Creative Closeup with Tiffany Jow
Welcome to Creative Closeup, an ongoing series where we spend time with inspiring women, exploring their creative practices, the spaces they inhabit, and how their work informs their sense of style.
In conversation with Merlette Journal, Tiffany Jow, writer, editor, and founder of Untapped, reflects on freedom, form, and the intimate dialogue between how we create and how we live.
Your work moves fluidly between art, design, and storytelling. How do you define what ties it all together?
I am drawn to creative acts that offer new ways of seeing, thinking, and understanding—that’s the throughline for me. It’s more about the message than the medium.
Through Untapped, you explore the quieter, more intimate layers of creativity. What have you discovered about the connection between storytelling and design?
Design is an industry that many publications present in one of two ways: It’s either aspirational, focused on celebrity homes, expensive furniture, and trends; or it’s up and away from you, exclusive and complex.
But design is something that touches all of us every day; it shapes who we are and how we interact with the world. And so it’s important to tell stories about design that are human. Through Untapped, I’ve found that readers are hungry for these kinds of stories: ones they can use and learn from.
How does your personal style reflect the way you think or move through the world?
I don’t think about “style” or “fashion” when I buy a garment or when I get dressed each day. Clothes, for me, are tools for self-expression. However I look on a given day is how I feel, or how I want to feel.
How does travel, both literal and emotional, shape the rhythm of your work and your sense of style?
One of my favorite things to do when I walk down the street—in New York, or anywhere—is to look at what other people are wearing. You can learn so much by looking at how someone selects and wears their clothes, which can be one of those mind-expanding creative acts I mentioned earlier.
That broadened perspective, on some level, could lead to new story ideas, new outfit ideas. But the most exciting thing about travel, for me, is to see and learn how other people live
Merlette’s ethos centers on the interplay between freedom and form. How do those ideas show up in your creative process?
I’m a very regimented person. So the term “creative process” makes me feel anxious, because it evokes a free-flowing way of doing things—the antithesis of how I operate! That said, I like working in situations where there’s freedom within a framework. Where there’s a set of rules, and the challenge is to master them, and then, find new ways to play within them.
What does ease mean to you—in the way you dress and in the way you live?
In terms of what I wear, “ease” means my clothes feel like me. Picking out clothes shouldn’t take effort or feel forced. When I put on things that speak to who I am, it feels good and effortless to wear them.
I wouldn’t say the way I live has much to do with “ease”—that’s not what I am after, either. I feel uncomfortable when life is comfortable. I like solving problems, learning new things, taking on difficult tasks, and working, particularly on myself. I suppose “ease” shows up in how I try to tackle those things: with openness, self-awareness, and grace.
