VIBRATIONS by Aris Akritidis

 

 

artPLAY FASHION…LET’S START PLAYING 

 

 

“VIBRATIONS” an artPLAY exclusive fashion story and interview with fashion designer Jivomir Domoustchiev

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jivomir Domoustchiev  www.jivomirdomoustchiev.com,  @jivomir.domoustchiev

Interview by Katja Kat @katjakatphotos and  Anna Middleton @annakmid

 

 

artPLAY:  What are your fashion inspirations, tak to us about how it all started and then evolved.

Jivomir: Well, I mean, I always loved fashion. I loved fashion images. I wanted to create, from day one I wanted to create fashion images. I studied design, and I got offered my dream job assisting my favourite designer but unfortunately I couldn’t go. Whilst at college, I was designing for a small brand – Hyperhyper  – an amazing shop full of small designers in Kensington. More clubby wear, very cool at the time.

But basically, because I loved photography, I just loved images, I thought well if I can’t go working as a design assistant, I can just influence pictures. And yeah, I started styling, I thought wow, you can change your concept every week and create something new every week. And I think fashion was easier then. You could do whatever you wanted, everyone would tell you, you were wrong, and you could still do it and it would look amazing. Everyone was like no, that’s wrong, you have to do it like this, but you could just be like ‘no’, you can do whatever you like.

 

artPLAY: Coming from a design background, did you understand, the forms better, and the fabrics better?

Jivomir: I was still a kid, so yes of course, but I was just a kid. Everything was excited. My big thing was I always wanted to change stuff. Even the stuff you admire the most, you always see something different in it. I think that’s why design and styling’s the same thing. Stylists, if they listen to what they’re supposed to do they just dress people, that’s not styling. If they try and create amazing images, they manipulate, they accessorize.

 

artPLAY: It’s about creating something new.

Jivomir:  Yeah, to entertain yourself in a way, to hopefully inspire people. And then, I ended up working for a few magazines. I started an incredible magazine called Centerfold with a friend of mine. I was the Editor, it was amazing, a very influential magazine at the time. It was basically posters, but this was a long time ago, we could do whatever we wanted. And for all other editorials, I would always not follow what I was told to do. Designers would always say never mix, don’t mix: you can’t do this, you can’t do that. Yes you can. You can do whatever you want: I really don’t care. And when the magazines would come out, they’d go my god, it’s amazing. Well yeah, we worked hard on it. Rather than shooting a catalogue, which is head-to-toe one thing. Especially right now in my design, when stylists come to borrow, I don’t think you can mis-represent me. Put it on how you want: put it upside down, you’re supposed to play with fashion.

 

artPLAY: So you give space for creativity.

Jivomir: Yes, and still, you can put it on its head. I did an exhibition last year in New York with a photographer friend of mine where it was all about seeing the pieces upside down or in a different way so that it creates its own new life, it’s like a new sculpture. You can put the bustier on the head and it becomes a headpiece.

 

artPLAY: Your pieces are very sculptural: they are all about form and it looks like armor. There is a strong art element.

Jivomir: And that’s why I started with this unusual PVC material, because it’s all about balance. I think it needs to be more than just a garment: a garment is a t-shirt, a jacket, you wear it and throw it away. It needs to have more than that for me. I’m not into disposable fashion. And nowadays, that’s a very important thing. The more people understand how much damage fashion is doing to the world, the more important it is for fashion to have a life more than a day. And in a way, this is what is happening with youth, with young styling, they are re-hatching old pieces, which is a great thing and a bad thing as well. To them, it’s all new, to us: we’ve seen it. Some of the kids becoming hugely famous right now, they’re doing what Lee Barry did, to them it’s new and exciting. As long as they’re excited, let them play. From playing, from experimenting, something great comes.

 

artPLAY: After you finished being a stylist, how did you come up with your own collection?

Jivomir: For styling purposes, for different clients, I used to do a lot of customising just because I was bored working on a budget, so you never have complete free range. So you end up customising and re-designing. That lead on to creating one-off pieces for clients. If you’re styling a musician or something, and you can’t get the perfect piece, you end up doing something special and creating from scratch. I did a lot of music work. I was editor of a magazine called Touch, an urban music magazine, so all of the big American urban stars would come in and I would dress them for the cover. And then, sooner or later, one of my clients wanted me to create some pieces for their show. I did one season for them: I had to do 24 outfits, and I ended up doing these white patent leather dresses, all different. It was reminiscent of Paco Rabanne in the old days, with rings connecting pieces, and when we saw it in the show, it looked incredible.

 

artPLAY: So you made it all from scratch, as a designer job?

Jivomir: Yes, I made all of them myself, and it happened by accident. These shows, I was styling 150 looks for them, and we’d buy Iris Van Herpen and put that in the finale. And then I went ‘fuck it, I’ll do this section’ and it looked really incredible. And the next year, we did the same client, and they’re like, what do you want to do now. And I decided I wanted to do sculptural dresses, with pop colors, but how am I going to do this within budget. And I found this material, and it works amazing for sculptural shapes. It’s PVC. So I did these dresses for a show in Vegas, and it looked incredible. And while I was dressing the actual show, I decided this needed to be full body, so I came back and added arms and legs, and I thought ‘this looks brilliant’. I wanted a collection, it was time. I wanted to get a press officer. But I didn’t even think anyone would like it.

 

artPLAY: It’s part of the artistic process, you put your best into it, even when you’re unsure.

Jivomir: You have to, otherwise what’s the point. And then a few weeks later Paris fashion week happened and I saw one of my favourite designers showing and it looked similar to what I had done in the show. So I decided I wanted to have a show immediately, so that people know I hadn’t copied anybody. It was one of the greatest designers out there and it didn’t look the same, but it was a similar approach. So I got a PR, and literally after the first week I got Italian Vogue. I was approached by Patti Wilson, who is one of the greatest stylists of all times, and an incredible woman. She saw my collection, and she commissioned a number pieces, and V Magazine was the first feature with clear red dresses on El Fanning. And then I got invited to New York, where my stuff got used with her and Steven Klein again for Italian Vogue. By now, everyone wanted to jump on it because Patti had liked it, she’s an incredibly influential stylist. I have been a stylist for 20 years, and all of a sudden I’m on set for Italian Vogue as a designer, meeting my peers, the greatest in the industry, the people you dream about working with.

 

artPLAY: And that was the first collection?

Jivomir: Yes, a part of the first collection. At first, I thought it was going to be a one season thing. Big brands had started doing plastic in everything: from Chanel, to Fendi. I wanted to move onto mixing more fabrics, but not the whole world had seen it yet. So I continued. The second collection was based on the Mardi Gras Indians, who have been a very big influence to me. I had researched them for many years, and tried to meet them: my ex-wife is from next to New Orleans.  One of the big draws for me is that they spend an entire year creating one entire outfit by hand, each person does it themselves, and they come out on fat Tuesday, the day before Mardi Gras, and the next day they destroy the outfit.

 

artPLAY: Coming to the last collection, tell us a little more.

Jivomir: So the collection for winter, Into The Mirror, was a deeply personal collection, and the theme was looking inside yourself at all life’s experiences and how you perceive things. So a very important part of it was the headpieces. They were recycled from old collections: pieces damaged from photoshoots, remade into headpieces. This is an opening up, it was an honest thing. It’s such an important part in my progression that I had to do it. It’s very important that I’m reusing leftover and damaged pieces, because a big concern for me is the material I’ve chosen. It’s plastic, so in a way, I’m recycling it. I’ve saved all of my offcuts: I have plans to do something with it afterwards. Later on, that will hopefully create beautiful furniture. When I was a kid, I wanted to design cars. I was very influenced by car design, and you can see these elements in my work too. A mix of 60s and futuristic car design.

 

artPLAY: And lastly lets talk a little bit about fashion in London, and gender-fluid culture.

Jivomir: It’s a very exciting time. I have a love-hate thing with Instagram, everyone does. But people can show off and experiment, because they’re all desperate for attention, trying harder and harder to be noticed.

 

artPLAY: Building a brand for them feels like they’re achieving something. It’s becoming, losing original essence of creating something, and just gaining attention. To achieve something, you have to be talented, work hard, have a little luck, and be realistic.

Jivomir: Being noticed is a currency: the more famous you become the less you have to work. It is allowing people to experiment though. I also think, it’s an amazing time because people are experimenting with gender-fluid fashion and they’re not scared to experiment. That’s what the beauty of it is: what will come out of that, nobody ever knows, but hopefully something new and amazing. In a way, this feels kind of new, because people aren’t scared to be whatever they want to be. It’s all being played out, in the public eye on social media, but I think it’s a little bit easier because they can find support in that. People should be whatever they want to be, that should be encouraged and allowed: at the moment, a lot of editorials are using diverse models. I don’t understand why things need to be named: you should be allowed to evolve every day into something. The exciting thing is that things do evolve, experimenting is how things evolve. That’s what I find at the moment, whether I like certain fashion or not doesn’t matter: they’re playing, they’re experimenting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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