) | Not disclosed | Korean press; HYBE confirmed the channel, not the hour |
The distinction between what HYBE confirmed and what Korean outlets added matters if you are planning a trip around it. HYBE's own announcement names the three sales tracks — pop-up, museum shop and Weverse Shop — and the Sept. 29 start with the Oct. 11 pop-up close . The Nov. 30 museum-shop end date, the 11 a.m. online open and a report that one item (a keyboard) is Weverse-exclusive all come from Korean trade coverage rather than HYBE, so treat them as provisional until the shop listings go live .
One scheduling trap is worth naming plainly. Several automated summaries have collapsed the phrase "HYBE said Tuesday … will go on sale Tuesday" into a single date and published Sept. 23 as the on-sale day. Sept. 23 is the press date for the English-language report; the collection goes on sale Sept. 29 . If you are flying in for the pop-up, book against the Sept. 29 – Oct. 11 window, not the announcement date .
Pricing remains unpublished across every channel. No Korean or English outlet has printed a figure for any of the 13 items, and neither HYBE nor the National Museum Foundation of Korea released a price list with the announcement . The practical consequence: the first reliable prices appear on the Weverse Shop product pages when the online store opens, and any number circulating before that is unsourced.
Fourth DALMAJUNG Series, Second HYBE Collaboration — What That Actually Means
The counting language attached to this collection needs unpacking, because two different "second collaboration" claims are in circulation. The Korea Times describes the 2026 munjado line as the fourth DALMAJUNG series overall and the second collaboration between HYBE and the National Museum Foundation of Korea, following a 2024 tie-up through MU:DS (뮷즈), the foundation's museum-merchandise brand . DALMAJUNG itself is older than either partnership: the merchandise series launched in 2021, and the 2024 MU:DS edition drew on the Pensive Bodhisattva and white-porcelain moon jars held by the National Museum of Korea .
The ambiguity sits in the word "second." A separate BTS collection released earlier in 2026 was also billed as a second BTS × National Museum Foundation collaboration. That line was announced Mar. 10 and released Mar. 20, 2026 — 1 p.m. KST at the museum and pop-up, 2 p.m. on Weverse — and comprised five items: a shoulder bag, a card holder, a hair clip, a hairpin and a layered skirt, inspired by the donor figure and cloud patterns of the Sacred Bell of King Seongdeok, the "Emille Bell," National Treasure No. 29, held at Gyeongju National Museum .
The cleanest reading, and the one supported by the foundation's own wording, is that the September line is the fourth DALMAJUNG series and the second DALMAJUNG × MU:DS edition after 2024 — with the March release sitting outside the DALMAJUNG branding. Foundation president Choung Yong-suk dates the first HYBE collaboration to 2024 in his own statement on the new collection . Readers encountering a bare "second collaboration" line should treat it as the Korea Times' framing rather than a settled count.
There is a thread running between March and September that the ordinal argument obscures. The ARIRANG track "No. 29" is a field recording of the same Sacred Bell of King Seongdeok , its 1:37 runtime matching how long the bell's sound takes to fade out . March's collection took the bell's ornament as its object; September's takes a lyric from the same album as its typography. Whatever the numbering, both draw on artifacts in the national collection rather than on tour imagery.
Attending the Pop-Up: Access, Transit and the NAMANE Card Angle
Seeing the collection in person means two stops in the same Seoul district and one browser tab. The HYBE Yongsan pop-up runs Sept. 29 – Oct. 11, 2026, while the National Museum of Korea's merchandise store is reported by Korean trade press to carry the line on a longer window through Nov. 30, 2026 . Weverse Shop opens the same items online, with Korean coverage citing an 11 a.m. KST start on Sept. 29 .
HYBE Yongsan Pop-Up | 팝업
The pop-up occupies the ground floor of HYBE's Yongsan headquarters and is the only place carrying the full munjado-themed staging of the line rather than a shelf inside a larger shop. One outlet reports that advance pop-up reservations opened via Weverse at 2 p.m. on the announcement day, which suggests entry is managed rather than pure walk-in .
📋 HYBE Yongsan HQ, 1F · open Sept. 29 – Oct. 11, 2026 · full 13-product DALMAJUNG line-up
💡 Check your Weverse reservation status before travelling; the reservation detail is single-source Korean press, so confirm on Weverse rather than assuming walk-in entry.
📍 42 Hangang-daero, Yongsan District, Seoul
🕒 Monday–Friday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM / Saturday–Sunday Closed
⭐ 4.7 (1,563 reviews)
📞 02-3444-0105
🔗 View on Google Maps
National Museum of Korea Shop 2 | 뮤지엄숍
The museum channel sits in Shop 2 inside the permanent exhibition hall — fitting, since the munjado source pieces behind the graphics belong to this collection . It is the stop that lets you see artifact and merchandise in one visit.
📋 National Museum of Korea, Shop 2, permanent exhibition hall · Yongsan-gu, Seoul · MU:DS-operated shop
💡 Pair it with the pop-up on the same day — both sit in Yongsan, a short subway ride apart.
📍 137 Seobinggo-ro, Yongsan District, Seoul
🕒 Monday–Tuesday 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM / Wednesday 9:30 AM – 9:00 PM / Thursday–Friday 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM / Saturday 9:30 AM – 9:00 PM / Sunday 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM
⭐ 4.7 (29,176 reviews)
📞 02-2077-9000
🔗 View on Google Maps
For fans flying in around the release, NAMANE sells a BTS ARIRANG-themed prepaid card bundled with an unlimited public transit pass, which covers the Yongsan-to-museum hopping rather than the merchandise itself; inclusions and current pricing are on the NAMANE event page and its official announcement. This blog is operated by NAMANE Card.
The concrete takeaway: no prices have been published anywhere as of Sept. 23, 2026, so open Weverse Shop at the Sept. 29 launch first, confirm stock and any online-exclusive item, then decide whether the Yongsan trip is worth the queue .
Frequently asked questions
When does the BTS DALMAJUNG 2026 collection go on sale?
The collection goes on sale Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026 , across three channels at once: the pop-up at HYBE's Yongsan headquarters in Seoul, the National Museum of Korea's merchandise shop, and Weverse Shop online, where Korean coverage cites an 11 a.m. KST open . One point of confusion is worth clearing up: HYBE's announcement landed Sept. 22–23, 2026, and several summaries have collapsed "HYBE said Tuesday … goes on sale Tuesday" into a Sept. 23 launch. Sept. 23 is the press date — and, per one outlet, the 2 p.m. opening of advance pop-up reservations through Weverse — not the day products become available .
How much does the BTS DALMAJUNG merch cost?
No prices have been disclosed. As of the Sept. 23, 2026 announcement coverage, neither HYBE nor the National Museum Foundation of Korea has published a price for any of the 13 products, and no Korean or English outlet reporting on the launch lists figures . Pricing should surface when Weverse Shop opens listings on Sept. 29 . Treat any figure circulating before then as unverified — including reseller listings, which are not tied to official pricing.
What is munjado, and why is BTS using it?
Munjado (문자도) is a Joseon-dynasty folk-painting genre — a branch of minhwa — in which animals, plants and auspicious symbols are drawn inside and around the strokes of written characters, so the word and the picture occupy the same space. The DALMAJUNG line applies that logic to Hangul-based typography, rendering three words: "BTS," "ARIRANG," and "흉즉대길" (heungjeukdaegil, roughly "misfortune turns to great fortune"), the last lifted directly from the lyrics of "Aliens" on the album ARIRANG . Surrounding motifs — cranes, deer and stylized clouds — come from the sipjangsaeng, the Ten Symbols of Longevity, and the source artifacts are munjado works held by the National Museum of Korea .
Is this BTS's first collaboration with the National Museum of Korea?
No. This is the fourth DALMAJUNG series — a line HYBE launched in 2021 — and the Korea Times describes it as the second collaboration between HYBE and the National Museum Foundation of Korea, following a 2024 edition with the museum-merchandise brand MU:DS built around the Pensive Bodhisattva and white-porcelain moon jars . That "second" label carries an ambiguity readers should know about: a separate BTS × National Museum Foundation release announced Mar. 10 and issued Mar. 20, 2026 — five items including a shoulder bag, card holder, hair clip, hairpin and layered skirt, drawn from the donor figure and cloud patterns of the Sacred Bell of King Seongdeok — was also billed as a second collection . The reading that reconciles both is the one Foundation President Choung Yong-suk used himself, dating the first HYBE collaboration to 2024: this is the second DALMAJUNG × MU:DS edition, not the second-ever partnership .
Where can I buy the collection in person in Seoul?
Two physical locations. The first is the pop-up store on the 1st floor of HYBE's Yongsan headquarters, open from Sept. 29 through Oct. 11, 2026 . The second is the National Museum of Korea's merchandise store — Shop 2, inside the permanent exhibition hall — which Korean coverage reports will carry the line on a longer window through Nov. 30, 2026 . That Nov. 30 end date is single-sourced to Korean press rather than confirmed by HYBE, so verify it before planning a trip around the later window. Weverse Shop covers everything else online, and at least one item — a keyboard — has been reported as online-exclusive, also on single-source Korean reporting .
📍 141 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul
🕒 Daily 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM
⭐ 4.7 (1,298 reviews)
📞 02-322-9631
🔗 View on Google Maps
Sources
- The Korea Times — BTS bridges centuries of Korean art with new ARIRANG merchandise line
- Weverse Magazine — ARIRANG album feature
- Seoul Economic Daily — BTS, National Museum launch second merch collection
- Maeil Business Newspaper — National Museum Foundation collaboration
- Wikipedia — ARIRANG (album)
- Insight — 2026 BTS DALMAJUNG collection announcement
- S-List — DALMAJUNG sales channels and schedule
- HYBE MERCH — official collection announcement
- Gulf News — BTS 'No. 29' explained
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This article was written using information collected and analyzed by NAMANE's in-house K-pop research AI engine. We use AI technology to bring you faster, broader coverage, and in the process some details may occasionally differ from the latest facts. For important information such as dates, venues, and prices, please double-check with official sources.
