A Chance Meeting Leads to a Whirlwind Fashion Move for CCS Alum Nikki Park

Aki Choklat: Hello. Well, welcome back Nikki, to your second home.

Nikki Park: My second home!

AC: So, I just wanted to start this interview by reading something. This is from January 18, 2019. It’s an email you sent me. Subject: Nikki from Sushi Hana. Hello, Aki. I’m not too sure if you remember me, but I’m Nikki from Sushi Hana. I recently talked to you about visiting you to show you my current portfolio. I was still wondering if you have any free time for me to discuss my portfolio with you the following week. It would honestly be much appreciated if I had an opportunity to have your input in my work. Thank you, Nikki Park. That’s 2019, and a lot has happened.

NP: Wow, that’s like six years ago!

AC: : Exactly! So, describe to me a little bit what was your world like in 2019? I also have a picture of, by the way, what was served that night. I remember I had tonkatsu.

NP: I remember Tonkatsu! And I remember I also have a picture of your handwriting on my order. You wrote your email there and that’s how I ended up emailing you.

AC: What made you think that, you know what, at this point in my life, I want to pursue another degree, or continue studies in another field?

NP: Yeah, I think from a very early age I was very interested in the way people presented themselves. So that’s always been a baseline of what I was interested in, but then I went through different careers of, you know, going to a different school, going into automotive, then hotelier and then I ended up taking a break from all of that. I was in the phase of trying to figure out what I want to do when I met you. And during that time, I visited this department and it triggered me to think that it could be a reality to study this. This could be a career that I can pursue. This might be something that I can finally fully invest myself in and be proud of myself at the end of the day.

AC: Which was most recently at…

NP: Which was at Louis Vuitton in Paris. I really made the American design student’s dream of going to Europe and working for one of the biggest brands in the world. I will say just the whole experience of, you know, meeting you in the beginning at an unsure time helped, like looking back, I think that applies to how I adjusted into LV in the beginning too because I was like, I have no expectations. I’m not going to expect that this is going to be good or bad, I’m going to go in there as a clean slate, so I can just absorb as much as I can.

AC: Well, I think that life is full of, you know, weird instances and I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. And I really like the fact that when you said that you had no expectations, everything in life is a learning experience. But let’s talk about the young Nikki, tell me where do you come from?

NP: I come from everywhere. I was born in Chicago and then around five, I moved back to Korea with my parents. But even while living in Korea, I didn’t have the typical Korean life because I went to an international school. A lot of my friends would leave in one or two years. I had to adjust in a space very similar to my office right now where it’s fully international, but on top of that, not everyone spoke English in Korea, so I was always surrounded by very diverse people. I was also lucky enough to live in China for one year right before I moved to America. We then moved to Iowa, North Carolina and then I went to Penn State. I moved all the time because of my dad’s job, because he’s in the purchasing field of the automotive industry. So it’s a lot of moving around. I think when I was younger, I was able to just absorb a lot, whether it was just culture, language, the food, how people dress, how they express themselves, which is collectively just culture.

AC: Oh, wow. What did you study at Penn State?

NP: Yeah, at Penn State, I was studying supply chain management and I was trying to go into the automotive industry. And then I dropped out twice because I realized that, oh, my dreams were actually not approachable studying this. So, luckily around that time was when my dad decided to move here for his job and, voilà, that’s how I moved to Detroit.

AC: Well, it sounds like your life story is kind of a foundational training for being able to integrate into this new country and new position because you have done it so many times already. So you are in Paris now. How did you dive into this whole brand-new world of design in a leading fashion capital in the world?

NP: That’s a good question because I would say I’m still learning. It’s a lot of adjustment and it’s been exactly eight months now. I think at first you’re just so overwhelmed by the city, you know, because you’re in a new country and you don’t know the language. I’m very lucky that I was able to visit, like two times before living there, but living there is a completely different thing. Just everything was such a culture shock in the beginning.

AC: Well, that’s the one thing, you know, coming from Europe, is that you are exposed to fashion since you’re born. I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’re into fashion or not, you open the papers, you look at the billboards in places like Paris or Milan and it’s there. So you are instantly exposed to all the words, all the brands, and you already have this sort of gen ed before you even go to the university.

NP: In the beginning, I was a bit more like, oh, did they make a mistake? Picking me, you know, like, maybe they didn’t really think it through because I felt like I lacked the way of communicating. But I think because I had no expectations, I took that opportunity to just absorb. And I think from the moment I started to decide, okay, I just have to work with what I’ve got. That’s when I sort of was able to fully immerse myself and become one of them and become a team member.

AC: So it sounds like you’ve really learned a lot in the past eight months.

NP: I can tell you, just these eight months, the amount of stuff I learned and I’m just able to do by myself now, it’s at least five to 10 years’ worth of experience. When I first joined it was completely, fully just to absorb everything that I wanted to learn since a young age. And I think that mindset really helped to bring me where I am right now … I didn’t have all these like expectations of myself because I’m just a bare canvas.

AC: So what does the future look like for you?

NP: I think my next goal is to have one of the bags that I worked on show on Vogue Runway. I am lucky that at one point I was working on the LV Murakami collection for the high-end team. But for the future, I just want to keep my options open, I’m not opposed to anything in my realm.

AC: Looking back at your time at CCS, what was it like when you…

NP: I was very lucky that Millie de la Valette from Louis Vuitton decided to come to CCS my senior year. I still remember the day that we found out she was coming into the fashion studio five minutes before she did. I was upstairs, we had no clue she was here. We were just preparing for the show and doing work. Soon after, I got a call from a plus three three France number. I’m like, hello? And Millie just starts off with like, we are going to give you an internship. I’m like wait, wait, stop, really stop! I was just so shocked. I was like, there’s no way. But the words “LVMH” and “me” are in the same sentence from someone else’s mouth, that’s like, that’s insane? And then yeah, the rest is history.

AC: I mean, that’s incredible. What a crazy journey.

“For the future, I just want to keep my options open, I’m not opposed to anything in my realm.”

Editor’s note: This transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity.