Nitya Unju Park was born in St. Gallen (Switzerland), her mother Swiss, her father Korean,
She has always been interested in and enthusiastic about all textiles, knits and patterns - be it for clothing, home accessories, architecture or industry.
In 1997 she founded her own label under her Korean name Unju. Over the course of 4 years, she designed unisex accessories such as leather bags, handmade belts and scarves made from cashmere and silk in limited editions, which sold well online and throughout Europe in exclusive design boutiques in Antwerp, Berlin, Basel and Zurich.
Her enthusiasm and passion for textiles led to a bachelor's degree in textile design at the Lucerne School of Art and Design in 2014, specialising in print and knit designs.
In 2015, she spent half a year in Paris at Cecile Feilchenfeldt's Haute Couture Atelier developing her knitting expertise (among others for Christian Dior) and designing a commercial knitwear collection for Surface to Air.
In 2016, the focus was on print design: she spent a year at Colortextil in Berlin producing Designs at the customer's request and collaborating on the in-house collections - from artwork to evaluating the Strikeoffs to the finished yard ware that was shown at Premier Vision in Paris (for Agnes B, Caroll, Sinequanone and Monoprix, among others).
In 2017 she returned to Switzerland to work for VITRA as a senior designer, where she developed a highly complex knitted fabric for upholstered furniture by the designer duo FRONT; in addition to various (decorative) textile accessories for the home.
In addition to her employment, Nitya has collaborated with young designers and architects (for Brandenberger Kloter) as well as working on her own projects.
Over the years, her focus has moved away from the commercial fast fashion business towards high-quality and sustainable materials and fair production. The joy and freedom to create will always be in the forefront. Usually, a new project begins with a brush and pen on paper or by directly experimenting with different yarns and techniques on the knitting machine.
Due to her versatile professional experience, it is easy for her to get to grips with the ideas of customers and their world. She knows how to analyse markets and serve them in their respective design language and can both develop and implement product ideas through her knowledge and network.
Nitya gets her inspiration from everywhere, but she would prefer to constantly travel in search of unknown or forgotten handicrafts, fabrics and colour combinations of distant cultures.