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Michelle Zauner is a lot of things. She’s the frontwoman of Grammy-nominated indie rock band Japanese Breakfast; the director of the majority of the band’s music videos; a soundtrack composer for the video game “Sable”; and the author of the bestselling memoir “Crying in H Mart.” Now, Zauner is adding jewelry designer to her resume. 

The 36-year-old teamed up with New York–based jewelry brand Catbird on a collection of rings, bracelets, and charms crafted out of 100-percent recycled gold and sterling silver — featuring designs rooted in the themes of Japanese Breakfast’s latest album, “For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women).” The capsule is out today, available at Catbird’s retail locations and online. 

Zauner and Catbird initially connected to design a brooch for the band to wear on tour, inspired by the song “Orlando in Love,” which is “about a sailor who falls in love with a siren, and she comes to him like Venus from a shell,” explains Zauner when we speak over the phone. She wanted to specifically incorporate the shell motif into the brooch and began discussing a broader collaboration with Catbird. The rest of the just-launched collection similarly stems from lyrical and visual themes in “Melancholy Brunettes.” (A row of ants lining a thin bracelet, for example, summons the lyrics of “Honey Water,” and the phrase “all of my ghosts are real,” sang in “Picture Window,” is referenced throughout the marketing copy.)

A brooch might not be the kind of flourish fans deep in the audience would immediately notice, but the finer points clearly matter to Zauner. “I think that one really privileged position I find myself in now as a musician is that we’ve grown a lot in scale, and I really enjoy trying to infuse everything that we do with as much detail as possible,” she shares with WWD. “Be it in the lighting design, the stage production, or the outfits that we wear.”

The word Zauner returns to is “delicate,” applicable to both the collection and the album. “After three years of touring ‘Jubilee,’ I wanted to really be like a sad mopey girl again. And this record, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women),’ is really like the complete opposite of ‘Jubilee,’” she says. “It was a very mature, very delicate album. There aren’t many drums or repeating sections in it, so it felt like a poetic, romantic album to me.”

Zauner took time off after “Jubilee” to live in Seoul, with the intention of learning Korean and working on her next book. “I was just so heartbroken to leave and wanted to go back,” she says. So she returned to South Korea over the winter, enrolling in an intensive language course. 

Zauner was there as the Catbird collection was coming together, giving her an opportunity to bring in her collaborators. “I was able to work with the same exact team that shot my album cover for ‘Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women),’ so it’s the same photographer, Pak Bae, and because it’s Korea, it’s an amazing hair and makeup and styling team that I loved working with on the album cover. I was really lucky to get to work with all of my favorite people again on this campaign.”

As Japanese Breakfast grows, Zauner’s circle naturally does, too, but she’s always quick to thank her team. At one point during our conversation, she pauses to mention the name of the lighting company — Smooth Technology — that designed a lantern prop for the band’s performances, which ended up informing one of the Catbird pieces.

Despite this expanded radius of recognition and connections, Zauner hasn’t shaken the DIY ethos that carried her through the band’s early albums. The reasons are strikingly practical. “I think that for so much of my career, I’ve always felt like I’m on the precipice of not having a job. And so, much of my work as a DIY musician has also turned into, ‘How can I utilize my opportunities to make sure that if this all goes to shit, I have some other job that I could do with the skills that this one has afforded me?’”

She adds: “When I first got my budgets for music videos, instead of hiring someone else to use them, I just directed them myself.”

Working in other mediums also helps Zauner’s creative process as a musician. “When I’m writing music, I don’t really listen to much music. Part of that is because I’m so afraid of… accidentally aping something. I find myself turning to a lot of other mediums to inspire what I do. Watching films or going to museums and looking at paintings or reading: I find that those influences are often more helpful for me.”

Prices for Catbird x Japanese Breakfast start at $88. Every purchase comes with a special-edition, co-branded postcard and sticker from the woman and jewelry label who made it come to life.

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Meet the Author

Jonathan Zavaleta is a commerce writer at Penske Media, covering topics like streaming, audio tech, lifestyle, and entertainment. He’s written for outlets from Men’s Journal to SPY and has a soft spot for alt/indie music, Japanese Breakfast’s discography included.