Janette Oh is a Brooklyn-based designer and visual artist who transmutes textiles into sculptural, emotion-laden narratives. Centering texture as her primary language, she reconfigures discarded yarns, textile remnants, and industrial scraps through meticulous handwork—knitting, weaving, embroidery—to craft garments, installations, and tactile objects that interrogate memory and identity. Her practice rejects rigid fashion systems, prioritizing care and intentionality over trends, where fragility and structure collide to visualize emotional states: grief, tenderness, endurance. Though her background includes collaborations with brands like Proenza Schouler, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Michael Kors, Oh’s independent work now treats garment-making as sculpture and performance design as empathetic dialogue.
Her interdisciplinary projects dissolve boundaries between mediums. For Liquid Arrangement: Provider at Wave Hill, she designed costumes translating themes of bodily autonomy into wearable material expressions and provided styling direction for the performers in a work by artist Soeun. In Site: Living Room Hours, she merged tactile and digital elements to spatialize reading through graphic language, while her contributions to the Site 003: Grass Stain group show engaged in evolving conversations around materiality. Every stitch in Oh’s work carries the weight of unseen labor, embedding stories into surfaces that urge audiences to slow down, touch, and recognize garments as layered, alive entities.
But what does it mean to wear a memory? To drape oneself in reclaimed fragments of the past? Oh’s work invites these questions, reframing textiles as vessels of collective history and emotional resonance. By grounding luxury in thoughtfulness rather than opulence, she redefines waste as a medium for communal narratives—each thread a testament to resilience, each form a quiet rebellion against disposability. Her pieces linger in the mind long after they’re seen: If a garment can hold the labor of hands and the echoes of its origins, what else might it carry? And in a world obsessed with speed and novelty, what future might we weave by choosing to honor the stories already threaded into our materials?
New York Art Life: Can you walk us through the process of transforming discarded materials into high-fashion pieces at im5thanku studio? How do you balance sustainability with avant-garde aesthetics while maintaining wearability?
Janette Oh: Rather than talk about my studio, I want to talk about my work process as a visual artist/designer. My process starts with seeing potential in unexpected materials. Whether it’s fabric remnants, unconventional textures, or experimental surfaces. I focus on layering, deconstructing, and reworking these elements to create something visually intricate and emotionally resonant. Every piece takes time because I approach it as a composition. I make sure to balance material contrasts, tension, and movement. Avant-garde aesthetics and wearability aren’t opposing forces for me. They coexist through intentional draping, structured form, and the way the body interacts with the piece. It’s about crafting something that speaks through its details. Whether it’s a highly tactile textile, a hand-assembled structure, or a nuanced interplay of colors and shapes.
New York Art Life: How did your work with luxury brands Proenza Schouler, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Michael Kors shape your approach to material innovation, and what specific techniques or philosophies did you carry forward into your independent projects?
Janette Oh: Working on the collection knitwear design team at Michael Kors deepened my understanding of how texture, structure, and stitch development influence the overall silhouette and feel of a garment. I gained experience refining stitch layouts. I selected yarns that balance both drape and density. Plus, I ensured that each knit construction aligned with the broader collection’s vision.
At Proenza Schouler, I was exposed to a more experimental approach to textiles, where surface manipulation played a key role in redefining classic fabrications. Meanwhile, at 3.1 Phillip Lim, I saw how knitwear could act as both a functional and sculptural element in design. Across these experiences, I learned the importance of precision. I saw how small adjustments in material choices or construction can completely shift the impact of a piece. This philosophy carries into my own work, where I push textiles beyond their expected forms to create compositions that feel both intentional and immersive.
New York Art Life: Could you share a pivotal moment or project during your time at Michael Kors that challenged you to rethink conventional design?
Janette Oh: One moment that stands out was navigating how to push material complexity within the constraints of production. There was a project where we explored unconventional knit textures, but the challenge was refining them into something both conceptually strong and viable for development. It made me rethink how intricate details could be translated on a larger scale without losing their essence. That experience reinforced the idea that refinement doesn’t mean simplification—it means finding the core of a design and amplifying it with precision.
New York Art Life: How did your understanding of luxury evolve during these collaborations, and how does it inform your current approach to accessibility and exclusivity in fashion?
Janette Oh: Luxury, to me, is no longer just about opulence or exclusivity. Luxury is about thoughtfulness—how materials are sourced, how a piece is made, and the story it tells. Working with luxury brands showed me that craftsmanship and attention to detail define true luxury. In my own work, I challenge the notion of exclusivity by embracing accessibility through material repurposing. Instead of defining luxury by price, I define it by process and narrative.
New York Art Life: How does working in a group show like Site 003 differ from solo projects in terms of collaboration and thematic interpretation?
Janette Oh: Group shows create an evolving conversation between different artistic perspectives, which pushes me to think about my work in a larger context. Instead of working in isolation, I consider how my pieces interact with the surrounding works—whether through contrast, harmony, or narrative connections. Thematic interpretation becomes more fluid because my work isn’t just speaking for itself; it’s part of a collective dialogue. That interplay challenges me to refine my visual language while still allowing space for interpretation.
New York Art Life: Designing for Olympic athletes requires balancing functionality and artistry. Can you share how you approached fabric manipulation to meet the demands of elite performance while retaining visual impact?
Janette Oh: For the Nike Millrose Games Atelier project, my approach was to create movement not just through the athlete’s performance, but within the fabric itself. I explored ways to enhance fluidity through layering techniques, structured draping, and engineered textile manipulation. The challenge was making sure that every element—whether a sheer overlay or a textured detail—worked in sync with the body’s motion rather than against it. The result was something that felt dynamic and expressive, yet precise in execution.
New York Art Life: What insights did you gain from working alongside designers Keith and Tae Park, and how did this collaboration expand your understanding of sportswear as a medium for storytelling?
Janette Oh: Keith and Tae bring a strong narrative element to their designs, which reinforced my own approach of using clothing as a visual language. Their work showed me how even the subtlest details—like a seam direction or a contrast of textures—can carry a story. Our collaboration deepened my appreciation for the way sportswear can serve as a platform for both cultural expression and technical precision. It was a reminder that the best designs aren’t just aesthetically striking; they’re layered with meaning.
New York Art Life: What strategies did you employ to seamlessly integrate digital and physical elements in the Site: Living Room Hours Project pop-up experience, and how did attendees interact with this duality?
Janette Oh: For the Site: Living Room Hours Project pop-up experience, Seoyoung Kim led the spatial concept and curation, designing the physical environment and narrative framework of the event. My role was limited to visual direction, specifically identity design and visual concept development. This included creating typography, layouts, material selections, and imagery to unify printed materials (e.g., books, posters), environmental graphics, and digital assets.
Attendees interacted with the integrated elements through tactile engagement and visual exploration of both physical installations and digital components. The spatial design (by Seoyoung Kim) and the visual identity I did operated in parallel, with shared design elements—such as color palettes, typography, and material textures—tying the physical and digital touchpoints together. Attendees navigated the space without direct technological integration; instead, the cohesion relied on consistent visual language across both mediums.
New York Art Life: In your work repurposing industrial waste, how do you source and evaluate materials for their potential in high-fashion contexts? Have you encountered unexpected limitations or breakthroughs?
Janette Oh: I don’t approach materials with rigid expectations. I let them reveal their potential through experimentation. Sometimes, what seems like a limitation, such as stiffness or fragility, can become a strength when manipulated in the right way. I’ve had breakthroughs where unexpected textures, like heavily distressed fibers or layered mesh, took on a sculptural quality I hadn’t initially envisioned. The biggest challenge is knowing when to stop—when a piece has reached the perfect balance of complexity and refinement without feeling overworked
New York Art Life: How do you envision your circular design practices influencing broader industry shifts toward sustainability, and what systemic changes do you believe are necessary to scale such innovations?
Janette Oh: There’s a growing appreciation for pieces that carry a sense of time, depth, and individuality. I see my work as contributing to that dialogue—offering an alternative to fast, surface-level design by emphasizing construction, material contrast, and hand-finished details. For the industry to truly embrace this approach, there needs to be a shift in how value is defined—not just by trend cycles but by the depth of artistry and the emotional weight a piece carries.
New York Art Life: How do you measure the impact of your socially driven art on audiences, and what responses have most affirmed or challenged your belief in art as a catalyst for change?
Janette Oh: I don’t measure impact through scale but through the intensity of response. When someone engages with my work and connects with it—whether through the tactility, the visual layering, or the way it evokes a memory—that’s when I know it’s successful. Some of the most affirming moments come when people describe my pieces as “feeling like a moment suspended in time” or when they see something familiar in an entirely new way. That kind of visceral reaction reinforces my belief that fashion is more than clothing—it’s a language of emotion, texture, and form. Janette Oh’s creations are more than clothes. They are manifestos—stitched declarations that artistry and sustainability cannot exist in opposition.
By taking thrown-away materials and turning them into high-fashion moments, she challenges the industry to acknowledge its facilitation of wasteful culture and demonstrates that ingenuity only develops under restriction. Her work, whether it dresses Olympic athletes or adorns gallery walls, throbs with an understated desperation, compelling us to rethink each thread’s lifecycle and the hands that mold them.
In collaborations across sound art, performance, and spatial design, Oh reimagines creativity as a communal act, where empathy and accuracy create new languages of engagement. The appeal of her work is not in trends, but in its staying power—a torn hemline recalling memory, a sculptural knit inviting consideration of consumption. As viewers follow the lines of her haptic works, they find fashion as a threshold between past and future, self and other, artifact and ethos. Oh’s legacy is inscribed in these thresholds, where materiality serves as a mirror to societal change. Stay tuned to New York Art Life for more interviews with visionaries such as Janette Oh, whose fingers sew not only fabric, but the fabric of a more deliberate world.
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