'Noble Rot', or how William K Park wants us to embrace our imperfections for FW22

noble rot

noun: noble rot : a botrytis fungus (Botrytis cinerea) infects various usually overripe wine grapes, causing shriveling, which results in increased sugar and flavor content and is responsible for the characteristic flavor of sauternes and related wines.

As William's continual process, inspiration was from mother nature and self-perception. Since his early years, William has loved mushrooms, fungi. He was intrigued by its formation from decomposition; they are at the very end, but they're also at the beginning. Some may find it grotesque, but William perceives it as beautiful, just like a flower bloomed inside the imperfection. As 'Noble Rot,' William hopes we perceive our fungi/imperfection and breed/embrace it to become the noble/utmost wine/individual. "Both life and art are beautiful not because they are perfect and eternal, but because they are imperfect and fleeting; wabi-sabi."

William encapsulated its core concept by the color, print, organic shape of cut-out, texture, and techniques in this collection. A wide color range and tone depict mushrooms' diverse colors, from vivid to tone-down colors like it's at the end of its life cycle. As William's signature process in each season, William re-created 'Fungi' and 'Cell' prints. For depicting the beauty of imperfection, William focused on finding the irregular pattern, color, and texture of the fabrics. This season's highlight piece, HANABI (fireworks) action-painted coat, was made by multiple techniques layered to portray firework, which is the symbol of both the beginning and the ending.

We directly sourced globally and utilized vegan/eco fur, faux-suede, and cactus leather for sustainability for our ultimate mission. In terms of silhouette and construction, as the label's core identity, William juxtaposed tailoring and draping throughout the collection for navigating the stubborn dichotomy of classical rigor vs. contemporary ease; masculine vs. feminine; hard vs. soft; structural vs. fluid.

WILLIAM K PARK is a Neo-Couture fashion house, founded in 2020 and based in New York, U.S.A. and Seoul, South Korea. It aims to reimagine the contemporary classics, reinterpret the world of borderless beauty that transcends inherent stereotypes or biases, and create unique processes and signatures that capture our evolving emotion of the time and hold our most personal yet most creative voice.

“Veiled Darkness” is our style mantra and permanent canvas where we draw our inspirations, express a piercing yet subdued beauty from darkness, and weave our borderline sensibility into fabrics, colors, and defining details of our creations. By veiling the darkness that we use as our canvas, we hope to invoke a euphoric exit from what confines us; By veiling the conspicuous, we hope to express a kind of beauty that doesn’t hold court immediately yet delivers a harmonious and reverberating wave of emotional crescendo to where it matters. We firmly believe that anything meaningful can’t be made without the strong foundation and understanding of time-honored craft and constantly evolving conditions of what is now. Hence, any creation we present is the very reflection of how we, as a brand, navigate the stubborn dichotomy of classical rigor vs. contemporary ease; masculine vs. feminine; hard vs soft; structural vs. fluid.

William, founder, and creative head behind WILLIAM K PARK, was born in New York; spent his early life in South Korea and China; educated in New York and San Francisco. Crisscrossing the East and West all through his life, he is continually inspired by the creative marriage between the Eastern and Western culture.