LEVAU SHVELIDZE

About

I graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design. My graduation collection “It Wardrobe” won the international design contest Benext 2018 in Tbilisi. In 2019, I was among the finalists of the International Young Designers Contest (IYDC) in Kyiv. I made my debut at MBFWT S/S 19/20. In the first half of 2020, I became a junior designer at Materiel Tbilisi. Also, my brand, Levau Shvelidze, was featured in a short fashion film, “Comfort Zone” by Jordan Blady, shortlisted at Berlin Commercial 2020, ASVOFF 2020, and so on.

I believe that art is one of the most effective tools for changing people’s attitudes. On my part, I’m trying to peddle positive and harmonic changes around me. Through my work, I want to make conservative people aware of the other side of the city that they fear or hate and convert their hatred into understanding.  I always dedicate my work to fundamental human rights, and I address and challenge people to think about what really matters in life. I am a huge supporter of the current trend among fashion designers and major fashion houses of approaching fashion in more sustainable ways.

PRESS RELEASE

Levau Shvelidze SS 21 expends his surrealistic research, existing on the edge of reality and fantasy. His world is an attempt to create a new mythology, which is a soft symbiosis of modern counterculture and pre-Christian mythology. This time, he disintegrates and destroys the object of his research – humans. He locks them in an isolated, sterile place, he makes some experiments on them, and gets the dystopian picture that he seeks. Having lived through many cultural entanglements, they fall in the prehistoric universe, incomprehensible to them.

Both the video and the costumes are filled with controversies. The nonbinary genderless creatures are simultaneously carrying clichéd sexual contexts. Aestheticization is just conventionality that Levau Shvelidze mock. His clothes are grotesque manifestations of anti-fashion, which is not directed at any particular group of people. The garment itself is a character that suffocates, like a royal gown, and destroys those who wear it.

The solemn, carnival visuals are replaced by horror movie footage, laughter, and mad screams. The real feelings are so exaggerated that the viewer feels as if they are facing a virtual reality. This postmodernist approach is a pure deception from the beginning to the end that bases upon the demolition of rationality. Levau is not looking for the Aurea mediocrities; for him, it just does not exist. The world which is standing on the controversy and destruction is yet delicate and untouchable.