'Circling the Square'

Body as circle.  Fabric as square. Beginning not with the infinite, but the finite.

The Spring/Summer 2027 collection begins with the square: a finite, two-dimensional piece of cloth and the fundamental starting point of garment construction.

A pattern-maker by trade, Creative Director Ashlynn Park approaches patterns not as a means to an end, but as a catalyst for discovery—a starting point from which the garment begins to take shape. Through folding, cutting, draping and joining, a flat surface is gradually shaped into three-dimensional form. Straight lines become curved. Edges move around the body. The square becomes a structure from which volume begins to take shape.

Drawing from principles of Bauhaus architecture, in particular its attention to geometry and the relationship between form and function, Park explores garment making through the Korean expression “옷을 짖다,” literally translating to “building clothes.” As in architecture, an understanding of mathematics and physics provides a foundation for construction. Fabric responds to weight, gravity and gesture, creating forms that continually shift between the geometry of the pattern—the square—and the physicality of the wearer—the circle.

Rather than building the collection around a narrative, Park turns inward to the practice of making itself, articulating a methodology that has been developing gradually within the ASHLYN studio. As Park presents the brand’s eleventh collection in New York, she crystallizes the relationship of pattern-making and experimentation to design itself.

‘Shikaku’ and ‘Puzzle’ establish a set of rules through which the studio continually investigates the relationship between two-dimensional geometry, material and the body. These methodologies are not intended to prescribe a single silhouette or outcome, but to create frameworks from which new forms can emerge.

Pattern-making, then, becomes a method of discovery rather than simply a means of arriving at a designed result. The pattern establishes the conditions from which the garment can develop, allowing form to emerge through the ongoing relationship between cloth and body.