Posts

Showing posts from September, 2023

LOST DESIGNERS: KIRA PLASTININA

Image
 Kira Plastinina is a Russian fashion designer who showcased her first collection in January 2008 at AltaRoma fashion week in Rome, Italy.  She was born on June 1, 1992 in Moscow, Russia, making her only fifteen years old at the age of her debut. Her shockingly young age was the reason behind many articles that were published between 2008 and 2010 on European and North American magazines.  I came to know about Kira in 2008, while reading  W.I.T.C.H , an Italian kids and teen magazine, which was published from 2001 to 2012. It was surprising to find a full on, breaking news type of fashion article being featured on a magazine that normally centered around fiction, fantasy, and lifestyle. Again, the article's main point of interest was Kira Plastinina's young age.  Two more factors caused an enormous buzz around her public figure: her financial background, and her team's incredible PR skills. Each and every article about her work mentioned Kira's father, as one of the mai

TOKYO CULTURE STORY. MEN MAKE WOMEN CRAZY THEORY

Image
I was recently in London, and I had the pleasure to visit Japan House. It's a cultural institution that's home to Japanese art exhibitions, a library, a cafĂ© and a store. When I visited, the library at Japan House was hosting a fashion book exhibition. I spent some time there, browsing through the numerous publications. Most of them were books that have only been published in Japanese, and they're generally hard to find online. One of the books that really caught my attention was What's Next? Tokyo Culture Story by Beams Japan. I had already heard of Beams, they sell products inspired by Japanese culture, and they also publish books and magazines. I was surprised to find out that a book centered around Tokyo's fashion, film, music and culture- a topic that might interest a vast quantity of foreigners- was actually only published in Japanese. It just goes to show how much Japan still is, in a way, hard to penetrate, and therefore it still holds a lot of its charm an