#Natalia Gorkaya. Interview with a stylist

 

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CABINETdeL’ART : How did you begin your career in the fashion industry?

I decided to become a fashion designer when I was still 12 years old, that’s why I got into the Department of Costume Design.
After finishing the 3d year I was taking a walk with my friend and he asked suddenly: “Why don’t you try yourself as a stylist, you have good taste, don’t you?” And I thought really why not, given that we had the entire summer ahead!

It was easy enough to find a photograph and a pretty girl. After making the photo session and uploading some photos on “Vkontakte” (note: the biggest Russian social network) I went into searching for new helpful contacts.
We shot just nonsensical things that make me laugh when I remember it. At that time, I raved about the photos published by Lev Efimov. At one point I ceased following his updates on purpose since it was offence to me seeing those amazing beauty and harmony in every photo. I realized that my taste and sense of style were developing at much more high rates than those of guys whom I was collaborating with on occasion in that period of time. As I’d stopped following Lev’s web pages I missed his posting about searching for a stylist, but I was into luck since my friend and model Ursula Kim gave him a link to my profile and Lev contacted me.

I began working with Lev Efimov. Mainly, we shot tests for models. Notwithstanding backache I got because of carrying continuously packages of clothes, I was totally glad!
I had to be very active, we had shootings almost every day and I understood that I did not manage to both study and work, I could not go all out nowhere. A couple of months of collaboration with Lev Efimov were more helpful than my entire period of study – my taste was honing, my eye was becoming more and more penetrating, and my new contacts were helpful. I analyzed the situation and decided to quit studying.

 

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CA : Where do you find inspiration?

I get inspired not only by paging through blogs and visiting museums but also by my occasional metro companions, old books, my friends’ characters, shadows crossing on the asphalt…

Inspiration sources are everywhere, we should just learn to notice them.

CA: Who are your muses regarding style?

I cannot chose only one person to award the title of “the Style Icon”, there is a plenty of gorgeous people of fashion. May be it is difficult for me to chose such a “muse” because personally I do not limit my preferences. I can’t imagine it when there is such abundance of clothes and its combinations! 

CA: What methods do you prefer to stay in step with trends?

Now I am going to tell a big phrase: “I do not believe in fashion”

I believe in harmony and beauty. In my opinion, the very idea of trend dissolved together with the 20th century. Today it is fashionable to wear everything at once. Fashion just comes back and is transformed by means of contrast combinations of styles and fabrics. Of course I follow shows and new shootings, but I do not find any taboo or strict rules in them saying that “this is on trend and that is, quite the opposite, prohibited to wear”. Such restrictions existed in 1920s, 30s, 40s and so on. One was permitted to get dressed “in a way” and no other way. Now everything has changed.

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CA: Natasha, as to your wardrobe, do you adhere to a certain style? And what influences on your own look?

When I am looking at a thing I can never say: “Oh, that’s my style!” I don’t like restrictions and I wear everything except down jackets and blue jeans, to my mind, it is too simple and improper for a stylist. I can’t wear boring clothes, I can’t wear the same clothes two days running. I love contrast combinations and, with that, I always give an eye to the harmony of my look.

CA: Natasha, have you ever had an experience of being an image maker?

Certainly, I often work as a shopper, analyze wardrobes at client’s home, and develop style for musicians and ordinary people.

CA: What your works, you believe, are the most interesting and why?

 I am never bored while working, even if I am stylizing a down jacket look book. I always try to get on the right side of the client. The greatest challenge is to “win over” a person whose taste contradicts my views or is lacking at all. It’s very fine to work with adult overweight women. After you succeed in finding clothes for a challenging form, they are thrilled to bits, and this inspires you a great deal.

As a rule, the most interesting work is the voluntary one J. But please do not think that I will stylize an advertising video on TFP terms, I intend creative shooting. That’s great when there are your like-minded fellows in the shooting stage, and you create beauty and more together J.

When I like style, makeup and the light the photograph set forth, and the model feels the mood created by the entire team, I can sometimes experience such intense emotions that I may even be moved to tears. It happened to me at the shooting with Igor Pavlov, when Polina Ivochkina was falling on the trampoline wearing a floaty dress of the designer Lesya Rusakovich (photo 1). The same thing happened during a summer shooting with Konstantin Sorokin when Sofia Muntyan was wiggling on a wooden rocking chair amidst an enormous field

 

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CA: Do you always manage to find some common ground with the client if your opinions on the shooting style differ?

Even if sometimes it is not easy, it is always possible. If the client insists on his own idea you can suggest shooting both variants, but after getting the results you will choose the variant the stylist has offered. I can say that I’ve never come across any explicit dispute on the shooting stage. More often the client hiring me knows that he may trust the stylist as a stylist work is to take care of harmony and clarity of looks.

CA: What mistakes are intolerable in your work?

Being late.

CA: Does the style influence on choosing a shooting location?

It is always more interesting to work not in a workshop but outdoor or in a suite with vivid interior. But it is also possible to create an unusual environment in the workshop. Not long ago, in the VOXStudios, together with the TrendsBrands team we created the in-shot environment by our own efforts having ordered previously the delivery of a minimum of furniture and accessories.

CA: Tell us please an interesting fact about you the Internet is not still aware of.

Gorkaya is my pseudonym, my real surname is different.

CA: Could you please give an advice for people who want to begin career in the fashion industry?

Develop your social networks, they are the most powerful advertising space of your work.

 

CA: And finally, tell us please your 5 favorites for the oncoming season.

Jacquemus, Loewe, Jil Sander, Viktor & Rolf, Vetements.

Author || Irina Rusinovich @cabdelart_irina

 

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