Wooa Kim

Wooa Kim is a freelance jewelry designer and jewelry design teacher based in NYC,  who has collaborated with the world's most renowned jewelry companies. 

 From the age of 3, she started drawing and spent most of her childhood with craft and drawing. The early discovery of her talent led her to attend an art middle school and art high school. A girl who wanted to be a painter, then opened her eyes to more practical and fashionable ways to express her own esthetic, so she went on to earn her BFA degree in fashion design and graphic design. After she graduated, she worked as a fashion buyer at Shinsegae Co.,Ltd. However, she needed an outlet to express her creativity. After 3 years of career as a buyer, she chose to follow up a path to be a jewelry designer, which was fitting, as she has always loved creating small and beautiful things.

 In order to pursue her newly found passion, Wooa enrolled in a one-year program at the Gemological Institute of America to become certified gemologist. She  also obtained a metal smith certificate in order to understand how jewelry is made. She took a 3D CAD course for jewelry and graduated with honor.

 She, then, moved to New York, and obtained a diploma in jewelry design at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). In New York, she was recognized for her talent in prestigious high-end jewelry companies such as De Beers, Swarovski, Ralph Lauren, Swarovski, Jacob&Co, Anna Hu, Dorfman jewelry, EMCO, Mikimoto America and Marc Lazar. Besides of high-end jewelry, she also worked for fashion brands like Tory Burch, Michael Kors and Swarovski. Her work experience in fashion and high-end jewelry along with her fashion buyer career became the foundation of her design philosophy 'balance of art and commercial design'

Clients list