ASTERISK from Berlin
July 02, 2026
Life’s Faint Echo, Cast in Metal
“A single point that spreads outward in every direction, and stays connected the whole way.”
Sit with that for a second. It describes a lot of things, but one of them is how people relate to each other. The connections that start with you. The ones that spin out of a place like jentestore and cross paths somewhere inside fashion. We're always inside some web of relation, and how well we read those invisible threads has a lot to do with where a life ends up going.
Some people take an idea that abstract and make it into something you can hold. Janhyang is one of them. Working out of Berlin under a name that means the echo a sound leaves behind, he runs a jewelry brand called ASTERISK, and the pieces are less products than starting points, the thing that connects one person to another.
Q1. We spend a lot of time hunting for interesting people, the good kind of strange. Tell us about your brand.
I'm Janhyang, and ASTERISK is my jewelry and object brand, based in Berlin. It starts from a feeling more than an idea, some sensation or impulse that's hard to name. The making happens by hand, slowly, until it finds its form.
ⓒ@asteriskonline
Q2. What does ASTERISK mean, and what were you feeling when you started the brand?
ASTERISK comes from the Latin for star, Aster. Most people know it as the little star on a keyboard.
That symbol is how I'd draw my process if I had to. One point, expanding outward in all directions, still connected the whole time. The pieces all look different and move differently, but there's a shared energy running through them.
When I started, I wasn't interested in locking down a single answer or direction. I cared more about staying somewhere that could keep expanding. That's still true. ASTERISK isn't one fixed style, it's closer to a process, where feeling and experience keep stacking up and changing shape.
Q3. In your work, the thing that stands out isn't clean, refined form but rough surfaces and organic textures that almost look alive. Is there something you care about more than a perfectly finished shape?
I like both. I used to chase rougher, more fluid forms, but lately I've found a different kind of pull in smooth, refined ones too.
That said, perfection can start to feel like it's hiding something. So I ended up drawn to forms that hide nothing, textures that just show themselves.
A single scratch stands out more on a perfectly smooth surface. In the same way, I wanted to keep imperfection in the work and accept the marks time leaves on it. To me a form isn't finished until all of that is part of it.
Q4. We're curious about your process. Is there a part of it you especially love?
For straightforward commissions, the final polish is my favorite part. Sometimes I'll mirror-polish the inside of a ring, and there's a real hit of dopamine in how clean that feels. I love watching a form come together as every small detail gets resolved.
For design work, it's when I drop fully into flow. There are stretches where I lose all sense of time and sink completely into it, and I'm addicted to that state.
Q5. The story behind the name "Janhyang" stuck with us. You've said you wanted to be remembered like a lingering resonance. Does that still carry into the work now?
I chose the name out of a way of thinking about life, so it seeps into the work too. The feeling I'm after is soft but sharp, quiet but intense. Like catching the trace of a scent and having a vivid old memory surface out of nowhere.
Q6. You've run a lot of projects. Any fun stories?
Not a specific project, but the one I still get the most joy out of is running into Michèle Lamy by accident at a Rick Owens book signing.
Rick seemed worn out that day and gave off a pretty blunt energy, but right as I was about to leave, I crossed paths with Michèle. It was only a moment, but we had a genuinely warm conversation, and I remember she really loved the ring I gave her.
It was such a natural, human moment. I think that's exactly why it stuck.
Q7. FKA twigs, CL, Michèle Lamy, artists from Korea and abroad have all worn your work. What goes through your head when you see your pieces on someone else's body?
When someone with a strong sense of who they are wears my work, it's fascinating how the same piece reads as a completely different mood. It's like finding an appeal in it I hadn't noticed myself.
The way a person has lived, what they've been through, their particular energy, it mixes with the jewelry in strange ways and sometimes produces something I never saw coming. Those moments feel experimental, like the work is expanding in a direction I didn't plan, and I find that refreshing.
ⓒ@asteriskonline
FKA twigs wearing my work left the biggest impression. Her music, her visuals, her performances, so much of it lines up with what I'm reaching for.
Her Playlist
The songs of hers closest to that core are "Cellophane" and "Pendulum." That delicate but intense emotional line, the place where vulnerability and beauty show up at once, is where it touches what ASTERISK is after. On the more unpredictable side, I love "Sticky" and "Stereo Boy." They've got an energy you can't predict and a strange texture, so I pull a lot of inspiration from them while I work.
Q8. How do you spend your time when you're not working? Do you go looking for new stimulation, or let time pass as it comes?
When I'm not working I mostly head for nature. I love the mountains and the sea, so I'll often make the ten hour drive to the mountains in Austria and go hiking. I'd rather not force myself to chase new stimulation. I prefer whatever comes to me naturally. It's less that I travel specifically for inspiration, and more that I just go and end up absorbing a lot while I'm there. Most of my time gets spent just enjoying it, with no particular goal attached.
In Berlin I like hitting exhibitions or films with friends, and lately I've gotten into working out, so I'm looking for slightly more active things to do. In a way, my daily life is pretty ordinary.
Q9. You look completely at home in nature. Why do you keep going back to it?
I grew up in a small, almost rural town in Germany, and I was the kind of kid who loved running around outside in the hot sun, so nature has always felt like a familiar place to me.
Love you Mom, Love you Dad, Love you Sis
The only places where car noise and city sound disappear completely are deep forests and mountains. Being out there rests my mind, and I find some peace. More than anything, I think nature is the most interesting thing there is. Not just the visual side, the forms and structures and flow, but the emotional side too. It affects me a lot.
Q10. Is there a single most decisive moment or experience that made you who you are now?
Lately, attempting Everest Base Camp hit me harder than almost anything. It was the first time in ages that a trip actually felt like a trip, and I could feel myself growing through it.
The short version: inside Nepal, this vast natural space ringed by the Himalayas, I felt foreign and out of place, and out of that came a deep gratitude for simply being on the mountain at all.
Hiking gave me room to sort through thoughts I never usually get to. Up there my head went completely calm for the first time in my life. Physically it was brutal, but I felt myself getting mentally sturdier.
On day five or six, around 4,000 meters up, I came down with bad food poisoning. I could barely eat or drink, my condition dropped fast, and I had to be rescued. Coming down by helicopter, covering in one hour the path I'd spent days climbing, felt hollow and bleak. But it also hit me, deep down, that in life and on a mountain, anything can happen. After that I started thinking I should live with more gratitude for every moment.
Coming face to face with real fear now and then, I also started to think most of what we worry about isn't actually serious enough to threaten our lives. I know I can only say that from a relatively safe, privileged spot. But I also realized I'd spent a long time never facing real fear, just manufacturing anxiety inside my own head.
My girlfriend made it all the way to Base Camp, and I made this ring to mark it.
Ring made to commemorate the trip
I'm just grateful I got to be there at all. More than anything, it left me grateful for life. Spending a long stretch out in nature, away from everything familiar, gave me a lot of room to look back at who I actually am.
Q11. Every new design probably brings some creative pressure with it. Is there a struggle you keep running into, and how do you work through it?
When I hit a block, I go to extremes. Either I do nothing and rest, or I go the other way and keep making things even when I hate them.
Holding onto something half-finished and stalling out is what blocks me the longest. So I either drop it completely for a while, or keep my hands moving no matter what comes out, and eventually it loosens up on its own. Less forcing a fix, more waiting for the flow to come back.
Q12. What keeps you wanting to do this work?
In the end, people. I'm genuinely scared of people, but they're also probably my favorite thing. I like connecting with them through jewelry, sharing new feelings and experiences.
I used to work as a freelance photographer, and that made me realize making things with my hands suits me better. I love making something out of nothing, so I'll probably keep doing it for the rest of my life.
Q13. Is there a piece or project you definitely want to make someday?
Someday I want to work on interior objects, and something to do with scent. The jewelry now connects to the body, but lately I've been drawn to the spaces where people actually live.
I'm into making forms, moods, and sensations that seep naturally into a space. So at some point I want to make work you don't wear but experience inside a room.
Q14. What do you hope people feel when they wear ASTERISK?
Every piece holds a different mood, so I'd rather people just take it their own way. What I do hope is that the work seeps naturally into someone's life. Something that's with you in ordinary moments, not only special ones.
Q15. What kind of people do you hope find ASTERISK?
Anyone who shares the value of mutual respect. That's it.
Q16. Years from now, how do you want people to remember ASTERISK?
As a brand that lingers quietly, for a long time. Like a faint echo.
Q17. One thing you'd shout to the world?
Fighting
