FROM VISION TO ART DAVID PARK WITH DESIGNER

STORY BY WINSTON TRAN

Casual fashion has reigned at the forefront of social media conversations through expansive content dedicated to fashion styling, DIY creations and thrift hauls. The realm of fashion no longer feels exclusive to the innovators shaping trends in high fashion but has opened the door to those seeking entertainment opportunities through its digital presence.

Online fashion content overflows with imaginative stylists and earnest thrift hauls, but how has this phenomenon defined fashion for aspirational designers on the ground?

“Fashion is in between art and necessity,” said David Park, a fourth-year fashion design student at CSULB.

Park began his fashion odyssey while navigating his life through the latter years of high school. He had no plans to pursue a rigorous career path, especially one that entailed nights of sleepless studying. Instead, he had his eyes set on the way garments are created and fit on one’s body. “Clothes are what you need, clothes are what will make you look cool,” he remembers thinking.

Faced with the uncertainty of his future, yet enlightened by the ins-and-outs of clothing, Park began to teach himself sewing techniques as a hobby.

“I started sewing my junior year [of high school], but I didn’t know what I was doing,” Park said. “In my senior year, that was when I went, ‘OK, let’s take my mom’s sewing machine and practice.’”

What began as an innocent interest in clothing eventually bloomed into a genuine curiosity that urged Park’s hobby into a possible career. Since the realm of fashion still posed as an unfamiliarity to him, he figured he should keep his sights on this path just to “find and try it out” himself — an experience that honed in him a true passion for the art of garment-making.

Rising alongside Park’s sewing was his childhood friends’ up-and-coming clothing brand, Bellow USA, a ready-to-wear fashion line that emulates their experiences in urban life and love for streetwear. The group crossed paths in a brush of fate that resolved Park’s passion into a professional opportunity.

“I was experimenting with sewing, and I made this bandana hoodie,” Park said. “It was a Cal State Long Beach one instead of the ones we eventually sold, but my friends saw it and hit me up. That’s how I got started with the brand.”

He dabbles in a multitude of tasks for Bellow USA, but specifically focuses on fashion design. Park aims to create exclusive t-shirts and hoodies that cannot be bought wholesale.

Among his colorful creations are his signature hoodies with the word “Bellow” hand-stitched with bandana cloth, a collection of graphic “B” tees with variations in font and lettering styles, logo hoodies, tote bags, and cleverly themed collections designed around the aesthetics of firearms and nature.

Popular streetwear brand FTP influenced Bellow USA’s “cult-ish” slogan, “Believe and Follow.” Park described the brand’s current flair as “streetwear-esque” and “raw” but expressed the team’s ambitions to explore different avenues of design.

“Our collections are based on what we think is cool and interesting,” Park said. “That’s why we’re always fluid — going in and out of styles, different things along the way that we found interesting. We wanted to express that through clothing.”

In a conversation about inspirations, Park shared that his childhood love for streetwear fueled his hunger to create. He named the notorious Supreme as one of his ideal influences, saying, “When you look at something that’s at the top of its category, it’s Supreme.” He admires fashion designers Reese Cooper and Kiko Kostadinov, who have revolutionized menswear into clothing that intersects at the crossroads of trend, complexity, visual stimulation and minimalism. Park aims to break into the world of high fashion, for Bellow USA and for himself.

“‘Believe and follow’ stands out to what the brand is,” Park said. “When people think of Bellow, they won’t think of it as a definition per se, but the clothing brand as a whole. Just like the brands Supreme or Bape. It’s very broad, but it keeps us on a path.”

According to Park, just as his brand is personal to him, fashion design as a whole must be rooted in such sentiment. Looking at a prototype or finished product must evoke a connection between the designer and their creations.

Full of imagination and dedication, Park is confident in taking Bellow USA to “the next level.” There will be a lot of new items — more cut-andsew and individual pieces, instead of an inventory of just shirts and hoodies, as Park and his friends are gearing up to graduate.

“It’s looking like I’ll be designing for the rest of my life,” Park said. “And that’s just because I enjoy it so far. It’s fun. I see myself doing this for, like, 10 years or so. I’ll be 31!”