The model and musician opens up about maintaining her mental health and personal identity
Soo Joo Park is a striking sight in an oversized black blazer and dark work pants, accented by her bleached eyebrows and dusty pink ballet flats. Three media professionals encircle the Korean-American model as she taps away on her phone.
“I’ve been traveling nonstop for a month,” Park said. She’s days away from her 38th birthday.
Park was in Toronto to act as the panel moderator for a beauty event hosted by L’Oréal Paris in March. In 2015, she became the first Asian-American spokesperson for the skincare brand, standing alongside the likes of Andie MacDowell, Lara Stone, Céline Dion, and Eva Longoria.
“It feels like a dream that lasts forever,” Park said, reflecting on the last nine years.
Before the event, she sat down with me to discuss current trends, Generation Alpha and agency within her industry. In a 2019 interview with FASHION Magazine, she said, “When you become a model, you are kind of signing your life away in the sense that it’s not really within your control.”
“I think when I said I signed my life away, I was definitely tired. This job, as incredible as it is, tends to lack agency or control — especially when you start out as a young model,” Park explained. “You’re getting calls at any point in the night, or the day before. Things are constantly changing, so I had to learn how to accept it and become very adaptable, and I’m still doing that now.”
Park started modelling at the age of 23 after being scouted. “In a lot of jobs, and in life, 23 is quite young. But in modelling, at that time, 23 was quite old,” Park said. “So I had to kind of, at first, not mention my age. By the time I became successful, I was 26 or 27, and then became more open about my age. But yeah, when I first started going to castings I was like, ‘Oh, I’m 21.'”
When asked about how she manages her mental health and sense of identity while working in an industry focused on appearance, Park said the solution was revealed to her with time. “You just have to grow a thick skin,” she explained. “And, you know, I went through some internal struggles at some points as well. I seek therapy, I seek meditation. I had to take a step back and learn about the ego.”
Park said she came to the conclusion that “what’s really important is your soul, and you have to protect it. That’s what’s going to shine through in conjunction with all the beauty products and the hairstyles and what you wear.”
I asked for her perspective on the influence of the beauty industry on youth, noting the trend of pre-teens on TikTok using anti-aging skincare products. “I want everyone to be as well-informed as possible,” Park said. “I think it’s really great to democratise the knowledge and the science behind certain beauty products. I find it very exciting to see that the youth are really interested in skincare. But at the same time, I wish they would also enjoy their lives and kind of be better educated about what they are using.”
Park also considers the possibility that the trend of pre-teens seeking anti-aging skincare might be related to the same search for identity that she also experienced. “When I was an adolescent I had a really hard time fitting in. I didn’t know what to do as an individual. I didn’t know who Soo Joo was,” Park said. “I grew up in a very suburban, conservative town. I always felt like there was something more… you’re down to experiment and, you know, try things.”
Park encourages young people to pave their own way. “It really just took time for me to feel comfortable in my own skin, to feel like I could take the risks and accept adventures that came my way,” she said.
After close to 15 years in the industry — much of which has been spent as a spokesperson for a major cosmetics brand — Park said, “My role is to be unapologetically myself… It’s about embracing your femininity without feeling like you have to fit into anything specific.”
As for her own journey with skincare, Park has a two-pronged approach: “For me, as I get into my mid-to-late 30s, I’m realising that I want to retain myself in the best way possible, and so a lot of that is about skincare, and also trying to accept aging in a very elegant and graceful way.”
