KIEV WORKWEAR

#LOVEYOURHOMO – interview with KIEV workwear team.

Tell us some basic infos about the brand. When did the idea come out and how everything started?

The idea come out handling the original Ikea logo jacket and suddenly the idea was clear to us, this was happening last year, right before the whole big Balenciaga boom and this already meant a lot to us because we thought we were looking in the right direction. Gosha Rubchinskiy, Demna Gvasalia and Lotta Volkova of course are a big inspiration to us and so we decided to create our own concept and speak at loud to share our personal message. The team was built in the first months of 2017 and all of the design office, marketing and creative direction focused on workwear as representative of a new solid aesthetic to work on. The gender equality message came by itself, especially analyzing the critic situation of homosexuals in our country and all over eastern Europe. The design team is based in Kiev, so we wanted to pay homage to our city playing with the Ikea lettering / logo and most important our slogan carries the message no matter how the further collections will be. The production is totally made in Italy, we are very focused on the quality of materials of the real workwear. Most of the castings, shootings and production team has been put together in Milan with young talented and real working people. We want to focus on giving a chance and space to them and we are looking for new people everyday.

What is the hardest part of turning a concept into an actual brand?

The hardest part of turning a concept into an actual brand is everything that comes within making something beautiful ! We believe that well crafted products with a clear elegant easthetic is the best way to share the ideas with people that understand beauty and follow that kind of image and wish to be part of that whole world.

How do you descripe your brand in one sentence?

Eastern Europe working class aesthetics with an elegant taste sharing homosexual message through real workwear clothing.

What do you think about IKEA?

Ikea is a whole world that stands for itself and all of it’s image is a working class aesthetic inspiration for us. Little ideas for big masses with a democratic yet elegant taste makes things work nowadays like it or not. All this attention from the past months is just a clear sign of the times. A part of fashion, visual arts and social media look at these kind of worlds to represent part of the contemporary society mixing luxury and proletariat at the same time.

Can you tell some funny or interesting „makeing of” story about your lookbook/video shooting?

The models took a real shower during the final minutes of the shooting and our photographer started taking some pictures that turned out to be some of the most interesting and appreciated shots of the look book. Same happened for our video maker that filmed the whole shower session !

If you have a chance to pick a celebrity/famous people to wear KIEV who would be?

Ingvar Kamprad 🙂

What should we expect from KIEV in the near future?

We are looking forward for collaborations with young talents, mostly spotted by Instagram, and share artworks along with our collection. We are preparing also a space on our website for those who want to share their experience in working class environment as homosexuals. We want to give a free space to young editors, contributors, photographers and make them use our platform to challenge their talent. All of our team was built up like this and we are proud of their amazing work. Regarding the next collection we have big surprises with a fresh new aesthetic coming from another working class world, always keeping in mind our slogan #loveyourhomo.

Where can we buy KIEV?

The collection is sold only online on www.bykiev.com for now, but we are taking agreements with some shops in Europe that are getting to be really interested in the product, we have been noticed by some of these shops through Instagram. We want to make sure that real workwear to represent a part of the working class aesthetic through the eyes of homosexual mixed with eastern Europe taste.