Learn all about the founder behind the brand and the latest collection. Plus, how world events are impacting company operations.

Anna Osmekhina

Anna Osmekhina

Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today. Can you tell us about yourself and your journey to founding TTSWTRS?

Everything happened in 2013 in Kyiv. There were three of us and we made the first batch of sweatshirts. Then my friend sent our photoshoot to Colette and they ordered our products. This is how TTSWTRS came into being. We approached creating clothes the same way as we would if we were making them for ourselves. We were just playing the game called ‘how fun it would be to have a wardrobe like this. From this, we have grown to become a 6-figure business before the beginning of the war. Now, of course, everything is invested into fabrics and shops that remain in our dear Ukrainian cities, while we were forced to leave the country. Although, a lot of people from our team have stayed in Ukraine. 

We would love to learn more about how your brand concept came to be, as well as how you collaborate with multidisciplinary artists and photographers.

We are a project based on collaborations. There are few such fashion projects because it is truly complicated to tie up your life with artists and creatives. The creation of every collection involves from three to five artists, and we give birth to real art. Our design is very conscious — a piece is not born if we are not 100% sure about it. We never put commercial interest as our main goal, we just want a piece to be artful and breathtaking from our point of view. It goes without saying that we are immensely inspired by creatives passionate about the human body, like tattoo artists, photographers and other multidisciplinary artists. We choose them and offer them to participate in the creation of our collections or capsules, for their art to be present on our pieces. Sometimes they are even surprised by the unexpected and cool ways that they can express themselves on our clothes. At the same time,  it is very important for us to organize the creative process in such a way that our work as designers does not overlap with the work of artists. And almost all artists love how we manage to intertwine their creations into our clothes. 

As a brand that was previously based in Ukraine, these last few weeks must have been incredibly difficult, so we appreciate you sharing your story. How have recent world events impacted brand operations?

Our first priority is the safety of our team. It has already been more than 55 days since the start of a full-fledged war and we are planning ways to restart the business. Every day we have been praying for this war to end, although to save our team and their families we decided to relocate our business to Gdańsk, in Poland. It will include establishing a new production facility there and finding a new printing company. We are incredibly grateful for all the help from the Polish people, they are truly doing everything they can to support us in the relocation. This is why we made the decision to stay there, however, we are open to any offers of support. 

The new AI Met a Woman collection is incredible. Where did the inspiration behind the new designs come from?

I just wanted to show that, of course, AI is self-learning and awesome but there is nothing more beautiful than a living, weird, illogical, inconvenient yet beloved human being. And a woman can be this person. She can save the planet, she can inspire an artist to create music, she can be an incredible dancer, she can give birth to a child — a woman carries an immense power of life within her. So I just fantasized how the AI would meet a woman and would lose its sanity. I am so happy to hear that you liked this collection. Thank you!

What are your future goals for TTSWTRS? 

I want to create more beauty for this world. I want to encourage designers to create with awareness. I want fashion to be separated from commerce — when designers are ready to sew millions of dresses, negligently, topping it all with low-quality hardware just to sell a product. I want us all to wake up and our minds to be sharp and aware, to manufacture clothing from organic fabrics or 100% recycled ones, to approach all of this consciously. We want to offer the world something new instead of clothes — it’s one of the ideas that we consider as a brand. We want to make animals full-fledged members of society and totally ban all violence against them. We also want our planet to stay alive — we are fans of this planet and we want to attract all the attention to Earth. We are now experiencing the darkest of times — the time of war that has come to our Motherland — and it is the most terrifying pain. We want to shout for the whole world to hear that this kind of barbarity must not exist in 2022. Everything that we need to do is to contribute to the prosperity of our planet. 

Published by HOLR Magazine.