Episode 03: DUCKDIVE PARK JOONMIN - A Brand Built on Loyalty

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Welcome back to Fashion Lover’s Diary. I’m Junghyun.

In our third podcast episode, we’re diving into the eleventh chapter of the K-Fashion Archive: 0 to 100 project. My guest today is Park Joonmin, the founder of DUCKDIVE — a designer who didn’t come from fashion school, but from a factory floor.

Before we even started recording, he asked me, half-joking and half-serious: “Is it really my turn already?” That hesitation says everything about how he sees himself, even after a decade of building DUCKDIVE from the ground up.

He left an Electrical Engineering degree at Dongguk University after one semester, telling his parents: “Let me try what I actually want to do until I’m twenty-eight.” He didn’t run toward fashion — he’d already been walking there for years, working weekends in Myeongdong. The name DUCKDIVE comes from a surfing technique: not fighting the wave head-on, but ducking beneath it and coming out the other side still moving forward.

Learning from “Uncles” and “Aunts”: How two decades alongside the factory owners, cutters, and sewers who taught him the craft shaped everything DUCKDIVE stands for today.

The Biggest Decision: Why turning DUCKDIVE from a wholesale brand into a full runway collection after COVID felt like the highest-stakes choice of his career — and why he kept the name.

Designing From Conversation, Not a Sketchbook: How mountain biking chats, football talks with dancers, and everyday people’s routines become DUCKDIVE’s actual design language.

Team Over Ego: Why he calls himself a “co-creator” instead of a CEO, and insists on sharing the stage with his wife and co-designer Yeo Jihye and longtime designer Park Joohyun.

If you want to see the full visual journey — the runway looks from Seoul Fashion Road, the DUCKDIVE Sports Team uniforms, and the complete conversation — the full written piece is available right here on Substack.

👉 Read the Full Written Interview: [K-Fashion Archive: 0 to 100] Vol.11 DUCKDIVE Park Joonmin

Thank you for turning to the third page of my diary.

See you in the next chapter. 👠