RÖPORTAJ || GÜRCİSTAN MODA- DERGİ- BLOG SAHNESİ

Röportajı gerçekleştirdiğim kişi, ünlü biri ya da bir blogger değil. Kendisi Gürcistanlı ve başkent Tiblis'den. Ancak aranızda the FashionSpot'u takip eden varsa onu muhakkak bilir, çünkü o kulağı deliklerden, 3-4 ay sonra yayınlanacak dergilerin kapaklarında ve içeriğinde yer alacak model / ünlülerden hep haberdardır. Bir anlamda endüstriden son dedikoduları yayan isim de diyebiliriz. Geçtiğimiz haftalarda Gürcistan'da Moda Haftası düzenlendiğini duyduğumda, bize pek de yabancı olan konu hakkında yazabilirim diye düşündüm. Ancak yine de komşumuz hakkında bu kadar az şey bilirken de kendimi riske atmak yerine Tarsha kendi ülkesinden olan biteni daha yerel ağızla anlatabilir diye düşündüm. Röportaj içerisinde sadece ülkede gerçekleşen iki farklı moda haftasının absürdlüğünden bahsedilmedi, Rusya'nın ülke modası üzerindeki etkisi, dergi endüstrisi ve bloggerların ülke medyasındaki yeri hakkında da bilgiler var. Üşengeçliğime verin olduğu gibi İngilizce haliyle yayınlıyorum.


Umarım böyle bir röportajı gerçekleştirme fikri bende uyandığında duyduğum heyecanı siz de tadabilirsiniz !
Bu arada olur da Tarsha'yı twitterda takip etmek isterseniz diye. Click.

Photos taken from ''Georgian Fasgion Week & Tiblisi Fashion Week'' facebook pages and avtandil.ge ! 


1: Could you tell as about Georgian Fashion Weeks. Beforehands while we were talking you had mentioned two different organizations ? What is the main reason for this ? And could you please give some informations ?

First time, Tbilisi Fashion Week was held in 2009 and then it was followed by Georgian Fashion Week in 2010. Both are held by different organizations. It's not normal to have two fashion weeks and I think both organizations know about it but they don't want to combine this two, I think main reason is that owners of both companies are ambitious and they want to rule in the fashion sector. In terms of organizing, they're not on highest level but they're still new in this and time will tell if it's improved but may people mention and every next fashion weeks in on higher level than previous. When there were first fashion weeks held, it was like a big event, there was red carpet and every celeb tried to look best there, it was party-like situation with shows but now it's changed and there's more working atmosphere. And since there's a deficit of fashion critics in our country, usually artists, tv-hosts or politicans are at the front row of shows. There's one more thing I don't get, some disgners instead of showing Spring/Summer 2012 collection showed Fall/Winter 2011.12 collection which is strange. Deisgner's said they don't follow rules and will show what they want, but how? If Karl Lagerfeld, Dolce & Gabbana , Armani show their collections by the schedule I can't understand why someone should be able to violate rules, but designers and organizers are mostly friends and I think that's why there're exceptions.

Georgian Fashion Week

(from left to right)

George Pantsulaia- Fakhrya Khalafova- Anuka Kebaria- Marco Corso

2: Is the collections shown on these different weeks have some really big differences or the choice of the designers or brands to attend different organizations is random ?

There're different designers presented in Georgian Fashion Week & Tbilisi Fashion Week but if I'm not wrong there were cases when some of designers showed collections on both fashion weeks. Attandances aren't that categorized, everyone with invitation can attend, but there're moslty celebrities as I mentioned. 

3: If you give some more clues about Georgian Fashion Weeks, which city would you choose the underline the spirit of the designs? Something like Paris, Milan, NYC, London or Tokyo ! May be mixture or a unique style?

That's more like London, with the the touches of Paris. Many designers have their individual style but there were some designers (mostly new faces) who copied foreign designers, for example: this season one of them did hats very much like to Givenchy's Fall 2011 collection. There're were copies of shows, I mean the whole "structure" of show, not clothes. Many designer's think that it's cool to show collection made only in 1 or 2 color and some critics then say "Oh, that was genius, amazing" when it's actually nothing amazing. Designers here start preparing collections ONLY 2 weeks before the fashion week. I don't know if it's normal when  most famous designers in the world work for months for one collection. And Georgian designers' think that's it's "cool" to make collection in 2 or 1 week. Some people say designers have financial problems and can't prepare collection properly, that's actually right but why they start searchig sources only 2-3 weeks before fashion week, they have to try to find maoney 

4: How about designers and media collobration ? Are they really known nationwide, do the artists prefer to wear designer clothes ?

Tiblisi Fashion Week

Media is working quite good in this case, they're doing daily reports about fashion week or if some designer is going to show in foreign country. There're like 10 designers who are known in nationwide, most famous brands are : Avtandil, Tamuna Ingorokva, Datuna Sulikashvili, Atelier 10A, Bichola and few more. Avtandil isn't known only in Georgia but in many foreign countries, he moved to the whole new level this year, he showed his collections in special show-rooms of London, Paris & Monaco, also his clothes were featured in Autumn issues of Numero, VMan, L'Officiel, French Elle and there's more I think. Other designers are invited mostly in neighbour countries fashion weeks for example in Kiev and so... But after fashion weeks started in Georgia every second person decided to design clothes and there're bunch of new faces at every fashion week, so they're not really known in whole country, only in just little group of fashion people. As for artists or tv-hosts, they wear Georgian designers quite often, they think it's trendy and kinda cool if you're wearing clothes by Georgian designer, good to see they support own talent.

5: And blogging in your country ? How big deal is that ? Do they attend to the Fashion Shows, media respects them ?

There're NO blogs specialized only about fashion, I mean like BryanBoy or so, there're only sites who just post collections or magazine editorials, with no comments. There're few entertaining blogs who may post their thoughts about 2 or 3 collections (mostly foreign designers) but it happens rarely. So fashion blogging isn't developed in Georgia.

6: How big Russian style or gusto effects the Georgian fashion ?

It had effect but in past when both Russia & Georgia were parts of USSR. I don't think it happens now, mostly older women may have some touch of Russian dressing style, usually furs and jewels, which Russian women adore.

7: Publications ! The fashion magazines ?

First ever Georgian fashion magazine was launched like 11 years ago, called "Amarta", which is still published. There're other magazines, launched last 2 years but they're not fashion-oriented but they do have many materials about Georgian & International collelctions, but more part is dedicated to celebrities, that's what sells in Georgia. There was Cosmopolitan Georgia launched in 2006 but it was closed in 2009 because of recession, they had financial problems. It was selling quite good from the beginning but then they started reprinting materials from Russian Cosmo which is also sold here and most of Georgian women who were buying Russian edition refused to pay money in the same publication which was translated in their own language, that's how strange we are. They didn't support own country's publication  and bought other one, but they had advertiser's problem aswell. So Cosmo was closed. There're no other Georgian versions of international fashion magazines and I think there wasn't even talk about launching any new magazine. We can buy Russian magazines here in normal price and American magazines only in specified places, but they're so expensive, you can get them in a cheapers price via eBay.

8: Do you know anything about Turkish fashion scene ?

Not really, I know there's Istanbul Fashion Week and some of the designers paid big money to bring top-models on their shows. I'm not sure about this though. Also you have own Vogue which is only 2 years old and already on high level, much better than many Vogue's launched 10 years ago or so. It looks like a Turkey is doing quite good in a fashion scene but I don't have many info about it.

AVTANDIL /HOMMES7 F-W 10/11

THIS? OR THAT?

Vogue Paris vs Vogue Italy - Vogue Paris but only under Carine Roitfeld, Alt's vision bores me, really. Vogue Italia isn't that big deal I think, besides main cover story I usually don't like any eds, and even main stories aren't that good last time, as they did in past.
Anna Wintour vs Franca Sozzani - Anna Wintour. If you asked I'd choose Carine Roitfeld & Aliona Doletskaya though :D I love these two women.
Mainstream Mags or More Indie ones - Mainstream mags, I'm not really interested in magazines with "art+fashion"  

Kate Moss vs Lara Stone - Both, but Kate Moss is my ultimate favorite model of all times, so if only one choice, it's Kate.

New York Style vs London Style - Mixed. London always attracted me, I love their solid style but New York's free style is also quite good.