Hi June Parker - Creating Meaningful and Sustainable Jewelry to Last a Lifetime

by Eerika Nokkala

As an umbrella organization, we at Kota improve and empower women’s lives through impactful collaboration. By sharing ideas and working together, we seek to pave the way for future progress for women’s empowerment. We co-hosted the Sustainable Fashion Summit earlier this fall, and were given the opportunity to broaden our community through meaningful collaboration with women entrepreneurs, who incorporate sustainability into their business models. We recently interviewed HyeJun Park, the Founder and Creator of Hi June Parker, to learn more about the work she does.

How was Hi June Parker born? What urged you to create it?

 “I wanted to design and create meaningful and lasting pieces of jewelry made from precious materials that are recycled and recyclable so that it can be shared with generations just like my mom and grandmother have shared with me. I wanted to create jewelry that can recreate the bonding moments that my mom shared with me as a child, where she told the story and history of her jewelry, which ended up playing a huge part in how we remained engaged with each other as I went through my somewhat challenging teenage and young adult years, and up to this very day. 

Spending over 15 years in the corporate fashion world designing and developing fashion jewelry produced overseas opened my eyes to the amount of waste that I was contributing towards and I felt that a huge part of the reason why I got into designing such a personal piece of adornment for the human body was missing. This urge made me make the jump to creating Hi June Parker Fine Jewelry so I can directly connect with my clients as they play a part in shaping the story behind my jewelry as they wear them and incorporate into their lives and recycle the gold and stones to make it into something new down the road to give it new life.”

 What are the core values of your business?

 “Produce less and only make what is necessary. Recycling materials where possible and only working with local artisans and suppliers.”

 How is sustainability incorporated in your work? 

 “I use recycled gold and silver as much as possible and offer my clients lab grown diamonds as an option when working on custom projects.”

 What do you hope to achieve in association with Kota?

“Further insight and collaboration towards providing exposure upon the importance of sustainability practiced in the creation of products we consume to consumers and businesses.”

 What do you hope to achieve within the next year? 

 “Collaborate on a jewelry project with a sustainable active wear or fitness company and more custom violin tuner projects (I also make jeweled fine tuners for Violins, Violas and Cellos).”