Young and talented Ivan Sokolyanskiy switches on alternate days between fashion design and modelling. He talks to Electric Avanue about his skills, dreams, hopes and works - “I want to change our world, so I’m gonna change myself.”
The oncoming fashion designer from Ukraine grew up near a sewing machine at his home and his scissor skills run in the family: Ivan’s mother, who is a tailor, showed him her sketches when he was a young boy - ”I was 10 or 11 when I stated to make my own sketches and then I decided to be a designer. I love fashion not because it’s so glamorous but because It’s the way I can explain what I feel.”
Since entering a sewing factory in 2009 as clothes designer and graduating school last year, Ivan Sokolyanski has been studying sewing, pattern design, technology, materials and “everything that is connected with tailoring.” Today he’s a self employed tailor who sews for his friends - “I haven’t money to get further education at the university, so I decided not to give up but to continue self education, I design, make patterns, I sew, I read a lot about fashion, styles and so on.”
When asked about his career as a model, the ambitious designer tells us - “Well, one of my friends who is a photographer, offered me to model for her, and then my sister told me I have a model potential, and then little by little other photographers started offering me photoshoots. Then I was discovered by L Models in Kiev in 2010, but I haven’t done any serious jobs yet. I hope I will! I love modeling as well as design.”
Coming from a poor family background with a difficult childhood, he is now focusing on his inspirations to do something big in his life: “ I’m so dreamy, I think dreams are the best what I have. I’m very addicted to music, it’s one of the biggest sources of inspiration for me, but there are so many things to get inspired. It can be someone’s smile or flying birds in the sky, anything.”
Electric Avenue: Have you created any collections yet? - “Right noow I’m working on sketches for my first collection, I’m extended on an idea of changes in life, in time. I think this collection have to show how I feel about the situation in our world”, says Ivan. He talks to me about his works and reveals his philosophy behind the upcoming collection: “ It’s something that comes out from my inside world. It would be something simple. I love colors, but now I’m familiar with minimalism. I would use a lot of leather.”
See Ivan’s fashion design sketches and professional modelling photo shots at his blog: http://ivnsklnsk.tumblr.com/
Interviewed by Julija Maria @ Electric Avenue. Photo: Ivan’s own.
