Yves on the Freedom to Stay Undefined
The artist isn’t leaving her K-pop upbringing behind, she’s reshaping it into something entirely her own.
Two years and four EPs into her solo era, Yves is calling the shots, both in her sound and her ability to remain undefined. While the K-pop machine runs rife with allegations of overworked idols and constant roster changes, the former LOONA member and current genre-fluid artist has reclaimed autonomy over her career. Subsequently, that same sense of control reveals itself in more than just her updated sound and visuals.
As a fan of LOONA, Yves’ solo work sparked my interest after the group went inactive. While some of the group’s songs still live on my playlists today, Yves’ sound in particular felt like a familiar favorite. After collaborating with PinkPantheress on her Fancy Some More? deluxe album, I became especially drawn to the universe Yves had carved out for herself, one that felt so separate from LOONA, yet so natural to who she is.
As our conversation begins, Yves’ calm yet gentle demeanor comes across clearly; one that she says earned her the ever-present “shy” label as a child, which she’s still learning to shake at 29 years old. Born in Busan before her family relocated to Yangsan, Yves says her parents were always at work, so spent a lot of her childhood watching TV home alone. To the people closest to her, she’s seen as warmhearted and delicate; someone you can find losing themselves in a book or humming quietly in a dense crowd. Even as an introvert, Yves always felt called to the stage. “In elementary school, I got the courage to perform ‘By Myself’ by Tiffany of Girls’ Generation at a school festival. Afterwards, my teacher told me I always seemed shy but that I sang really well on stage, and that I should think about becoming a singer,” she says. “That was the first time I felt real excitement from being on stage. After that, I joined after school dance sessions and started at a vocal academy at seventeen. My dream just built up naturally over time.”
Pursuing music at such a young age can be challenging, but Yves always knew she was destined to become an artist, rather, it was the other people in her life that took convincing. “Honestly, I didn’t doubt myself much. From a young age I knew very clearly what I loved and what made me happy, so I just wanted to learn to sing and dance as fast as I could,” she says. “What was actually hard was other people doubting me — my family, people at school, [they said] things like ‘not everyone gets to be a celebrity.’ That hurt more than any doubt I had in myself,” she says. For her, the desire to become an artist justified lying to her parents about attending English academy so she could take the bus to Busan for auditions. Unlike the typical K-pop trajectory, Yves worked as a trainee only briefly. After leading her unit, she learned one late night at vocal academy that she had been chosen to be in LOONA. “I was grateful, but honestly kind of shocked at how fast it all moved,” she says about her time pre-debut. That pace is second nature for idols, and Yves quickly became accustomed to the methodical approach that would shape everything from the songs themselves to the visual identity each member of the group was assigned.
Yves didn’t realize how much the K-pop perspective had shaped her view of the creative process until she started making solo music. “After years in K-pop, I’d built this mindset that every part of a song needs a clear structure: a defined beginning, middle and end,” she says. “Before working alone, I’d overthink things; rewriting and deleting the same part over and over, which made the process take forever. My producer told me that instead of leaving too many options on the table, my very first instinct is often the right one.”
Working in the K-pop industry allowed her to fade into the background when it came to decision making, but with far more creative control in her solo career, Yves is learning to back her ideas. “When LOONA split into units, the company still mostly decided the songs and concepts. I was used to that. So, when I moved to a company that actually wants to hear my opinions, it was hard at first, I didn’t have the confidence to speak up. Through conversations with my producer, I slowly got more comfortable sharing ideas,” she says.
Growing pains are inevitable for any artist entering a new era, but coming from an idol background makes evolving especially nuanced. When asked how she felt about the K-pop label two years into her solo career, she hesitated, carefully reflecting internally and going back and forth with her translator before giving an answer. “I get asked this a lot since going solo, and it always makes me a little nervous, because I never know how the answer will be read,” she started.
“But the truth is, I started as a K-pop idol, and that beginning is still a foundation for me. I don’t want to reject that. What I want instead is to keep pushing into new, different genres and widen what people think of as the K-pop spectrum. I want to use what I learned there, plus everything I’ve picked up working with artists from other countries, to expand that space through my own work,” she says, referring to her past collaborations with PinkPantheress and underscores.
When asked about her relationship with her former members, Yves answered with far less reluctance, vividly recalling a moment between her and Chuu. “I was in a cab recently and Chuu called me, and we ended up talking about the smallest, most random things,” she says. “We started as one group, and now we’ve grown into really different kinds of artists, but we still talk seriously about our own music and careers and comfort each other. We met when we were 19 and 20, a lot of time has passed, but we’re like family now, and I’m really grateful for that.”
Yves never felt pressure to carry on the LOONA universe in her own work. Instead, she’s prioritizing what comes naturally to her as an artist, and she’s found that fans of the group resonate with her growth. “I made the choice to just focus on what I want to say right now, and to make that feel new. A lot of fans have told me, more than once, that they’re happy to see me grow, and hearing that so often made me feel comfortable growing on my own terms, which honestly gave me the confidence to debut solo in the first place.”
Instead of walking away from her K-pop roots, Yves is holding on to the things that resonate and releasing herself of everything that no longer serves her. Specifically, the symbol of the apple is one she holds close. “When I was first given the apple as my symbol back in LOONA, it was just a simple symbol to me, nothing more. But the longer I worked, the more I realized it wasn’t that simple. The apple’s meaning of taboo and rebellion felt like it matched something in my own character, and from then on it started to feel like part of me,” she says.
After adopting the apple as a part of her identity as a solo artist, fans began to read into its layered meaning as a forbidden fruit, associating it with queer identity. “I’m really grateful to my fans for not just taking the apple as an apple; they turned it into a representation of their own identity and expanded what it means. Watching fans express themselves through that symbol, and seeing it become this kind of unity, was such a joyful experience. [Realizing] something of mine could become someone else’s strength means a lot to me.”
While Yves welcomes her fans’ interpretation of the apple as an LGBTQ+ symbol, she says she’s never felt the need to clarify her own sexuality. “Even back in LOONA, I had a large queer fanbase, and I’ve always been grateful for that. But it also came with pressure, I became more careful with my words and actions because of how people might read them. I don’t feel like I need to explain or define that part of myself in detail. The same way music is always open to personal interpretation, I’d rather let my words, my actions and my music stay open too. If small things, what I say, how I act, even the music itself, can give someone else a little more freedom to think and act for themselves, make them feel less alone, or give them strength to keep going, that alone makes me really happy.”
The freedom to stay undefined allows Yves’ music to do the talking; which is a stark contrast to her time in the K-pop machine, when most details were predetermined for her. Now, in her solo pursuits, Yves’ newfound control means she has the ability to decide even the smallest details. Given how much visual language, beauty especially, shapes her work, Yves is experimenting outside a single deliberate aesthetic.
During her time in LOONA, Yves, at just 21 years old, took on the role of the “mature, older sister;” a persona that carried itself into every detail, down to which hair accessories she was allowed to wear, “As an idol, every member had an assigned character, and the group’s whole look had to work together, so I could only really experiment within a fixed range.”
With such heavily curated concepts, Yves found that she wasn’t able to change up her look in the way that she desired. This was made evident when she was in charge of her own makeup and styling during off days, and her fellow members didn’t recognize her straightaway, “That’s how different [my own clothes] were from my stage styling. The group look had to stay fairly limited because there were so many of us, but any time I got to wear my own clothes, I loved styling myself.”
While being under K-pop levels of scrutiny has undoubtedly affected Yves’ relationship with beauty, entering her solo era has allowed her to tap into undiscovered parts of herself through makeup and styling. But, the conviction she has now is something that also took time. “At first I doubted myself, because I wasn’t used to a system where I got to make these calls. But as my solo career went on, each new look started to feel like its own exciting little mission,” she says. “Early on I wanted to cram every idea I had into one look, which didn’t always work. I’ve since gotten better at separating what I genuinely like from what actually fits the moment, and choosing confidently for whatever the context is.”
With her latest EP NAIL, it’s clear that beauty is an integral part of Yves’ identity, and because of that, the connection between music and visual details comes innately, rather than being forced. “To me, music, image and beauty aren’t separate pieces, they’re all connected to each other, and visual beauty is its own language, too. So, instead of thinking about them one at a time, I try to build the visual side from the very start, while I’m still making the music,” she says.
Yves knew straightaway she wanted the “sharp and cold” feeling of the lyrics to be echoed in the “NAIL” music video and the EP’s visuals overall, from moody blue lighting to smudged eye looks and smoky grey nails, “I wanted the image to feel pretty but a little uncomfortable, sturdy-looking, but like it could snap at any second. I’ve always loved Rick Owens and have wanted to wear [the brand] on stage, so I built the moodboard around his deconstructivist design language. I wanted the overall visual moodboard to feel intense and cool; a less obvious choice than my past albums.”
Since beauty plays an essential role in Yves’ work, she’s established a different kind of relationship with her label Paix Per Mil; one that leans on creative collaboration rather than a single voice of authority. “For the visual side, I like working it out together with my team at Paix Per Mil. Going back and forth with them and shaping an idea together is actually something I enjoy. That’s become my process since I started working with them,” she says. That same collaborative instinct followed her to her Hypebae cover shoot, where she is accompanied by a hair, makeup and styling team that deeply understands her chosen visual cues, rather than one picked and controlled by her management team.
In her solo career, Yves isn’t limiting herself to singularity. Whether that means constantly venturing outside of her usual beauty aesthetic or refusing to conform to one genre, she’s valuing what feels right above all else. “My range keeps widening and shifting. I honestly don’t know what kind of music I’ll be making in a year or two from now, and I find that exciting. Ultimately, I want to be the kind of artist who doesn’t need a lot of words; whose work and existence speaks for itself.”
