Editor's Letter: Ukrainian Vogue presents the winter print issue of 2024/25
The winter print edition of Vogue Ukraine Edition No. 8 is published with the slogan "real and imaginary." On the eve of the Christmas and New Year holidays, it is dedicated to fantasies that help us understand life and master reality.
At the end of September in Paris, Alessandro Michele debuted as Valentino creative director. Models in eccentric ensembles made of lace, multi-coloured stones, and feathers walked down a catwalk made of shattered mirrors. Isn't this the best metaphor for the modern world, which tries to see and recognise itself in myriad distorted reflections?
This winter issue is dedicated to fantasies — or rather, the imaginary, which can tell us more about the real world than any documentation. What and how we dream is evidence of who we are.
A powerful exhibition on surrealism is currently on show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It speaks of dreams, eros, chimaeras, and… dictatorship. There I couldn't help but recall our interview with a young Kyiv actor, Vitaliy Azhnov. This year, he is starring as bloody emperor Caligula in Ivan Uryvsky's play. The actor is preparing for his big screen premiere. In a new drama he plays Kazimir Malevich, not a surrealist, of course, but a romantic who dreamed of building a new world.
With Italian photographer Marco Imperatore, we went to Marseille. Marco shot the Chanel cruise collection there, which, in May 2024, was presented on the roof of a communal high-rise building designed by Le Corbusier – another utopia that reminds us of a future that never happened to us.
Kyiv event organiser Iryna Kovalchuk invited Vogue to her country house near Kyiv, where, despite the war, she practices the art of high living an eclectic cinema-like setup. "This makes my life interesting," she confesses. Which made me think that dreams don’t necessarily overshadow life. They give strength to live it. And to carry on.
