Sveta Sotnikova was born in Russia. Fashion was an early passion for her. After working for some of the most important brands such as model, she decided to attend the Marangoni Institute in Milan. 2019 was the turning point, she started her own Sveta Milano brand. Its unique design offers a modern interpretation of femininity by creating comfortable silhouettes through a cross-pollination between luxury and grunge elements.
What do grunge and luxury have in common?
Probably nothing. What I like to represent through my collections is the beauty of the opposites and the different possibilities they have to interact in order to send messages able to overcome the rigid and conformist societal structure. Nothing matter for me to have respect each other and to consider human differences really valuable.
How do the models relate to your concept? Who are the #SvetaGirls?
This aspect is really relevant for me. I search for girls able to relate to my idea of life. Because doing business in fashion is a way of turning my world vision into something people can touch and live.
Fashion is a revolution not an evolution, and the #Svetagirls are my peaceful army.
Apart from being a creative director, what do you believe is the role or the responsibility of the contemporary fashion designer in society today?
I feel the responsibility of being a conscious person. The world’s changing and our new reality calls for boldness and resistance, demanding inclusivity and embracing the future.
What is the main inspiration behind the latest collections?
I did call my latest collection “The Garden of dissidents“. It’s the first episode of Sveta Milano’s utopia. A place of mindfulness and immanent space, where the concepts of freedom and ambivalences coexist in an incessant and continuous effort of mutual respect, in an attempt to overcome the conformism of the society in which we live.
Furthermore, that’s a reflection about the sense of doing fashion today. Not a foolish run to follow the season but timeless items to rediscover through time.
What is the best lesson you have learned along the way?
We are what we live. No fear about what is different. Human differences conjures up the excitement of rediscovering the beauty where we thought there wasn’t.
What are your feelings towards retail giants?
Hate and love. I acknowledge the importance they have spreading the awareness of the brand and place where cultivate human relations as well as well as their necessity to pick brands up they can sell, but I don’t tolerate their absence of doing effectively research giving. Despite that I am deeply persuaded that the best thing for small brands is to learn exploiting the digital world to run into final consumers.
