Designer Yunjo Lee was born and raised in Seoul, Korea and has spent 25 years in New York.
Growing up, Yunjo was deeply influenced by her mother’s love of fashion and two aunts who are fine artists. These strong women with their own professions taught her the aesthetic and joy of expression and inherited the dream to pursue a creative life of her own.
Originally trained as a painter at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Yunjo has been leading the life of that exact dream. For the last two decades, she has been creating designs for leading international brands such as Tiffany & Co. and Michael Kors where she gained expertise in the field of jewelry.
During her tenure at Tiffany & Company, Yunjo worked directly with the legendary figures such as Paloma Picasso and Frank Gehry to produce the most coveted and iconic jewelry collections.
With the reputation as being the designer to create iconic and timeless designs, Yunjo was invited by Swiss luxury retailer Bucherer for her to create two jewelry collections for the house brand. Both Peekaboo and B Dimension collections have rejuvenated the heritage brand and Yunjo earn the media presence in Europe publications such as L’Officiel, Bolero, NZZ, Cote, InStyle and Vogue, Germany.
While collaborating with unique brands, Yunjo also has launched her own brand Henry & Hodu.
Her UFO rings were featured in Harper’s Bazaar in Germany and Vogue British.
Most recently, Yunjo was a Director of Jewelry Design at Mejuri, a Canadian D2C fine jewelry brand known as “cult” jewelry brand where she oversaw both women and men’s jewelry and evolved the brand by introducing differentiated designs. She also led concept and aesthetic directions on collaboration collections and worked with the style icons such as Jenna Lyons and Raul at Luar.
Yunjo currently works and lives in the countryside in Connecticut with her artist husband Henry and three doggies named Cherry, Coco and Lulu.