Kokosmos - Anna Radchenko

Kokosmos is a purely visual, experimental piece inspired by space and our fascination with the unknown. A surreal fantasy, aimed to extend our perception of reality by letting us wonder over the existence of a higher being and our connection with her.

Synopsis
Shot in Moscow by the award-winning director and photographer Anna Radchenko, Kokosmos is a tribute to Russia’s infatuation with space. Somewhere between a fashion film, a music piece and an experimental video, Kokosmos embraces reality and extends it through magical realism by visually answering the question: what if? The video is Radchenko’s first piece combining CGI with real footage, a direction that she is looking to explore with her future productions.
Kokosmos is a collaboration with model Yana Dobroliubova, recognised for her striking and ethereal looks which break away from traditional beauty standards. Inspired by Dobroliubova’s unearthly aesthetic, as well as Japanese manga artist Shintaro Kago, Radchenko expresses our constant need to explore and search by focusing on the concept of the all-seeing eye.
The music and sound was custom made specifically for this piece. Collaborating with creative music and sound design duo Playhead, they worked with the London-based singer songwriter Alyusha Chagrin to create an otherworldly-sounding language to fit the scenario.
Similarly, the choice of clothing and make-up is also meant to fit with post-soviet space theme; Radchenko brings in elements of folklore by specifically selecting Russian fashion designers and sticking to a neon color palette featuring bright shades of green and purple.


“Growing up in post soviet Russia I’d be constantly dreaming about space, the unknown and what was out there, almost like an unknown entity we were trying to reach out to. With Kokosmos I wanted to express exactly that: my vision of what space and this god-like presence would look and feel like” - Anna Radchenko

Anna Radchenko is an award-winning director and multidisciplinary artist from Moscow, who now resides in London. Her specialisations are short films, music videos, commercials, mixed media editorial projects and art installations. Graduating with a distinction in MA Fashion Photography from London College of Fashion, Radchenko’s films have been selected for the world’s major fashion and short film festivals including London, Berlin, Los Angeles and more. In terms of vision, she uses surreal ideas to create content that is both optically arresting and memorable.
Anna is represented by Kode Media in the UK.

annaradchenko.com

Credits

Director and Executive Producer: Anna Radchenko (@radchenko_academy) - KODE media (@kodemedia)

Co-director: Mikhail Svjatogor (@mikhail_svjatogor)

DoP: Roman Yudin (@yuare)

Producer: Anastasia Limarenko (@sonic__lee)

Model: Yana Dobroliubova (@yananay1)

CG Artist and Supervisor: Murat Kılıç

CG artist: Yanis Georges (@ethikdesign)

CG compositing: Murat Kılıç

Music and Sound Design: Lister Rossel (@listerrossel), Utkucan Eken (@utkucaneken) - We Are Playhead (@we_are_playhead)

Singer: Alyusha Chagrin

Editors: Suga Supiah, Ikki Dhesi (@ikkidhesi)

Colour: Tobias Tomkins - CHEAT (cheat_it)

Post-production producer: Jack Goodwin (@jack_kode) - KODE media

Make-up: Darya Kholodnykh (@darya_kholodnykh)

Stylist: Anna Bakhareva (@bakharevaa)

Fashion designers: o5o.moscow (@o5o.moscow), AVA11, Go Authentic (@Go Authentic), Anya Komyagina (@komyaginaanya)

 

Greetings from Skopje - North Macedonia

Skopje Fashion Weekend x United Fashion

Marija Kulušić

19th edition of Skopje Fashion Weekend x United Fashion

For several years now BPB has been supportive of Skopje Fashion Weekend, following the fashion scene from the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, recently renamed to North Macedonia. Against the background of the recent political history, tough economic situation and complex social structures, Skopje Fashion Weekend is a recurring fashion weekend that looks primarily ahead. Although I was in Skopje once before, this visit gave a small insight into the relatively small fashion scene of Macedonia.
What made this 19th edition special, is the cooperation with United Fashion, a project funded by Creative Europe. Thanks to this collaboration, the SFW organization has put together an international program with mainly young and emerging labels. In particular, there were many designers from the South East Europe and Ex-Yugoslavian region such as Marko Feher from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Marija Kulušić from Croatia and Sofija Urumović from Slovenia.
The programme contained fashion shows, showroom and an exhibition by Ivan Asen 22 avant-garde fashion collective from Bulgaria. The core of the 19th edition was the United Fashion SEE Showroom.  Skopje Fashion Weekend took this opportunity and gathered designers and professionals from across Europe, making the short trip to Skopje worth the effort.

Unit­ed Fash­ion is car­ried out by a clus­ter of Euro­pean fash­ion sup­port asso­ci­a­tions MAD Brussels (BE), Flanders DC (BE), ModaLisboa (PT), Baltic Fashion Federation (LV), Maison de Mode (FR), Fashion Weekend Skopje (MK), Fashion Council Germany (DE) and Not Just A Label (UK).
The aim of the project was to enhanc­e the cul­ture of fash­ion design­ers across Europe to be more busi­ness mind­ed and at enhanc­ing their com­pet­i­tive­ness inter­na­tion­al­ly, with­out lim­it­ing their creativity. Unit­ed Fash­ion received the sup­port from the Cre­ative Europe pro­gramme of the Euro­pean Union.
Through a num­ber of inter­na­tion­al net­work events and trans­dis­ci­pli­nary train­ing work­shops, over a four-year peri­od, more than 150 fash­ion design­ers will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate by show­cas­ing their col­lec­tion, get­ting to know and under­standing sev­er­al Euro­pean mar­kets, devel­op­ing new skills in fash­ion tech, sus­tain­able fash­ion, pro­duc­tion, craftsmanship, and business models.

As members of the international association that is implementing the ‘United Fashion’ project, organizers of this year’s 19th edition of Fashion Weekend Skopje welcomed twenty-nine emerging labels from all over Europe. The main goal of the ‘United Fashion SEE Showroom’ project in Skopje is to promote fashion designers from Southeastern Europe (SEE) to international buyers and media representatives, as well as to connect designers from the European Union with Macedonian factories. For this purpose, activities included presentation of the SEE market by professionals in the industry, presentations from selected local manufacturers, visit to the factories and meetings between participating designers and local producers.

The list of participants featured in the showroom included Andra Handaric (Romania), Arthropoda (N.Macedonia), Chic Utility (Romania), Concepto (Romania), Cristina Real (Portugal), Diana Arno (Estonia), Dragana Mihajlovic (Serbia), Ece Özalp (Turkey), Evgenija Zafirovska (Slovenia), Faulhaber Products (Germany), Hanfaz (France), Kokoro (Montenegro), Ksenija Kotev (N.Macedonia), Lila Style House (Bulgaria), Lommer (Greece), Marija Kulusic (Croatia), Marko Feher (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mateyaneira (Croatia), MLS – Marie Laurence Stevigny (Belgium), n.d.c. made by hand (Belgium), Oh Suzy! (France), One Wolf (Latvia), Red Juliet (Belgium), Rosica Mrsik (N.Macedonia), Senem Unal (Turkey), Tanja Christiani (Germany), The Mannequin Collection (Greece), Toos Franken (Belgium) and Vesa Gruda (Kosovo).

Below you can take a look at the impressions from the Skopje Fashion Weekend and some highlighs.
Most images are by BPB, several are in courtesy of SFW.

https://fashionweekendskopje.mk
https://www.united-fashion.eu

FASHIONCLASH Festival 2019 - Campaign Launch

FASHIONCLASH presents the 11th edition of the international and interdisciplinary FASHIONCLASH Festival in Maastricht on 1 to 3 November.

The program with fashion presentations, exhibitions, crossovers with theater and dance, fashion talks, expert meetings, master classes and a public program gives designers and (stage) artists the opportunity to show their work to a broad (inter)national audience. The festival offers an opportunity to discover the latest talent and developments in fashion design and to be amazed by the art of fashion. Almost the entire program is accessible to the general public by means of ticket sales, free activities and targeted public programs. FCF is all about discovering new talent, boosting and shaping current developments in fashion art and opening up these developments to a wide audience. The 11th edition focuses on and is substantively shaped from the starting points: the Clash (art of fashion, experiment and cross-overs) and Fashion Makes Sense (sustainability and awareness about the impact and role of fashion in society).

‘For this edition, the starting point was to embody the renewed spirit of FASHIONCLASH, but with attention to where the basis of the platform comes from. The 2019 edition stands for the clash in FASHIONCLASH, the search for creating new fashion stories. With the new festival period (previously the festival took place in June / July) we are looking for a better connection to the international fashion agenda and we want to provide in a platform for the new generation of designers who will graduate in June.’ - FC team

Campaign The campaign images are created in co-operation with artist Lisette Ros and photographer Lonneke van der Palen.

‘Instead of a collection of colour, shape and material, Lonneke and I wanted to bring the image back to the essence; the pure. We tried to find the statement of the ‘clash’ in image and let go of fashion and put creation and searching for boundaries within different disciplines in a broader perspective. That’s why we started experimenting with transparency, in figural and literal sense. It was mostly about the interaction between Produced, Nature and Transparency. I tried to become a literal blank canvas. With my body, I tried to find the boundaries of transparency and ‘being’ and to combine this with other materials that are inspired by what is natural.’ - Lisette Ros

Campaign credits:
Concept: Lisette Ros, Lonneke van der Palen
Artist/performer: Lisette Ros Photography: Lonneke van der Palen
Graphic design: Studio Noto - Ivo Straetmans

www.fashionclash.nl

Van Eyck Open Studios 2019

Gabriella Marcella

Every year in March, one of the highlights of the Maastricht art discourse, the Open Studio days are Van Eyck Academy. The 46 participating artists, designers, curators and writers change every room of the Academy, transforming their studios into galleries with exhibitions, performances, installations and more.

Please take a look at the selection of works presented at the Open Studios 2019.

www.janvaneyck.nl