02 Feb An interview with Georgia Chioni, director of “ SKIN iT Fashion”

Posted at 12:21h in Interviews by


Georgia Chioni

 

«Making movies is magic, it gives life to dreams, hopes and ideas. It abolishes boundaries between real and fantastic, it’s a small miracle.»

 

BIO

Georgia Chioni is an award-winning author, director, and fashion designer, born in Thessaloniki (GR).

Her studies include law, filmmaking, and fashion design. Many of her theatrical plays have been performed in various theaters in Greece. She has written screenplays for movies in Greece and the USA, as well as screenplays for comics. During the past years, many of her short and feature-length movies have won multiple awards at international film festivals.

In terms of fashion design, after having won first prize in 2020 in the fashion design competition organized by the sustainable textile company Manteco and the Athens Fashion Club Fashion School, she presented her first collection “LU.BU, The Light of Winter” at the Athens Xclusive Designers Week in June 2021 and received the Best New Designers Award. Since the beginning of 2022, she is the head designer for the high fashion brand «SKiN iT Fashion», with collections presented at numerous fashion weeks in Serbia, Italy, Romania, and Hungary. In January 2023, her collection “Blazed”, presented at Budapest Fashion Week, won the bronze award at the International Design Awards in the category of best runway collection.

 

 
«SKiN iT Fashion» explores beauty and fashion in a subversive way. How did your collaboration with this brand come about?
 
Being the brand’s Head Designer for almost one year now, it was easy. End of 2021 I participated with a capsule collection at a fashion event and the next day I was asked if I would like to take over as a Head Designer. SKIN iT Fashion is a new, award-winning high fashion brand and our aim is to bring a new aesthetic in fashion, with subversive designs, merging the boundaries of high fashion and art in a very particular style, given also my background as a cinematographer. At SKiN iT, it’s not about clothes, it’s about distinct, elegant, high quality work to make every woman feel unique.

 

In this film, you made radical choices in form, with the use of black and white and distorting lenses, in antithesis to the canonical beauty of mainstream fashion. What prompted you to do this?

 

 The aesthetics of the film reflect SKiN iT’s “soul” itself, which as I mentioned, it’s not about clothes. It combines the darkness of a film noir, -neo-noir I would say- sketching out the profile of a “neo femme fatale”, mysterious, dynamic, and sexy, reflecting shadows. I wanted to achieve a fascinating synthesis that orchestrates emotions, captivating charm, mystery, sexiness, and irresistibility.
Black and white for me is not about colors, it’s about light and life itself. Lenses are the eyes of the audience, they tell the story from their perspective and let people witness a different experience, ethereal, even strangely defocused. SKiN iT is about uniqueness, subversiveness, and unconditionality, a postfusion fashion brand and this has been my approach to show it.  

 

What, if any, are the challenges of femininity in the contemporary world?

 

 Femininity is such a complex concept, dealing with so many issues. It’s more than maternity, a business career, or a desirable body. It’s a way of life and it’s being challenged every day, by remaining patriarchial structures and not only. So, in this context, it’s important to see where we stand and help each other move forward. Femininity is a unique form of beauty and power, not only for women but for society as a whole. It’s a source of inspiration and respect.

 

 
 

How do film and fashion meet, and what has been your experience as a woman in these areas?

 
 

Fashion and film go, I believe, hand in hand throughout the decades, they have an intimate relationship, the beginnings of which can be found in the 1920s-1930s when the big producers at the time felt the special weight of this relationship.  Metro Glowing Mayer in a conversation with Coco Chanel, had emphasized that “women go to the cinema to see how other women dress”.  And they were right.

What is made perfectly clear today,  is the great extent to which all structures, whether of production, marketing, and promotion or consumption, have been affected. During the past years, fashion films have emerged also as marketing tools. For me, fashion films seem to defy any classification as a defining genre, as they have a range of styles, production modes, techniques, editing modes, camera movement, digital effects,  research, and technology applications, combining many diverse elements, something analogous to the avant-garde. And these elements, I believe, are the ones rendering the genre of fashion films so incredibly attractive.

 
 

 

What are your creative plans for the future?

 
 

To continue “contaminating” fashion with unique, eclectic collections. We plan to participate at the forthcoming fashion week in Athens that will take place at the end of March with our new collection “Assanina-X”, and then maybe at more Fashion Weeks abroad during the year.