Precision is part of Ashlynn Park’s subject-matter expertise in patternmaking. The designer is also a perfectionist who is using pre-seasons, she said, to refine silhouettes and clean up patterns and shapes. Not only is this useful in terms of production, but it also allows Park to hone her vision. In one case, she was able to rethink a top, replacing a zipper with a back-tie, thus achieving a greater sense of lightness.
Park observed that this was a “relaxed season” and that she “can see what the core of this brand is, what the true language is.” So, if decorative peplums are a showier part of the Ashlyn taxonomy, another would be architecture, which the designer said she wanted to explore this season, both in terms of building the clothes but also imparting an “architectural sense” to her work. Happily, the results of this study are hardly Brutalist or stiff. One of the most “built” pieces in the collection is a short jacket with a hem that peplums out with a ripple like that of a scallop shell. “Finding the right amount of flare, the angle was the key,” the designer noted. Similarly, the freeform look of an asymmetrically draped skirt belies the planning it required.
Park identified a black pantsuit with a shirt-like single-breasted jacket with a high break as a personal favorite. It’s worn with a fine-gauge knit peplumed top under a shirt whose tails dip below the hem of the jacket. This look is the most tailored and house-like on offer, and it’s an example of how the designer was focused on creating newness through reproportioning familiar pieces. Where something sits, she noted, “really defines a different language.”
Park expanded her fabric vocabulary further by taking on silk, a material she hasn’t worked with much, and crafting it into a draped celadon-colored blouse with dolman-like sleeves. Another interesting sleeve treatment is found in a cropped jacket with a slightly sporty feel despite its delicately ruffled collar. Here, the round sleeves are set so deeply that the back of the jacket practically resembles something like a serif font “I,” which, it should be said, seems appropriate given this is a garment that inspires the imagination.
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