The Glimmering World of Jinsol Woo

My introduction to Jinsol Woo was a little different compared to everyone else’s. While most people within the Korean music community know him as the genius founder and creative director at the helm of rising jewelry and clothing brand OHTNYC, I found him completely by chance on Spotify. It was an ordinary day of surfing through an endless wave of gorgeous K-R&B, when his debut single “Internet Love” popped up on a playlist and captured my attention. After having the dreamy, punk-influenced number on loop for a while, I went down a rabbit hole of research and was very quickly obsessed.

It’s a little shocking to find out that music is a relatively new venture for the Korean artist; his 2023 debut EP Attachment is a lush and complex mix of R&B, synthpop, Jersey club, rock and trap and sounds like something an artist five years into the game would put out. It’s a risky move to fuse so many genres together on one EP, but the sheer audacity of it all made it work. Attachment also channels the sleek retro future aesthetic of the early 2000s, fitting seamlessly within the current Y2K trend we’re seeing both in music and fashion. It ensured a smooth entry for Woo into the K-R&B space and quickly established him as an artist to watch. The kicker? He did it all as a hobby while running a brand that’s cemented itself as a favorite among some of the world’s biggest celebrities. 

“I get scared of regret. So I knew I was going to regret it if I stayed [with a luxury brand.] If there are two choices, and one path is going to make me regret it if I don’t take it, I’ll always choose that.” Jinsol Woo photographed exclusively for Rolling Stone India by Jerry Zhao. Stylist: Monako Adachi

I reach out to Woo on Instagram to get to know him better and he’s gracious with his time, happy to discuss his work. We talk about art, music, business, and his new jewelry collection with Asian-American music giant 88rising, before finally making plans to connect for a longer conversation that would eventually become this piece.

“I like your necklace,” he says with a grin when he appears on my screen. I’m wearing the Spike Necklace, one of OHTNYC’s most popular pieces usually seen on artists like Doja Cat, ATEEZ, Aespa, Stray Kids, NewJeans and more. He’d sent it to me during the few weeks we were figuring out the details of this interview, and it’s a gorgeous combination of spiky metal and Swarovski crystals, encapsulating the brand’s commitment to sleek, genderless fashion. It’s also kind of symbolic of Woo himself– razor-sharp, edgy and glamorous. There’s a cool confidence about him that’s inspiring, and I quickly realize I’m talking to someone who is absolutely fearless– a trait that has led to the massive success of OHTNYC. He dives into new ventures with no hesitation (walking away from jobs with luxury brands like Calvin Klein and Helmut Lang to establish his own business) and he sees failure as an opportunity to grow. “I always feel that life is not about just good things happening over and over,” Woo says. “I think it’s about turning the bad things into good things. So I like those kinds of challenges.” 

It’s this fearless drive that he’s now channeling into his music career, and he’s already seeing results. Despite being a newbie to the scene (Attachment dropped barely six months ago), Woo has spent the last few months as an opener for the likes of leading R&B artist Gemini and popular Korean girl group IVE. He knows it’s only a matter of time before he graduates to headliner. “My main focus right now is to get one hit that will get millions of streams,” he says. His targets are clear and he won’t back down– this is, after all, the entrepreneur who went from making jewelry on the train at 5 AM after work, to creating what would become Doja Cat’s favorite jewelry brand. “That’s my number one goal. I’m down to explore any kind of song that will get me there. I know that my songs are good, whichever song I produce is going to be good, but all I need right now is to hook more audiences.”

In this exclusive conversation with Rolling Stone India, Woo opens up about the business of fashion, the joys of taking risks, and his artistic process as a musician.

How did you start with fashion, because I think that probably came first for you, right? Is that what you always wanted to do when you were younger?

When I was growing up, my mom wanted me to be an engineer. I tried to be an engineer but obviously, it didn’t work out. I suck at doing engineering! [laughs] So I tried to find my passion. I thought, ‘What can I do the best?’ I didn’t want to be doing the things that I’m not good at, you know? So I started brainstorming. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m possibly good at English and then I like dressing up. So why don’t I just go to New York and study fashion?’ And that’s why I moved to New York and went to fashion school. That’s how I started.

“Whenever I see things, I see a potential, I see a different way to read it. For example, if I see a sex store, if I see a gaming character, I see a different beauty inside. I know it can be more. So that’s why I try to take the elements from the culture that I see.”Jinsol Woo photographed exclusively for Rolling Stone India by Jerry Zhao. Stylist: Monako Adachi

Was I reading up about you and I know you worked for a couple of big brands– you even had Calvin Klein in your arsenal. What made you want to move on from established luxury brands and launch something of your own? How did that realization happen?

I think part of the reason why I started fashion is because I love creating something new. I love redefining what’s in the world, because I think everything’s just a label. So I wanted to create something. Fashion is always free; you can express yourself. But when I was working for a corporation… Of course, it’s really good, it was a good experience, I learned a lot. But what I know now that I didn’t know at the time was that corporations have to make money– it’s a fashion business at the end of day. They go through a lot of copying from the archives, or  just repeating themselves, what sells the most, instead of creating something new. Which I get now that I run my own business! I know how significant it is to maintain that profit and that money. But at the time I [had just gotten] out of school, so I didn’t know and I was like, ‘Oh, shit, I want to create something new. I don’t want to just get stuck here, even though I love the brand so much.’ I started working at Calvin Klein, I started as an intern, and I got hired. I worked there for a year and then I kind of got sick of the corporate life. So I decided to move to the company that I really like, which is (high-end luxury brand) Helmut Lang. It was very much my aesthetic but obviously, things weren’t that different. Even though I love my colleagues, even though I love what they did, something inside me was screaming. So I quit Helmut Lang, started to build up my own brand, OHTNYC, which I started as a personal project to get my stuff out there. I used to work as a bartender to fund my brand, basically. I used to go to work on the train and I used to make jewelry on the train on my way to work and on my way back home at like 5 AM and stuff. I did that for a couple years and then this personal project of mine got some kind of attention here and there. And then I grew with a lot of Korean hip-hop artists. 

Right, a lot of the hip-hop community started wearing your pieces early on.

Yeah, I was lucky enough to have a good eye on people. I worked with Jvcki Wai, BIBI, Lil Cherry… I started with them basically before they blew up. I was able to discover them. I’d be sending them jewelry, becoming friends with them, and as they came up, our brand got more recommendations. That naturally got me into the K-pop industry.

It was a big risk to leap away from what could have been a safe space with Calvin Klein and Helmut Lang. Was it scary to put your all into something when you just have no idea where it’s going to go? 

I get scared of regret. So I knew I was going to regret it if I stayed there. If there are two choices, and one path is going to make me regret it if I don’t take it, I’ll always choose that. I knew I was going to struggle. But at the same time, I knew I was going to regret staying there. So the choice was pretty simple.

“I don’t like having too much pressure on music just yet. I will just literally hop on the studio with my friends or my friends will come to my place with their gear. We just like to talk about what I want to say, write down the lyrics, we will try multiple different things and get it down like that.” Jinsol Woo photographed exclusively for Rolling Stone India by Jerry Zhao. Stylist: Monako Adachi

Tell me a little bit about your process when you’re working on new pieces. You’ve said that a lot of your influences, your inspiration comes from sex or manga or gaming– vastly different sides of pop culture and media. So what are some of the things right now that are inspiring you? And how does it work from when you have an idea to the final piece that we are seeing?

Whenever I see things, I see a potential, I see a different way to read it. For example, if I see a sex store, if I see a gaming character, I see a different beauty inside. I know it can be more. So that’s why I try to take the elements from the culture that I see. Then we really try to elevate it to something high fashion, or something that a lot of people can like. That’s why I can get inspired by a sex store and then put that piece on a K-pop star, because I assess the quality and design for them. So that’s how I usually get inspired. Right now I’m exploring the agenda, but it just pops up here and there. I don’t really have limitations on  having to have one specific inspiration on a collection, you know what I mean? So it’s more of what I vibe at the moment. Right now for example, my 88rising collection. 

I know, it’s gorgeous.

I literally saw a belly piercing not too long ago and I was like, ‘It will be cool to make something with these rhinestone piercings,’ and that was the start and then we just made it! [laughs] My designing process has a lot of logistics basically. I don’t sit down and design everything, obviously. I give the inspiration, I organize people, I design certain things, and then I correct things at the end. But to get to that product, there are graphic designers, product designers, etc., and I will utilize them to the extent that will get to the best product in the timely manner. So that’s how I work. But again, OHT is basically what I like at the moment and what I feel at the moment with a lot of logistics behind it.

Woo in a promotional image for OHTNYC and 88rising’s collaborative project, ‘SKY HIGH.’ Photo: Courtesy of OHTNYC and 88rising.

What is the proudest moment that you had with OHT? A moment where you felt like, ‘Damn, this is something I launched and we’re here now at this level’?

There are a couple moments. One will be, as you know, when the K-pop stars wear my stuff. (Girl group) Aespa wears my stuff over and over. Obviously, that was a proud moment. I think the other one is when Forever 21 tried to copy us. [laughs] There was a huge, huge wave of people attacking them. We were in 20 different magazines everywhere, like Teen Vogue, In The Know, everywhere. And then Doja Cat stood up for us, because she has been a fan of our brand. She tweeted , ‘Don’t bother my friends, stop attacking small businesses, Forever 21.’ So that was a really good moment. And then they obviously took it down in like a day. My followers and fans were sending me the notes internally. They were working for Forever 21 and they said, ‘Oh, we got this note from headquarters saying that we need to take down the merchandise today.’ And oh my god, like tons of reposts, tons of media coverage and literally Doja Cat backing us up… It was awesome.

It must feel amazing to see not just the celebrities, but even this massive group of fans and customers standing up for you and the loyalty that you’ve built over time.

Yeah, it was really amazing. I really love it. I always feel that life is not about just good things happening over and over. I think it’s about turning the bad things into good things. So I like those kinds of challenges. And it was really special because I flipped the really bad things to really, really amazing things.

What are some of the struggles and when it comes to building a business? Because a lot of your customers, your fans, people like me, we see the success, we see what you are now. But what are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve had that people might not know about?

I think like a lot of CEOs and creative directors will agree on this, but we creatives suck at management, financials, operations, and those are the things that I need to do the most. Because that matters the most–like what I mentioned about Calvin Klein and Helmut Lang– is how they run the money, how they build up the revenue, so that they can do cool shit. I’m just not good at it, but I need to do it at the same time. That’s most important. I think it’s half and half; creative takes half, but the other half is literally the operation, right? I know a lot of CEOs struggle because of that. But yeah, that’s something that people don’t see. People only see social media contents, and then collabs, and then celebrities wearing [the brand], but behind that, there’s a lot of financials.

Coming to your music and your jewelry, do they connect a lot? Or do you see them as completely different aspects of yourself?

Technically it connects because I drop a jewelry line with my music. When I drop music, I wear something in the video, and then I try to drop that merchandise through OHT. Then that [pushes] my music merchandise to be on K-pop stars. Basically, the ones that I wore for my music video and dropped as my music merchandise was worn by Aespa and everyone. So it kind of connects, in a way. But music for me is to have more fun, you know? Because I’m working 24/7 and I don’t really enjoy going out or drinking or whatnot. So I needed some kind of way to escape from this. But I love creating, and creating music is more fun than creating jewelry in a way because there is no burden. I don’t have to make so much money off of it, it’s like a thing that I can purely create and just enjoy the process of creation. I can also logistically possibly build my brand power even stronger so that I can reach the goal that I want easier. 

“I think everything’s connected. Even if it’s music, fashion, or even cooking. I think once you figure out that method of creating, what to give to the world, what to showcase, then I think it becomes great, simple and then as long as you have fun with it, I think you get to have a good product.” Jinsol Woo photographed exclusively for Rolling Stone India by Jerry Zhao. Stylist: Monako Adachi

When did you start making music? Was it something you wanted to do for a long time or is it more like a recent passion?

Well, again, my life is all about what I’m into at the moment. I started one year ago, and then I don’t know… I just wanted to make music. I just wanted to have this urge to create something new. But creating jewelry and clothing again, it’s not my hobby anymore. It’s my job. It’s my work. So it’s a lot of burden. Only because we came so far, I cannot just create whatever, you know? I have to care about a lot of things like, ‘Oh will people like this, will people buy it? Will this go on certain K-pop stars in our demographic?’ That’s when I decided to just try creating music. Just literally went online, downloaded the beats, and then just tried to record here and there.

Wow, I didn’t expect that. Based on what I’ve heard so far, I thought you’d been doing this a lot longer, that you’d been making music for at least five years by now.

[Laughs] Thank you. Not to brag or anything, but I feel like creating something… it’s kind of similar in a way once you know how to create certain things. I think everything’s connected. Even if it’s music, fashion, or even cooking. I think once you figure out that method of creating, what to give to the world, what to showcase, then I think it becomes great, simple and then as long as you have fun with it, I think you get to have a good product.

You know, Attachment was such an interesting EP because there’s so many different sounds that you managed to put in. You had R&B, you had synth pop, you had rock… What did you have in mind while making this soundscape? Were you thinking, ‘Okay, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to explore,’ or, like you said, was it more about feeling what’s in the moment, certain influences that just happened to come upon you naturally?

Oh definitely feeling what’s in the moment! Feeling what’s in the moment can mean a lot of different things. It can literally just be me just going online, browsing through beats and liking [a certain] beat, that can be my feeling at the moment. Or I can just go and listen to (girl group) NewJeans, and then think, ‘Oh, they’re using Jersey club’ and now I want to do my take on Jersey club. Because I like the emotion and I think how can I implement that Jersey club, because I just want to have it, I just want to create something out of it. Then I think about what’s going to be the sound that’s going to convey the emotion that I have at the time– should that be alternative, or heavy rock and roll. The EP was more like putting together what I have and making the sound flow. Obviously, I dropped a couple of songs, picked a couple more and made one or two more based on the selections that I had. 

Did you have a certain theme running through the record? Lyrically, or story wise, was there anything that you wanted to convey to the world?

Theme wise… I don’t like having too much pressure on music just yet. I will just literally hop on the studio with my friends or my friends will come to my place with their gear. We just like to talk about what I want to say, write down the lyrics, we will try multiple different things and get it down like that. Lyrically, I mean, like, first of all, I try to make a lot of catchy phrases [laughs]. I try to make it sound good. First of all, I don’t think every lyric has to have such a strong meaning, in my opinion, because at the end of the day it’s music– you have to be able to enjoy it. Having certain phrases that go well with the sound matters as much as conveying a certain story behind it. So I try to find the balance; for the hook, I tried to find lyrics that sound good, and then for the chorus, I tried to convey a little more of my emotions. A lot of it had to be like this internet stuff, you know, long distance, whatnot. I try to reinterpret it and then put it into my sound. Both music-wise and visual-wise though I think I was into emo, but also futurism. That’s why I tried to combine those two, like emo sad-boy shit, and what’s going on in this world.

It reminded me of the late Nineties, early 2000s. They had their own interpretation of like cyberspace and like futurism– like Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson’s “Scream.” That sort of aesthetic is kind of what I was thinking about, especially with your visuals that deal with cyberspace and escapism.

Yeah, you got it right!

What really shocked me though was the violin solo on “Take It Slow”— it’s one of the best I’ve heard in a long time and it comes as a surprise on the track. When did you start learning how to play the violin and do you plan on incorporating more violin into your songs as well as live performances? 

I started on my journey with the violin during my childhood and dedicated a solid decade to this musical pursuit. For me, the violin wasn’t just an instrument; it was a beloved hobby that allowed me to sail through the delicate and alluring sounds it could create, along with the satisfaction of crafting harmonious melodies with others. Throughout the years, the violin has remained a constant source of inspiration, significantly contributing to my musical growth up to the present day. As I was making my first EP, it became clear to me that I couldn’t ignore my roots. Due to a temporary lapse in playing the violin, it resulted in a bit of rustiness. However, with the help of my talented friends in the professional music sphere—special shout-outs to Keris and Aeon—I managed to implement the violin into my song. Playing the violin felt like second nature, and it allowed me to transmit an incredible energy when performing on stage. Consequently, I’m excited to share that I have plans to further integrate the violin into my future compositions. 

“Throughout the years, the violin has remained a constant source of inspiration, significantly contributing to my musical growth up to the present day. As I was making my first EP, it became clear to me that I couldn’t ignore my roots.” Jinsol Woo photographed exclusively for Rolling Stone India by Jerry Zhao. Stylist: Monako Adachi

Speaking of, what do you want to explore in terms of sound next? What are some things right now that are fascinating you?

I think my main goal right now is performing. I really enjoy it and I want to perform more on big stages, like Head In The Clouds or something like that. I think I could. So my main focus right now is to get one hit that will get millions of streams. That’s my number one goal. I’m down to explore any kind of song that will get me there. I know that my songs are good, whichever song I produce is going to be good, but all I need right now is to hook more audiences. The songs that I’ve been making have two different sounds: one is more like what I’ve been doing, like emo, a little alternative, a bit of Jersey club and all that. But the other one I’ve been trying to explore is more around the R&B space where it’s easier for more people to listen. I think what I can specially offer on top of that will be the visuals, the fashion, possibly the features that I can get using my connections… Like Korean hip-hop artists or artists in the U.S., I could get their feature. So I’m trying to be a little smart about it. I can have fun after I hook more audiences. So by the time we get that one hit, that’s going to get me to a lot of different spaces.  

Do you ever feel like having the goal of making something that blows up and has that sort of mass appeal takes away from the creative process? Is there a pressure to sacrifice what you really want to make if you want to put out something that will be a hit?

I don’t think so. Because a lot of people think that even in fashion, like being couture is cool. I think a lot of people think that way, but I disagree because being able to generate revenue and then being able to be commercial is great. So I don’t think it takes away anything. If I can generate heat like that, it shows my ability to do something amazing. It’s not taking anything away from me. Just because it’s niche doesn’t mean that it’s cooler. If people think that it’s taking away [from me as an artist], I think they’re just jealous. I know that I can follow up with cooler stuff afterwards, so I’m confident it won’t take away.

Are you working on a particular album or an EP right now? 

Yeah, I have three songs that are ready. One is alternative and then one is more like K-pop, DPR sound, easier to listen to. And the third one is a cover song. I covered (Indian-born Singaporean-American artist Dhruv’s) “Double Take” in a very drill, R&B way. I wrote a verse too. So I have those three songs ready. I’m going to drop them like single, single, single, and basically try it out. Two more songs I’m still working on have features, one is going to be very rock and roll– real guitar, real drums. Like I said, I want to see what sound works the best and then try to push that until I get the best result that I want.

Stream Jinsol Woo’s debut EP ‘Attachment’: