about designer

「GALLERY SHILI tokyo is a fashion brand launched in the winter of 2011 by New York-educated, Tokyo & Barcelona-based Korean designer Duni Park.

Before coming to Japan in 2010, Duni was active in the New York art world as an art director and curator specializing in contemporary Asian art.

Having experienced first-hand the international enthusiasm for Asian arts and culture in New York, Duni founded a design company in Tokyo that rediscovered traditional Asian arts and crafts and modernized their designs to meet contemporary needs.

「GALLERY SHILI tokyo has created contemporary fashion items from vintage Japanese kimonos. Duni is one of the pioneers in rediscovering the beauty of this forgotten textile and has been praised for changing the image of kimonos from old-fashioned to super-fashionable.

「GALLERY SHILI tokyo was exhibited as a pop-up store mainly in department stores in Tokyo such as Takashimaya, Seibu and Keikyu. It was also exhibited overseas in Portland, Milan, Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan.

Duni’s other projects include as below:

「Re-Discovering Lacquer 」was a traveling exhibition that Duni curated and produced, which displayed contemporary lacquer design objects from Korea and Japan. This exhibition traveled to Tokyo (2011), Beijing (2013) and Portland (2014).

「NICOICHI」 is a new concept lacquered chopsticks brand designed by Duni as a creative director in 2014. Duni and this product were featured on the NHK broadcast program 「Binotsubo (Pot of Beauty) 」in Japan.

「DOMANAITA」 is a new concept lacquered cutting board that Duni designed and produced in 2015. Fine dining Japanese restaurants around the world proudly use this product as an alternative to traditional wooden or plastic cutting boards.

Working with a Korean lacquer master, Duni reinvented the lacquered fabric whose technique has been long forgotten. It is said that monks living in temples deep in the mountains used to wear lacquered clothing to repel insects and stay cool in the summer.

「URUSHI MODE」 is a lacquered summer coat that she made with this newly reinvented material and won a special prize at the Ishikawa International Lacquerware Exhibition in 2017.

「Vintage Bojagi Cushion Collection」 is her upcoming project, in which she takes a private collection of Korean vintage Bojagi fabrics and recreates them into an over-sized cushion collection.