PORTFOLIO
Yulia Tkachenko
Follow the Red Line
Behind the Curve
Meet your Doppelganger
CONTENT
FOLLOW THE RED LINE
Behind the Curve Looking through fashion magazines & tv shows, it feels like there is only one type of women in the world: white, skinny, tall. Being a bit bigger & shorter than a girl ‘should’ be, I always felt deprived & restricted. Today I want to change modern beauty standards, I want bigger, I want darker, I want different. To create a difference with my collection, I focused on the beautiful curvy body, on its special anatomical features, smooth lines. My goal was to create a perfect outer skin, not hide any of the curvy parts or even show more than expected. To complete my task, I used frank silhouettes & a mix of translucent nets. Except nets, to create soft autumn / winter garments, I used thick knitted woollen fabric, tender fleece &, to inflame the perfect look, soft sliding sateen. In spite of the exciting shapes, my colour palette stays conservative: four shades of grey, from light pre-rain sky to cold & darker grey stones soaked by the sea. My girl is a daredevil. She is brave enough to be herself, to be different from the majority who sometimes kill themselves to reach ‘perfection’. She is staying true & natural, she accepts her specialities, she accepts & feels in love with her body & mind. She is beautiful.
BEHIND THE CURVE
Meet your Doppelgänger “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself you see.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking-Glass Mirrors. Have you ever felt your reflection keeps looking at you after you’ve turned from it? Your reflection, your twin, your Doppelgänger keeps looking. Is it still you or someone else? This question pushed me to build a collection focused on mirrors & reflection. But who said reflection should be exactly the same? The idea of reflected objects found me during my visit to Marc Quinn`s exhibition. The Artist presented his latest sculptures of broken shells made of steel, the shell`s flesh was polished so I saw myself in the reflection…or not myself? The Exhibition influenced not only the mirror conception of the collection; but encouraged silhouettes of intricate shapes of the shells with the colour of the steel. The collection was created in one colour - grey. Middle colour, mix of white & black, light & darkness. As in each person, grey contains good & evil sides, there is everyday battles, and sometimes one side wins. To show the contrast between darkness & light, I used two shades of grey: light grey, the colour of the sky for a minute before the rain, and dark earthy grey. Soft cotton helped me to create dramatic shell silhouettes & the fight of the colour contrasts. But the main accent focused on more stiff silver fabric, which brings back the mirror identity & perfectly reflects the light, creating an enchanted atmosphere around the model. My lady is Alice. Alice Through the Looking Glass. She lives in two parallel worlds at the same time: reality & dreams. Sometimes she is a fearless, adventurous woman, sometimes - a shy little girl, full of reservations. Always different, always the same.
MEET YOUR DOPPELGANGER
YULIA TKACHENKO