Ljubljana

Difficult, or impossible task to find any Slovenian fashion designer on the internet. I couldn't find out about any, but after days of seeking, I discovered Eva, "Allaroundeve" this girl who seemed to be present at the Ljubljana fashion week, but also the Paris fashion week, dress up like an elegant Lady Gaga, and always, always wear a turban. So I immediately thought.... I have to meet her...

At first, I have to admit that I thought I would meet a cold and arrogant girl from the fashion industry that is always making a show of herself. But actually.... Not at all !
Since the first second we introduced ourself, it happened that she was just a fresh and natural sweet girl who wear a pink "geisha style" kimono because she loves it and feel comfortable on 15cm high heels shoes, and not because she wants to attract peoples eyes (and she says that she actually doesn't even notice peoples looks).

So let me introduce you Eva :

Who are you ? 
I'm Eva Ana Kazik, executive and creative director of All Around Eve. It is a fashion and media brand which involve editorship, production, fashion management, and so, we do everything from representing independent fashion brand. 
I also work on higher creative director on bigger project.

You also have a clothing label ? 
There is a clothing label called "All Around Eve", but we don't do collection per season, but timeless clothes and also good life products, as blanket makes to order with special size, hoodies, shirt...
We also collaborate with other designers such as "Revolver heart", who makes t-shirt in Slovenia, including our logo.

Are most of people you are working with are from Slovenia ? 
Concerning photographer , we have two or three, constantly working with us, who are from slovenia. We also have connection abroad. But we are focused on our region, not only Slovenia, but the region of the Balkan. we are hoping to be joined by designer from Slovenia, Turkey...

Are you promoting people in Slovenia only or abroad too ? 
To give you an example, we have just made a large campaign, editorship, to promote young designers who makes "haute couture" pieces. Also the team was really young (under 24 years old), now we are talking with foreign magazine about publishing. This is a way of promoting them.
Through our platform "All around Eve", we also send a newsletter to thousand of email adresses (magazines, buyer...) all around the world.

Most people could not even point Slovenia on a map, so they hardly imagine such a big platform for fashion.
Slovenia is such a small country, and the designer or photographer who came one, are the younger generation.
They are those exeptionals individuals who haven' had the chance to get recognition in other country.
You know it is hard to just come to france and say "hey I'm from Slovenia, I'm a designer, will you publish me ?". You see, people don't know how to do that, maybe, this is my plus. Here I've been doing this for a long long time, maybe me and my team have this ability of promoting our designers, photographer, artist... abroad. 
Most people (the older generation), didn't think of it. but if you think of it, this is a very new kind of promotion that we are doing. 
10 years ago, all the promotion, were pure services, or label "we only do this, we only do that". you only do one thing (you are a designer, you design, that's it).
The problem is design school, they don't teach how to moneytise, how it work. And this is where a brand like mine act.

You seem to be a whole character, with your blog, and picture of you, like a "mise en scène", we don't imagine there is a whole brand behind.
People imagine a lot of story about me, and I have a lot of fun reading them, but my main modo all the time for the  past few years, was just to find my place in this world, this industry, just being myself, in this business, being this job. I feel like I am this job.

And you wear clothes from All around eve
Yes.

There is a lot of creation in Slovenia ? 
Yes.
I went at the Paris fashion week, I wore a lot of designer that come from Slovenia, like Eric Matyash
I'll probably wear more at the next Paris fashion week in a month ! 

I've been looking for fashion designer in Slovenia, and i could find any !! And even if I found a name... I could find a page.
Exactly! This is like when I said "I am this job" that is gravitate by this people not having any info.
You can't buy them, and this is the problem with the slovene, or the fashion in the balkan region.
There are so many great and wearable designers, that could sale a lot ! but people feels like their are not for sale, their are only art, and only show their art, at fashion week, exhibition, only available to a certain crowd : fashion crowd ! 
But that's not the truth.
Giving them an opportunity of represent themselves, on a more visited page, giving out their infos, saying : "You can buy this, this is not even expensive". For example, Sari Valenci  has this crazy printed dresses, and tights for men, and every one think this is just art or campaign for fun. But no ! it's for sale, it's their, those tights are only 40€.. cheaper than Zara.
Some designers in Slovenia, no...  Most designer is Slovenia, are often cheaper than Zara ! 

Is their customers in Slovenia for this kind of fashion ? 
(Laughing) This is also the problem.
Maybe you noticed on the past few days, most people are very uptight, the general crowd are zara and H&M. 
Young girl who say they love fashion only shop at Zara... When they have an opportunity to wear those great brands. 
Also some designer who does things that could fit to a common population, aren't so much out there, so the people can't know about them. Neither does the fashion crowd. 
For example, the last few days, we had this big shoot, for "Mister Model Management" (male model agency) that organise Mr International competition. 
So we shot 6 very attractive males (laughing), and we had also this designer, but no one even knew he existed. This is because he doesn't even have his own facebook page, no info about him, never been on a fashion week... This is because he doesn't know how. He doesn't want about a "commercial" publicity, but doesn't know how to get the good kind of publicity.
Maybe he would like (this is just a supposition) the kind of publicity that "Rick Owens" has (because this is the kind of fashion that he does), but is Slovenia, he couldn't,  because their is no specific crowd that would wear that .

The problem with the Slovene crowd, is whatever the foreign have, we want it too.

When you go out around Ljubljana, you might have a lot of looks on you. Do you have some people who come to you, ask you where your clothes comes from.
To be honest, I never notice people, I know they are looking at me, because my friends tells me, but they are used to it.
Some people takes photo. some people come to me, but they are usually tourist, men, french men, asian or american.They come to me and give me me a compliment.
In paris, that happened a lot more than in Ljubljana.
This time I did wear some pretty eccentrics things at the fashion week, like huge crinolina with my logo on it. And I thought "this is Paris haute couture, no one is going to even notice me, it's going to be Anna Dello Russo..." and what happened in front of Jean Paul Gaultier show... Anna dello Russo stepped out of her car at the same time as I came there, and all the photographers went to me. 
I was flattered but slightly confused : It was haute couture ! Everyone else should be dressed apart too. 



For the interview, I asked her to pick a place that she particulary appreciate in the city, so she picked the bar of the Vander Hotel, (located in Krojaska Ulica, in the very center and pedestrian area) for the meeting, it's an urban design hotel, but like she said, the whole city has something to offer, so then, she took me for a tour around the city center to show me young designers stores like Cirkus (which was closed...). Walking in the pedestrian area, she told me where was the best ice cream in town (on Cankarjevo Nabrezje), and also the higher calorie ice cream (on Mestni Trg) :-/

She also told me about the history of the city and the architecture, how Jože Plečnik built a big part of the city. 
The opera, museum, embassies ... you know what, this city looks like a doll city !! (major size of the doll house ;-)), pink, yellow, everything is so cute and clean, and doesn't go higher than 4 flours building (when there is 13 flours, it's a skyscraper :))
Ljubljana is also full of activity that I couldn't have guessed : Film under the star, every night at the castle which had a great program.
TRnFest every night, at the Kud cultural center, bands are playing, then DJ... while you can eat a roasted corn... 
It's actually there that I meet up again with Eva and her team, at night. 

This time, dressed up gangsta' style with her military over size jacket and a 2Pac's style turban, she still doesn't look like a traditional girl from the fashion industry.
Maybe it is the Balkan normality to be so welcoming. She really is "her job", and by changing her style many times  a day, I understand how she can be her best promotion tool.

If you want to know more about Slovenian designers, here are some that I didn't mentioned earlier, but worth it : 

Young@Squat Group of designers, photographers...

Peter Movrin 

Alice Bossman One of "hottest" Slovenian new coming designer.

Marjeta Groselj Very amazing bags.

Nina Šušnjara Poetic 

Ivan Rocco  Most sold