Jenn Low climbs up three floors to the studio, 30 minutes late, phone pressed to her ear. She confirms an appointment and ends the call just as she reaches for the door, catching her breath and flashing us a wide smile. There’s an energy about her – focused, vibrant, and unapologetically candid – that immediately sets the tone for our conversation. “There’s always something happening, always a decision to make,” she laughs, gesturing animatedly before we even ask.
Moments later, Jenn settles in the makeup chair like it’s second nature. “I had to oversee a fitting for our next campaign shoot earlier, and the model’s flight from Singapore was delayed,” she explains the cause for her hold-up. It’s immediately clear how she thrives at the intersection of creativity and commerce, balancing business decisions with a hands-on approach to design and storytelling.
Yet behind the polished exterior lies the reality of entrepreneurship: long hours, high stakes, and constant problem-solving. The tension between the glamour of a global brand and the grind behind the scenes is what makes her story of Wanderlust + Co so compelling.
From a DIY e-commerce website to a global brand
Jenn’s entrepreneurial journey began in Melbourne with a simple vision: creating jewellery that tells a story while celebrating individuality. “At the time, there was a gap in the market for an Asian brand that was designing jewellery from scratch in a sustainable manner; one that champions our culture. Every other jewellery brand out there, 15 years ago, was all Western,” she recounts on Wanderlust + Co’s origins.
With that came the implicit, outdated stigma that Asian brands were somehow lesser – a mindset she was determined to dismantle. But why jewellery? “I’ve worked in fashion in Australia, and I noticed that when women are trying on accessories, especially jewellery, they had fewer body hang-ups,” she replies. “I just thought that’s such a positive relationship with a category of fashion that doesn’t exist in other categories.”
“Today, what I’m passionate about is community and experiences – how products can make people feel.”
The early days of the business weren’t glamorous: she built her own product light box out of cardboard and paper, photographing pieces for the website herself because affordable tools simply didn’t exist yet. Still, her vision of building a masstige jewellery brand for the everyday digital girl caught fire.
One defining moment was when Wanderlust + Co received its first international order. For the first decade, Wanderlust + Co existed purely online, with more than 70% of orders coming from the US, Europe, Australia, the UAE, Japan, and South Korea. Even celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Jessica Alba, Eva Chen, and the Kardashians started wearing their pieces to prestigious events and even at Coachella.
The brand’s evolution over the last five years has been even more transformative. Wanderlust + Co is now stocked in 30 countries and operates seven retail stores – “retail homes,” as Jenn calls them – expanding into experiential services from piercing to welding to personalised locket printing. “Today, what I’m passionate about is community and experiences – how products can make people feel,” she says.
The Wanderlust + Co effect
Ask anyone who wears Wanderlust + Co and they’ll tell you there’s something unmistakable about its designs. Jenn describes the brand’s design DNA as “a touch of trend, a lot to do with functionality, and quite celestial and dreamy – with an unexpected twist.”
That twist is everywhere: adjustable hooks thoughtfully designed for layering, flatbacks and huggies engineered for comfortable 24/7 wear. Then there are initial necklaces inspired by foil balloons with subtle gems embedded on one side, as well as playful food-inspired pieces in the shape of croissants, baguettes, coffee cups, and strawberry shortcakes.
Her Sunlit Crescent Necklace, part of Wanderlust + Co’s best-selling Sun Series, is one of her personal favourites. “It has a sliver of moon wrapped by a sun, which reminds you that even in your darkness, you’re wrapped in light,” she says, beaming.
“People take our products and wear or interpret them in ways I could never imagine – which is even more meaningful.”
Since becoming a mother nine years ago, Jenn has leaned further into pieces that aren’t just beautiful, but engineered for real life. After all, jewellery is one of the few fashion categories that sits directly on the skin yet remains globally unregulated. “I created these pieces because I wanted to remain stacked in jewellery, and I didn’t want to take them off,” she shares, showing off the tennis bracelets that she sleeps, showers, and spins in.
To ensure the safety and integrity of its collections, Wanderlust + Co runs every piece through a seven-step filtration process. This removes nickel, lead, cadmium, zinc, and other alloys, creating an allergen-free metal base. This is something Jenn is especially mindful of because her own daughter wears the pieces daily: “I think about what I am putting on her skin every day – and that’s the commitment that we have to help our community.”
While her own lived experiences inform some of the design ideas, Jenn thrives on seeing how the everyday consumer styles their trinkets. “As a founder who drives a lot of the creative direction, inevitably, the vibe and energy start with you. But once you put your work out in the world, it takes on a life of its own,” she reflects. “People take our products and wear or interpret them in ways I could never imagine. It’s so much bigger than me, which is even more meaningful.”
The brains behind the beauty and business
Behind the dreaminess of the brand lies a founder grounded in pragmatism. Jenn’s design process is structured, intentional, and refreshingly democratic. Each year is split into four design chapters, each beginning with a message or emotion – like next year’s “Lucky Valentine,” reflecting modern love in a digitised, “ghosting” world. From there come the sketches, 3D printing, casting, plating, and polishing – a three-month cycle repeated four times annually.
Running an international brand also means confronting challenges daily: incorrect buys, overstocking, understocking, hiring mistakes, packaging misfires. One major lesson she has learned is decentralising decision-making. “I take the decision out of my hands and put it to a democracy,” she elaborates. For instance, her retail teams vote on packaging choices because they see customer behaviour first-hand.
Although the brand radiates optimism, Jenn does not shy away from vulnerability. “Let’s be real. I break down 10 times a day, and I’m challenged about 100 times a day – like when I had to climb up all those steps earlier when I was already half an hour late,” she says, half-jokingly. “It‘s really hard,” she continues on a more serious note. “If I knew then what I know now, I don’t know if I’ll start a business.”
“All I want to say to anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur is to make friends with pain and normalise things not working out.”
Balancing motherhood and scaling globally comes with immense emotional weight, too. She recalls her daughter asking why they had to open a store so far away when the brand launched its New York flagship – the first Asian, female-founded jewellery brand from Asia on the iconic Bleecker Street. It was a reminder that every milestone has an unseen cost.
“All I want to say to anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur is to make friends with pain and normalise things not working out. And to quite quickly be able to, in a very calm way, recollect the next steps,” she offers. Ultimately, these challenges have taught her resilience and the importance of trusting both her instincts and her team.
Despite the pressure, Jenn celebrates the small victories – the positive customer feedback, a successful launch, or a collaboration that aligns perfectly with her vision. Every step forward only reinforces why she started and keeps the momentum alive.
Designing extravaganza into everyday moments
When asked what Extravaganza – the theme for our December cover – means to her, Jenn doesn’t point to opulence or excess. Instead, she sees it as “living life to the fullest and grabbing every opportunity, exploring the maximum joy that life has to offer.”
It’s a philosophy that fits seamlessly into the brand’s next chapter. Following the opening of Wanderlust + Co’s West Village flagship, the next five years are about deepening the in-store experience. “One of our 2026 projects is revisiting how experiences are structured on the retail room floor, and doing a better job at providing more glimmers and sparks of joy,” she reveals.
Extravaganza, then, isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about the small moments of beauty and meaning woven into daily life – the way a necklace catches the light, the joy of a perfectly layered stack, the glimmer that makes a person feel just a little bit more like themselves.
For Jenn and for Wanderlust + Co’s next chapter, extravaganza isn’t loud – it’s luminous.
Featured image: Jenn wears a sequin dress by Maje, along with Wanderlust + Co jewellery.
Editor, interview, and words: Natalie Khoo
Art direction: Driv, assisted by Imran Sulaiman
Photography: Herry Chia Ee | Herry Studio
Photography assistant: Oscar Lee
Videography: Khairul Irsyaduddin
Videography assistant and subtitles: Charmaine Loh
Stylist: Birdy Lee, assisted by Diana Tang
Hair and makeup: Denise See
Browse our past Inspire cover stories here.