Ashlynn Park was nervous. At least that’s what WWD style director Alex Badia told the audience at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit as he introduced the designer for a conversation about her New York-based label, Ashlyn.
She needn’t have been. Once the discussion turned to patternmaking, construction and the relationship between clothing and the body, Park was firmly in her element.
There is plenty for the designer to feel confident about. In 2025, Park won both the CFDA American Emerging Designer of the Year award and the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, a rare double distinction that cemented her position among the most closely watched names in American fashion. She was also a finalist for the LVMH Prize in 2022.
But accolades tell only part of the story.
Park traced her fashion sensibility to her childhood in Seoul, where her parents taught her that clothing could communicate identity through the smallest details. “When I was in high school, I needed to wear a uniform, and there were very strict rules about my hair,” she recalled. “So I tried to find the small details of how I could express myself,” including touches of baby pink beneath her uniform.
Ashlynn Park at the 2026 WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit held at Cipriani South Street on Oct. 27 in New York.
Allie Joseph
“To me, it’s not just about the clothing. Even my facial expression finishes my outfit, and that becomes my signature.”
That belief in the expressive possibilities of clothing would eventually take her to Tokyo and then New York, with formative experiences working for Yohji Yamamoto and Raf Simons during his tenure at Calvin Klein.
“Working for Yohji Yamamoto was my big dream,” Park said. “There, I learned how patternmaking, construction and tailoring come together.”
She also discovered the “power” of a pattern archive, a system that allowed designers to revisit existing shapes while developing new ideas. “The pattern archive already set his tone and philosophy,” she said of her time at Yamamoto. “The new designer could just grab the pattern and keep producing a new design. It was an amazing system, and eventually I took the system into my studio.”
Today that approach underpins Ashlyn, which she launched in 2020.
“I’m a designer who thinks through making as a patternmaker,” she explained. “Patternmaking is not the way of executing my idea. It’s the way of creating my design.” Her studio has developed some 800 design blocks, allowing her team to create new silhouettes while maintaining a cohesive design vocabulary.
The results are evident in her sculptural tailoring, controlled volumes and architectural shapes that retain a sense of fluidity and lightness.
Yet Park’s technical precision is balanced by an emotional approach to design.
“I’m trying to leave space for the wearer because it’s part of them,” she said. “Clothing exists between the creator and the wearer. If we start to take over more, then it’s going to be my own expression, not their clothing.”
Wearability is equally important. Park recalled shopping with her mother, who dislikes heavy clothing and insists that garments feel light and comfortable, a preference that has informed her own designs.
That pragmatism also extends to sustainability, which Park considers integral to the creative process rather than a separate exercise. “To me, creativity is very similar to problem solving,” she said. “Dealing with limitations is part of running a small business. So I questioned how I could turn those limitations into a sustainable design approach.”
Her puzzle designs, for example, begin with limited square pieces of fabric, cut and reassembled into three-dimensional forms.
“We just use limited squares, and we chop them and reconnect them to make a three-dimensional shape,” she explained.
Such resourcefulness has become a defining characteristic of Ashlyn, where creative experimentation and commercial considerations are closely intertwined.
“I see creativity and business together. They’re very connected,” she said. Park cited sell-through rates at retailers of her collections of about 70 to 90 percent, suggesting that her distinctive aesthetic is resonating with customers.
When she launched during the pandemic, however, building a fashion business wasn’t necessarily the objective. “There was no big dream to make a huge brand,” she recalled. “I was very happy to work for other designers, and one day I started thinking, ‘Can I become one of the great designers in history?’ And that slowly became my dream.”
Ashlynn Park at the 2026 WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit held at Cipriani South Street on Oct. 27 in New York.
Maria Wurtz
Six years later, Park is focused on pushing the boundaries of the design language she has established. But her ambitions extend beyond the clothes themselves.
“I hope people can understand that feeling, very personal, and hope that clothing brings them good luck and leaves with them with a good memory,” she said.