iii.

i don’t really remember how i first discovered gosha rubchinskiy, but ever since his works have been haunting me. skinheads, football hooligans, metalheads, ’90s youth, post-perestroyka youth. according to rubchinskiy himself (according to this site), “his muse reads the bible and victor pelevin’s novels, is into orthodoxy, runes, numerology, football, satanism and shamanism“. i won’t be the first, nor the last to say it, but in all of that – in his inspirations and aesthetics, even in the people he caters to – i see late ’90s/early ’00s raf simons. and in that sense i don’t know whether i should say that he’s a breath of fresh air or if he’s that odd perfume that evokes memories of “the good old days”, but whichever of the two he is – or hell, even if he’s neither – i think we can all appreciate his vision, considering it’s not something we see every day nowadays.

you can see pictures from his autumn/winter 2012-13 collection below (via lookatme). based on the youth culture of the russian city of arkhangelsk, you can feel its spirit not only in the garments themselves, but in the presentation as well – as rubchinskiy himself has stated, he is not a designer, he is a an artist that enjoys designing clothes. and that is what i enjoy about his work – it’s not just clothes for the sake of clothes, it’s a piece of a specific era, a piece of a specific spirit of youth.

  

   

some of my favourite garments of his have to be the spring/summer 2012 sweatshirts and t-shirts, done in collaboration with altamont and featuring inscriptions saying “аглец” and “чёрные псы” (“black dogs”).

one might say that in order to appreciate his clothes, you’d have to be at least a little familiar with the roots of his inspiration, to have an understanding of those youth cultures he’s winking at, all in all – to be able to feel the aesthetic nostalgia they bring. and in a way, that might be true, for that is what ultimately makes us like things as much as we do – even if it is on the deepest subconscious level, we enjoy their familiar feel. but even if you’re not familiar with his world, even if you were a teenager during the ’70s or, heck, are a teenager now, i urge you to try to understand his views, for they’re definitely about more than just clothes and are definitely very, very intriguing.

also, i’d suggest you check out his flickr, there are some really great photographs on it!