[VIBE CHECK] Lee Know for Marie Claire Korea May 2026, Bee Motif Jewellery Editorial | SOOJIB

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2026-04-23T04:32:19+01:00

Marie Claire Korea · May 2026

LEE KNOW

Cover Magazine · 3 Versions

Photo: Marie Claire Korea

There is a kind of quiet that follows Lee Know around. The dancer who always lets the choreography speak first, the member STAY often describe as tsundere, the one who notices small things before anyone points them out. For Marie Claire Korea's May issue, he sits at the centre of a jewellery editorial built around a single motif: the bee.

It is his first solo cover for the title, and the pairing feels earned. The luxury jewellery house behind the campaign has spent nearly two centuries tracing this symbol through its archive, and Lee Know's own quiet resilience as a performer gives the concept a second layer the photographs hold onto.

Version A · Cover Editorial

A Bee, a Flower, a Stillness

The visual language is deliberate. Flowers held close to the face, blue-toned lighting that softens rather than flattens, a rose brought to the mouth in one frame and pulled back in another. Small tenderness and strong life force, the editor's note calls it. The idea that something can be gentle and durable at the same time.

On set, the mood followed the visuals. Slow tempo, minimal direction, long takes where he let his shoulders drop and his expression settle. The kind of shoot that only works when the subject does not need to perform for the camera.

Version B · Bee Editorial | Version C · Bee Editorial

"The things that last are usually the ones you are quiet about."

SS26 Editorial, Three Ways

Each of the three covers reads as a different facet of the same person. Version A leans into warmth, a cognac leather piece against a cobalt wall, his posture loose. Version B shifts into a cooler register, the palette washed in blue, a rose held close enough to blur the frame. Version C pulls further in, closer, more still, the jewellery barely catching the light.

Styling comes from Seo Su-myeong, with hair by Lee Hye-young and makeup by Jeon Ji-won under photographer Yoon Song-i. The restraint across the whole package is what STAY and editorial readers alike have been responding to since the covers dropped.

Cover Trio · Marie Claire Korea May 2026

On Being One and Whole

The accompanying interview circles around a phrase from the editor's note: existing as one and as a whole at the same time. For Lee Know, eight years into Stray Kids and still the group's lead dancer and vocal anchor, the idea lands differently than it might for someone earlier in their career. He talks about dance as the language he has trusted since he was fourteen, about being the youngest to join the group and the shortest to train, about the stretch of learning forty base choreographies in two weeks.

What does not get said out loud in the interview is almost louder. The editorial lets him sit with the quieter side of being a lead performer, the part that does not always translate on stage.

Three Versions, One Issue

The May issue comes in three covers, A, B, and C, each with its own editorial spread and jewellery focus. A book-embedded double-sided poster, 535×760mm, comes bundled with every copy, featuring two of the editorial cuts on either side.

For STAY collecting Lee Know's editorial runs this year, from the autumn fashion covers through to this jewellery-led spring issue, the May issue reads as the softest in the run. A good one to keep on the shelf face up.