PLNGNS
Mitya Hontarenko, Founder and Creative Director
1. How does it feel to be back for Ukrainian Fashion Week?
It is still something new for us because, before the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, we took part in the Ukrainian Fashion Week for the first time. It was a joint event for young designers, and we presented our concept. Within the framework of this project, we also had an educational course. But everything that happened before the Russian invasion feels like a past life, which you no longer remember differently from what is now.
We are happy that the Ukrainian Fashion Week is returning to Kyiv and to be part of this. Of course, we have concerns about safety because Russia is a terrorist state, but we know that the Ukrainian Fashion Week team will do everything well and everyone will be safe.
2. What influences your creative practice?
Everything that happens around us affects our work in one way or another, and not only directly, as when our power plants are destroyed, and we can sit without electricity for a day, making work impossible, but also affects the subconscious mind, transmitting it in our works.
For example, the latest collection, ‘Sneaker Riot,’ is influenced by both colours and styles of things: the three colours of khaki (war) / brown (earth, the soil on which there is war) / black (grief from the loss of loved ones in war). Cropped fitted jackets are similar to ‘Ubacs’ military shirts, and vests remotely resemble bulletproof vests and military unloading systems – all of this has its mark in our work, where we, with the help of our vision, change the perception of these colours and types of clothing embodied in our items through a creative vision.
Fashion is a mirror of society. Of course, these are not our words, but we completely agree with them.
3. Sustainability is at the forefront of your work. What inspired you to take this position?
This is embedded in our brand concept, and we are thrilled that it was not attracted artificially because it is necessary or fashionable; it turned out naturally, simply scaling our idea.
We are developing our concept and are among the first ones to do it not only in the form of some accessories from recycled shoes leaving it in the form of art objects. We create items that can be called wearable art, which are fully functional and thereby show others, even large fashion corporations, the idea that – unsold leftover shoes or old shoes are easier to burn than to recycle – is a false statement.
Of course, recycling and creating material from old shoes is a rather long process because shoes have many different elements (rubber, textiles, leather/eco-leather, etc.). However, we do not just say but also demonstrate that by approaching with creativity, it is possible to turn ‘waste’ into exclusive capsule collections, for example, and this model can be made profitable for these same brands and fashion corporations.
Our personal goal is to develop a brand with a closed cycle of existence, when you can make new items in a circle, improve your past material, and open it in a new way, from collection to collection. We have developed in working with materials – this makes us very excited about moving in the right direction.
Of course, this path is quite challenging because to make our items commercially successful, time and money are needed, so sometimes we balance the boundary from bankruptcy to an incredible show within the fashion week, but thanks to the fashion organisations that support us we still here and moving forward, although it is not so easy.
4. Who do you design clothing and footwear for?
If we talk about our audience, it will probably be fair to say that we divide it into two categories:
First, it’s our customers who buy and will buy our products directly or in partner stores and second, its fashion brands and corporations who can implement our concept to work with unsold shoes and accessories in their business model. For this, for example, it is enough to invite our brand/concept to work together and implement the functioning of the concept into the structure of the brand and further invite various creative designers to work in this new branch of the brand and turn their leftovers into new capsule collections and limited collaborations. Thereby working sustainably and turning unsold leftovers into profitable drops and items.
5. Can you explain the collaborative ‘create’ option you offer your consumers?
Each of us has, had or will have some favourite thing in the wardrobe. It is hard to throw it away, but it is impossible to wear it anymore. It happened with my sneakers when I washed my favourite sneakers in the washing machine with the wrong settings. They became unusable, and these sneakers were memorable for me. So they were lying in the closet for about two years. Then I was thinking about the next idea for customising sneakers (before starting the PLNGNS brand in 2021, I did it as a hobby customising sneakers for friends and acquaintances), so I cut this pair and another one, then sewed them together by hand. Now you see what it led to, although there was still much work to do. All that is happening now is the team’s work that I gathered around the brand .
Therefore, for an individual order, we can offer to make an item not just from strictly recycled shoes but to recycle your shoes that can no longer be used, giving them a new life and outfit for you!
