Exploring The City: Fashion And The People
One single day might be not sufficient to get a profound knowledge of a place, but it is just long enough to fall madly in love with it. It all depends on whose eyes you’re looking through. When you step into the fused world that stylist ANIA HRYSHENKO and photographer Régis Colin-Berthelier have created for you, you can be sure your impressions will be unique.
Together, this talented ensemble pulled off a really challenging task: they managed to make the very well-known symbols of Kyiv by offering an unusual angle to them. For instance, the 86-meter-high Motherland statue, the famous Soviet-time monument located on the right bank of the Dnieper river and facing the left one, often gets described as “sullen” and “grim”. However, Ania and Régis decided to use the strict grey-ish color and the huge size of the monument and the square it’s located on, to their benefit: against these surroundings, the attires by young Ukrainian designers stand out in a magical way.
Anna K, Anton Belinskiy, Omelya, Andreeva, DMDV, Anna October and Slava gave their signature ensembles to illustrate how extraordinary Kyiv can look like. They share a common vision of another, art nouveau, more rare side of Ukrainian capital: it is wonderful how natural their collaboration looks.
Notice how graphic the silhouettes of the model is: they resemble miniature monuments themselves, in their straight-lined clothes and distracted face expressions. They say the photographer was relentless during the process and quite a perfectionist: definitely worth it. You can't help but mark the abundance of dark colors: various hues of grey and black, manufactured in free-flowing cuts. there are no motley prints, and when the color splashes, it splashes fervently in colorful spots of orange and blue. This was an intentional decision by the stylist, who preaches "the less the better" philosophy. Nothing distracts the eye of the beholder from the essence of the outfits and nothing breaks the silence of the venue.
In fact, absolutely everybody who takes a look at this photoshoot stays amazed for a long time - regardless whether they are Kyiv locals of random guests. The city and the heroine of the fashion story are so stylish that it mesmerizes. It was a one-time, exclusive collaboration, a pivotal point for both the photographer, the stylist and the model, as well as for the city: I think it's been a long time since it looked so darkly charming.
Kyiv is the city of mystics and visionaries, they rule this place, create the trends and breathe life into it. By looking at these pieces, one sees how easy it is to get lost in this whirlpool.
