The Panels “Панелките”

I was born in time to catch the last decade of communism in East Europe.  My life was supposed to be predestined because the political system did not provide for basic freedoms of expression, creativity, or foreign travel.  Except for the privileged few, most people were told where to live, what to study or work, and what is acceptable against any laws of reason, education or morality.  There was no Christmas, we had bananas once a year, Coke was obtained only through special connections and all kids had the same toys, bikes and clothes.  We lived in a room, a kitchen and a bathroom of a 10-story panel building with my parents for the first 9 years of my life.  My parents had their assigned jobs in the then uprising IT institute, we were lucky to have a clumsy Lada which overheated on any up-hill and my dad would make me repeat my name, hang a string with keys on my neck and throw me over the fence of my school on his way to work.  I had to wear a uniform to school, pledge allegiance to old bald guys with big red stars and was forced to mourn the death of Brejnev.   As any kid, regardless of your surroundings, I grew up with my unspoiled visions of the stories my grandparents read to me and let my imagination run free. 

I was fascinated by colors and shapes and used the cement wall of our tiny balcony as my sketchbook for my oil-based permanent crayons.  In the playground, while climbing the now considered extremely dangerous metal structures underneath which all you had was more cement, I dreamed to be driving boats and cars on my around-the-world ventures.  It probably is the simplicity of any childhood that makes you resilient and independent ever more so because, a few years later, when the Berlin Wall collapsed and I won a scholarship to study in America, my life took a turn into a completely unexpected and undreamed of direction.  

"The Panels” (“Панелките”) is a return to the places in Sofia where I grew up, through the prism of fashion and aesthetics.  It aims to show the contrast between what could be considered as unattractive, plain, and basic for a place of origin and the refinement of a mature and worldly adult, established away from it but thanks to those roots.  The underlying message is to demonstrate that growing up in any type of hopeless or disadvantaged environment does not limit a human spirit from its search for personal growth, expression and creativity.  

The styling is inspired from the 70s, 80s and 90s as those are my first memories of fashion, making clothes with my grandmother using old Burda magazine designs.  One of the looks is specifically inspired by Lyudmila Jivkova, in no way related to the political system her father dictated, but for her spirit of an independent woman who did her best to support the arts, international interaction for children, in an environment which forbid all of it.  My life and professional development is a proof that what was once considered impossible or unthinkable can happen, and no one should ever give up on their dreams or the child within.