Ania Nebrenchina, Art-Director of French-Russian brand Roi et Moi. Why Russian designers do so few references to Russian art? The problem is that Russia has no culture of preserving heritage. We’ve been looking at the West for so long thinking there was something revealing behind the iron curtain. The grass Ania Nebrenchina is always greener on the other side. There might be another aspect as well – you need specific circumstances and another culture to be fascinated, so that the eye can notice the difference. For instance, when you visit Eastern countries we’re literally stricken by different visuals, it is a kind of colour shock. People are born there, live there and work day-to-day in this environment and it’s the norm for them. I think art cannot be born in a certain culture and not be understood by it. Isn’t art a commonplace thing today, if we can put it that way? I’ve been thinking about it myself lately. I have a feeling that art has become very commercial today. In the past everyone seemed inspired by music, its style and energy. Today everybody is in to art. However there is still a difference to merely using a picture you’ve heard about and applying knowledge where you can use it beneficially. Another thing is to be fascinated with art and then it means far more to you.
Nina Donis Collection
this heritage from another angle and light, to deliver the initial idea and maybe to reflect his or her own vision. Local art reflection on fashion could be a promising starting point for Russian designers. Moreover it’s done continuously and persistently by Nina Donis, interpreting for instance Kazimir Malevich. Smaller brands such as Dictatura Estetica do well thanks to big companies’ top-managers wearing their unique shirts with modern Russian artists’ №4(04) 16-29 June 2011
printed paintings. They have not lost their charm striving for a global context. By the way, Dasha Zhukova has recently presented a new art magazine in Venice, created in cooperation with Mike Meire, art-director from Germany. It is a kind of reincarnation of his first Apart magazine. He could never be blamed for kitsch and knows how best to make a single country’s and a town’s heritage veritably appealing to the whole global community.
What is Russian in your brand? It’s difficult to answer your question definitively. All Russian references of the brand fled to Paris during a certain historic period which is why the brand is biculturally inspired. Have you ever Roi et Moi worked in AW 11/12 collaboration with collection Russian artists within your brand? Yes, we have, and it was a challenge. When it is about collaboration it should be cooperation. Virtually any one can bring a new touch to something existing. It might change soon but now nobody wants to look inside, everyone seems to do something superficial. If I like an artist or a sculptor, I try to figure out what is behind them, how and why they do it. It’s not a two-dimensional picture for me but rather what is behind the work. The art attracts not per se but of the person, their ideas and capacity. 21