On April 10th, 2012, South Korean pop culture giant YG Entertainment posted a cryptic photo to their official blog. In the image, a girl looks off-camera, dressed in a pink-and-white checkered shirt, with auburn streaks running through her black hair. Simply titled “WHO’S THAT GIRL???,” the breadcrumb was part of a teaser campaign for a forthcoming new girl group. One month later, a YouTube video with the same name appeared online—a one-minute, 36-second hypnotic clip of trainees dancing in the shadows, except for one girl, illuminated in a tight spotlight as she performs, her face too distant to capture, her dance movements too precise and charismatic to ignore. The video has since been viewed nearly twenty-four million times. Finally, on August 29th of the same year, YG unveiled the girl in question: Jennie Kim (김제니), a sixteen-year-old trainee fluent in Korean, English, and Japanese. Fast forward 13 years, and Jennie is one of the most famous women in the world. Yet visibility is not the same as transparency; despite being everywhere, she remains, in some ways, just as elusive as that shadowed girl in the teaser. So, who is that girl with 89 million Instagram followers? It’s a mystery sustained not by secrecy, but by evolution—Jennie is always in motion, and always beginning again.

“I can’t believe I’m still saying this,” Jennie begins over Zoom from Manila, Philippines, just days after our cover shoot in Los Angeles, “because it’s something I said a year ago before my first album [Ruby], but I feel like a baby stepping into the world.” That curiosity and wide-eyed wonder regarding her career’s possibilities remain a constant throughout our conversation—childlike, but never childish. Though she jokes, “You’re not allowed to say that!” when I mentioned her forthcoming thirtieth birthday, she speaks of the new decade with a spirit of inquiry rather than dread. “I just can’t wait for this new chapter of mine to open, not because I’m entering my 30s, but because there are just so many exciting things that I’ve planned ahead,” she explains. “I feel like I lived my 20s with passion and love.” She also lived them with a fastidious work ethic (BLACKPINK has sold over 20 million records worldwide and was the first K-pop girl group to dominate charts in the West, with her aforementioned debut solo album debuting in the top 10 in 19 countries). “As far as I know, I’m going to be in Tokyo. I’m going to have a show the night of my birthday, and that whole week too,” she says—a fitting celebration for someone whose dedication borders on superhuman. 

The parallel to William Klein’s 1966 film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?—a key ingredient in the Twiggy-tinged, ’60s-infused cocktail of a moodboard behind our cover shoot—is irresistible. In that satirical portrait of the Paris fashion world, a young American model named Polly Maggoo becomes the obsession of designers, photographers, and TV crews, all determined to uncover her “true self.” The more they search, the more she disappears beneath projections of beauty and desire. “Every time they take my picture,” Polly famously sighs, “there’s a little less of me left.” 

Jennie’s career, too, has unfolded beneath an unblinking camera eye. Yet what distinguishes her from Klein’s tragic mannequin is agency. She has learned to command the lens rather than be consumed by it. If Polly Maggoo dissected a culture that devoured its idols, Jennie represents a generation of artists reclaiming authorship over their image. “Through my debut album Ruby, which came out this year—although it feels like four years ago—it was a great way for me to explore new sounds and just rediscover myself and my love for music, and find new ways to approach it,” she says. “The decisions, the thought process, and ideas are coming 100% from me. It feels like I own everything. So it definitely taught me how to talk to myself.” Thus, while Jennie—like Polly—finds herself surrounded by stylists eager to dress her, makeup artists to glam her, and producers to shape her sound, she is no passive canvas, but an active hand in her own creation.

With new solo music coming this year, Jennie is deciding how her future will look—and sound. “I honestly have no clue what it’s gonna look like yet. I am a very open book right now,” she admits. “I’m excited to get deeper with my vocals for sure. And this was homework of mine from the beginning, but blending Korean and English into my music, too.” Perhaps surprisingly, given her refined and immaculate public image, she speaks of horror and thriller films as new terrain for inspiration. “I just watched the movie Weapons. Have you watched it?” she asks. “I’ve always been a fan of horror and thriller movies. I love the aesthetics. I’ve also watched (Guillermo del Toro’s) Frankenstein, which is in that world. Something about the dark, mysterious places and visuals in those films always inspired me to get into it more. Maybe that could be something that I could embrace in my own creativity.”

As far as who Jennie will be, she remains open to exploring various creative mediums. “I see lots of artists directing their own things or designing their own costumes to wear in their videos. I want to say, although I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but I love fashion and would love to design something for myself.” Of course, the world of fashion loves her right back—Jennie is a style icon and Fashion Week fixture, her presence at Chanel’s front row regularly creating such a frenzy that even Polly Magoo would be jealous. 

Even in her downtime away from the flashing bulbs, Jennie is a curious being. “I really don’t know if I should say this,” she begins timidly, “But I’m on the plane half of the time and in the car or getting glam, so I’ve been playing Nintendo Switch. Animal Crossing, Zelda, and Mario Kart. Everyone knows I’m not a professional at it, but you know, it takes everything off my mind.” When I remind her that she doesn’t have to be a master of this pastime, she interjects: “That’s the thing—once I get really deep into it, I want to become a professional. So I’m very invested in these games right now.” Sometimes, a strong work ethic can’t help but infringe on good ol’ fashioned fun. 

There will be no shortage of planes or cars for Jennie this month as she and the rest of BLACKPINK conclude their DEADLINE World Tour. She speaks of returning to the stage after a three-year hiatus with a surprising sense of comfort, although not immediately: “Obviously, all of us were not afraid, but we didn’t know what to expect going back into the group and being on tour after three years.” When asked if it felt like a homecoming, as well as how “home” had changed, she says, “Nothing has really changed, but also, we’ve all released solo albums, too. So being able to bring different music into our sets and watching each other’s performances from a new perspective was a new thing for us, which made it more fun.” Despite her own solo music and that of her counterparts (Lisa, Jisoo, and Rosé—all, as with Jennie, mononymous like Madonna), the girls do not act as though they are in competition. “Overall, being back on stage with all of us together felt very much like home. When you don’t go home for a year because of work or whatever, and you go back, and it still feels like home…it’s that kind of feeling where you don’t need to expect anything. Your body knows that you’re home.” 

In this light, Jennie’s “home” is one of massive success, though she still grapples with how to define the word. “That’s a serious question that I ask myself every day,” she says. “But for me, I think…getting to look at my own dedication to something that I made and whatever is being shared with the world, and if I feel proud of it, if I feel like it’s mine, that’s the moment where I’m like, you know, ‘I’m doing great, and I feel like my life’s good.’”She pauses, then adds: “If someone asked me how I’m handling my success, I would say I’m not. But I am proud of how far I’ve come. I’m proud of all the work I’ve made. Just the fact that I get to look back at myself, dream bigger, and keep going—that’s my way of handling life.” Where Polly Maggoo ends in existential uncertainty, its protagonist wandering the lonely streets of Paris, Jennie’s story lands on evolution. The ambiguity persists—not as absence, but as freedom. We may never fully know who Jennie Kim is, and perhaps that’s the point, because she is a shapeshifter not lost in the gaze but guiding it. In a world still obsessed with unmasking its icons, Jennie’s remains a mystery, but unlike Magoo, it’s one of her own making.

This story appears in the pages of V158: now available for purchase!

Photography MAR+VIN
Fashion Anna Trevelyan
Jennie’s Personal Stylist Minhee
Creative Director / Editor-in-Chief Stephen Gan
Interview Mathias Rosenzweig
Videographer Lukas Chmiel
Hair Gabe Sin (Seesaw)
Makeup Sol Lee (Co-Op.)
Manicure Zola Ganzorigt (The Wall Group)
Casting Greg Krelenstein (GK-LD)
Set Design Isaac Aaron
Set Design Assistants Matt Banister
Producer Alexey Galetskiy (AGP NYC)
Movement Director Marly Phillips Nicol
Retouching Bruno Rezende (Studio Bruno Rezende)
Production Assistants Ashton Wilson, Justin Barahona, Max Doraev
Fashion Assistants Damien Lloyd, Tajh Barnes
Photo Assistants Juliet Lambert, Mei Kobayashi
Digital Technician Aly Whiteman
Location AGP West