What is urban fashion? Is it woven, modeled, or brought together? Is there a unique Kaunas style, image, and trend? We really surprised ourselves when, after arranging the list of this issue’s heroes, texts, and images, we realized how many walls have crumbled and how many stereotypes have evaporated since people started talking with anthropological curiosity or tabloid irony here and there – in the kitchens and on TV – about Kaunas and its residents’ fashion.
The memories of women who worked in textile factories. A Vilnius native lured to Kaunas by love. Apparently, his great-grandfather had worked in one such factory. A designer who studied painting and lived in Berlin, finally opened her grandmother’s chest. A duo that is piecing together their biography from photographs, flyers, emblems, and soundtracks. The founder of the self-love studio, engaged in the search for inner beauty. A (more than a) wedding dress designer, who discovered her sign in Radauskas’ poetry. The youth of Kaunas inviting fashion to the streets. And a place where you can truly start your journey. Although, it is possible to do that anywhere else. After all, the stories featured in the August issue could have happened anywhere in the world.
Digging with one hand into what is, at best, respectfully preserved, and sometimes washed, sewn, or worn into shreds, and brushing through the densely hung garments of the latest collections with another, we do not seek to understand what fashion is and what it means to be a fashionable person. But what does it mean to be beautiful? It just so happens that most of the time, those who share style and image tips are much more concerned with the contents of their wallets (and therefore their closets) than the reflection in your mirror. However, it shows best what you breathe, what you nourish yourself with, and where your gaze is fixed upon. All the rest are just details that allow you to either stand out from the crowd or hide in it. And it is always useful to have different kinds (of those details).
So we hope that those of you who are impatiently waiting for the new season and those who are completely indifferent to annual cycles, will both enjoy getting acquainted with the legendary duo of Gitis Bertulis and Kristina Maselskytė, the excerpts from the life of workers of Kaunas textile factories, the founder of Studio Archetip Lukas Tomaševičius, the owner of Berlin Monroe Simona Poškuvienė, fashion designers Inga Skripka and Joana Rožkovaitė, Komoda created in the context of Kaunas 2022 program Kylantis Kaunas and Stella Justina Kasperavičienė, coordinator of the Fashion Design study program of the Faculty of Arts and Education of Kaunas College.
