Remember Rihanna’s epic night at the VMAs? I sat down to chat with the up-and-coming designer behind the jacket worn by RiRi in the third performance. Meet fangirl Ya Jun Lin.

Ya Jun Lin.

Hi! You just had your design worn by Rihanna during the MTV Video Music Awards (aka one of the biggest night of her carrier) – how did that happen?
I am a recent graduate from Parsons. I was chosen as one of the twelve finalists among the Kering X Vogue competition. Mel Ottenberg (Rihanna’s stylist) was on our VIP panel. He contacted me after the graduation show asking to borrow my jacket for the VMAs.

How did it feel to see something you’ve designed on (freakin) RiRi?
I was super happy to see her in it. People who have seen my clothes would always say Rihanna would wear it. I would always take that as a compliment and never thought I actually had a chance to see her wearing it.

Rihanna in jacket designed by Ya Jun Lin during the 2016 VMAs. Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images.

Did you know what the entire outfit was going to look like or just that they wanted to use your jacket?
I didn’t know how they were going to style it. I always thought the jacket would be too hot for her to wear in this weather. I’ve seen a photo of her wearing it in fitting, that already made me happy for weeks.

Tell us about the piece! The design process behind it and how it fits in with the rest of your aesthetics.
The jacket was the last design I had for the collection. It was last minute and it was the statement piece of the whole line. It is filled with down feathers and all the ribbons were a wool blend. The ribbon created gathers to adjust the volume and length of the jacket. My aesthetic is very unisex and a little rebellious, I think the jacket shows a lot of that.

Will we be seeing more of your designs on Rihanna in the future?
I hope so!

Like you said you finished your BFA in fashion design at Parson’s School of Design earlier this year. Besides from that, what is your creative background?
Since high school I was always into art/design, I never limit myself what I have to do. I took branding classes, photography classes at Art center during high school and did a lot of drawing and painting.

I’ve read that Rihanna has been your muse for a long time. Would you call yourself a fangirl?
No doubt. Always been a fan.

”When I drew Rihanna in my jacket. So happy to see her actually wear it.” /Ya Jun Lin

Besides from $he, what/who are your other influences?
I’m into a lot of trap music. When I start designing I just put the music on and start drawing.

Why fashion? Was it always an obvious choice?
It wasn’t really that obvious for me, as I mentioned I really liked art/design in general. I constantly have other ideas on branding, creative directing, product designing. I liked fashion the most probably because fashion design has a bit of everything.

Finally, where can we find your designs?
I haven’t mass produce any of my designs yet, I am thinking of launching my own line next season. People can email me to pre-order if they are interested in my current designs.

We talked to Juan Sebastián Peláez, the artist behind the giant RiRi in Berlin, to get to know him and his work a little better. Happy reading!

Hi Juan! Congrats on the success with Ewaipanoma (Rihanna) at the Berlin Biennale! Can you tell us a little more about yourself and the piece?

Hi! I’m an artist currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. The piece was made for the Berlin Biennale. It’s about a myth of a monster that was supposed to have lived in the Americas long ago. When Christopher Columbus did his first voyage to the Americas he wrote on his logs that the ”ewaipanoma” people lived there, headless humanoid people. They made engravings that were later shown around Europe about how Americans looked like.

How did you develop that into the piece we can see at Berlin Biennale?

For this piece I got a series of pop icons that were born in the same places where they first traveled and did the process of making them look like they were supposed to have been 500 something years ago.

What other icons have you portrayed this way, besides Rihanna?

I’ve done Falcao, J-Lo, Sofia Vergara, Ariadna Gutierrez, Belinda and some more.

Cardboard cutout standees.

And all can be seen in Berlin?

No. For the biennale we just made on huge RiRi.

There’s millions of pictures of Rihanna to choose from, how did you decide on which one to use?

I wanted one that was full figure cause it was gonna be a cutout. I didn’t want it to have like a cut side, you know what I mean? And I wanted to have visible tattoos to make her visible. So after trying a bunch of options we chose that one. But I made at least 8 more Riris.

What happened to the other Riris? Where are they?

In my computer <3

Since this is a Rihanna blog, I have to ask: are you a Rihanna fan?

Of course!

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us Juan! We love giant RiRi!

Ewaipanoma (Rihanna) can be seen at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art from June 4 ‘til September 18.