Jesse Jo Stark, an artist with numerous talents and co-creative director of Chrome Hearts, closes 2025 by combining fashion and music into one mesmerizing piece of art. In a new visual work and song, “Who Knew” featuring Lil Yachty, the artist takes a dreamlike glimpse into the concept of female mythology, power, and the wild spirit within.
This piece is an expression of Stark’s maturation as a writer. Indeed, she is the writer, director, and visual stylist. Everything is back to working with her artsy and crafty side, using the raw emotion that brings so much emotion to her artwork. What started out as a reserved exploration on women and myths is now a culmination of Lil Yachty and Stark collaborations.
A Lucid Dream in Motion
Stark describes the video as a dream which “moves with instinct,” and this is what it feels like. In the video, the line between reality and fantasy is very thin. Characters move between reality and fantasy, exploring the areas of danger, purity, creatures, and desire. All these allow Stark to demonstrate how women are viewed as symbols and how men react to awe and surrender. Her words are the mission to the work:
“The video unpacks how women are cast as symbols, danger, purity, fantasy, creature, and how men navigate those projections with their own mix of awe and surrender.”
It is a look at the contradictions and dualities of femininity.
As Architecture and Fashion
Stark’s fashion is not just a background element it is a major catalyst of the story. There are also lots of outfits by Stark, which blend Chrome Hearts’ craft with Stark’s sculptural and magical aesthetic. She not only dresses the characters but also creates the world around them, representing shapes which are akin to emotion.
Nature Also Plays A Role In This Design
Doves, bugs, rabbits, and other creatures are interspersed, reflecting Stark’s changing mood. They are made up of materials corresponding to the clothes, such as the wings of silk, metallic body, fur, and feathered details, incorporating elements of nature into a living aspect of herself. Chrome Heart designs pulse, connecting the imagined world to familiar design.
A long-awaited return ‘Who Knew’ is Stark’s comeback album after the debut album DOOMED, which she produced with Jesse Rutherford last 2022. DOOMED is known to have developed Stark into a dark alterpop story teller, but ‘Who Knew’ is more cinematic and wild.
The single combines elements of what constitutes Stark’s world, including Chrome Hearts’ baroque imagery, female power, illogical dreaming, and silhouettes chiseled, not stitched. The feature by Lil Yachty brings a contemporary and genre-bending essence to it.
A new myth for a new year “Who Knew” is more than a song and a music video. “Who Knew” is Stark constructing a world, layering elements of fashion, intuition, myth, and storytelling to create something timeless yet new. Her return is imbued with purpose, vision, and bite and softness. “Who Knew” featuring Lil Yachty is out. View the music video directed by Jesse Jo Stark and listen to the song today.
