ENGIvan Frolov makes costumes for Beyonce, Dua Lipa and Sam Smith in wartime Kyiv. In-depth interview

The Ukrainian fashion brand Frolov has lately been busy, making stage costumes for global pop stars, taking part in charity projects, designing merch for an aircraft manufacturing plant, and creating new haute-couture collections. Frolov – which is famous for its glamorous and sensual outfits – has always been a civically-minded brand and has a history of supporting important initiatives, including the fight against HIV in Ukraine. During the full-scale war, Frolov was able to maintain its production facility in Kyiv, which employs 35 people, resume all projects interrupted by  Russia’s invasion in 2022, and continue its two major streams of work: couture and activism.

The Village Ukraine editor Iryna Vyhovska talked to Ivan Frolov, the brand’s founder, before he headed to London Fashion Week about his life during the full-scale war, his efforts to build his brand, working with Beyonce and Sam Smith, and the 14 different drafts of designs for the Antonov aircraft plant merch.

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The brand mirrors reality

 

 

– What’s happening to Frolov now? How is the brand changing?

– It’s very difficult to say where exactly we’re at, because even the fact of our existence is a huge achievement by today’s standards. We’re making extraordinary efforts with everything we’re involved in. As a result, we’ve had many achievements, which have taken the brand to a new level and consolidated our reputation.

I think that as a brand we are mirroring reality while staying true to ourselves. Of course we’re changing and we’re affected by everything that’s going on around us, but our DNA, our foundation remains the same. We are the same Frolov we were in the very beginning. Yes, there’s more of us now, we’re involved in huge projects, but we remain the same socially responsible brand we always were, a brand interested in exploring sexuality. That’s who we were before the full-scale invasion, before Covid – that’s who we’ve been for almost 10 years.

In the very beginning of our existence, we fought the HIV epidemic in Ukraine. Now our focus has shifted –  we’re tackling other priorities. But helping a cause has never been a PR strategy for us. We’re not making armored vests or camo-printed fabrics and corsets as part of our fashion collections or donating a share from every sale to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. These are totally separate lines of work for us. Our social projects are an entirely different workstream. 

Frolov has always revolved around corsets, sensuality, and dramatic gowns and stage costumes – and it continues to do so. It’s a business that’s doing what it knows how to do best: make money, create jobs, and so give our employees an opportunity to do what they want with the money they make. They can donate to and support whoever they choose. Our biggest achievement, as far as I’m concerned, is that we remain strong in this fight whatever happens, that we keep going, and grow, and don’t give up.

 

 

– You said that camo-print corsets and military prints were not something you were interested in, and it reminded me of Pharrell Williams’s collection for Louis Vuitton, which included a digital-camo-printed jacket. What do you think about the use of military styles in fashion?

 – It’s true that “the militaristic” is a trend across genres: in cinema, art, sculpture, and also in fashion. Fashion is capable of responding to trends like that the quickest, because of its fast pace.

Context is key, though. I think it’s unacceptable for a Ukrainian brand today to make clothes that have militaristic references. Because we’re in the middle of a real war – it’s not a joke or a style. People who wear camo or other protective patterns and colors are carrying out a grave mission – on behalf of all of us. They are making sure we can keep working. I think it’s unacceptable for Ukrainian brands to exploit those things. 

As for Western designers, they exist outside of this context. They’re just responding to something that’s become a trend. But they can do that, because for them it’s just a print. It doesn’t always signify the military but can reference safari – which used to be a very popular style – or an allusion to hunting, and so on. It’s easier for them to work and play around with the theme, because they don’t live in this reality.

I can’t say that this resonates with me nowadays, because it triggers very real associations; this hurts right now. But most people in the world will respond to it differently than me and you.

I remember that Beyonce also performed in camo. And that was also an entirely different context. It could be part of a performance, or even open up dialogue, or serve to share other people’s stories. Each person has to come up with their own understanding of why and how they’re using military symbols. But it’s not for me right now.

– When you work with Western artists and performers, are you aware of their political views? Do you try to make sure they understand the context of what’s going on? To me, wearing a Frolov corset on stage is not just about wearing a beautiful corset, but about making a political statement.

– Our team is trying to monitor everyone we’re talking to. Of course it’s getting more and more difficult to do it. We’ve been able to do it so far, but we realize that we can’t always keep track of everything. We’ve seen the situations other brands have ended up in when, for example, it turned out that a Russian firm was sponsoring an event [they were part of]. I think it’s good when people who care pay attention to these things, but it can put a brand in a very tough spot. We all need to be prepared for this. I think that in the future, there will be more opportunities for things like this to happen.

Our team is even trying to track our online buyers to make sure none of our clothes end up in Russian hands. We’re monitoring the cards people use, look them up on social media, look up their names – though it can be quite difficult. Especially now, when people are ordering things from abroad. Sometimes when we block someone’s account, they can ask someone else to buy something on their behalf. We only find out about this later on, and it’s very unpleasant, the fact that people lie for a dress.

We absolutely monitor the affiliations and statements of celebrities and their teams. But I think when top celebrities turn to our brand, they know the context they become part of. Their teams are extremely professional, and for the last two years the description on our Instagram page says that we’re from Ukraine and are doing everything we can to support our country. The teams of the celebrities we work with can have no illusions about this.

We also always talk to the media from around the world when they ask about a celebrity’s outfit. It’s an important international platform for us to remind the world about the war. Not a single celebrity’s PR service has ever asked us to soften or change what we’re saying. My comments have appeared in Vogue US, the British Vogue, the Good Morning Britain TV show. Each time, the Ukrainian context was prominent, and my words about how we created those outfits – that it all happened while Kyiv was being attacked, during the war, sometimes without power – were not censored. I think when artists of that caliber choose us, it’s an act of support.

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Beyonce, Sam Smith, Maneskin, and Jamala

 

 

– When did you first start working with global stars? Did you have to ask them to wear your clothes, or would they get in touch with you? Who was the first one you worked with?

– First off, it was entirely unrelated to the war. It started long before the full-scale invasion. Our relationships with top-tier celebrities were developing over the course of many years. It’s a huge part of our team’s work. But we’ve been lucky: we had celebrities’ stylists get in touch with us directly, and we’ve always been happy to help them realize their ideas and join projects like that.

We were working with several celebrities to outfit them for some very important events in 2022. If it wasn’t for the full-scale invasion, we would’ve seen a lot of high-profile appearances sooner. I don’t want to talk about this right now, but we’ve lost several projects we were working on; we had had our sketches approved by several world-class stars.

But gradually internationally renowned people are making appearances in our outfits, and we hope that we’ll soon have several releases that will lighten up everyone’s mood and create another occasion to be proud of Ukrainian brands.

 

– How do foreign celebs find you?

– This is our in-house team’s job. We also work with PR agencies in Los Angeles. There are always samples of our clothes in LA and in London. We work a lot to showcase them, we build relationships with stylists.

Some people fall in love with the brand immediately, others gradually work our clothes into their photoshoots, get celebrities to try them on – and then eventually we have a stylist tell us: “This person really loves your brand, but…” And they either don’t fit them well or they don’t want to just wear something from our regular collection because they want something special. So that creates opportunities and demand for custom looks: we make sketches, agree on fabrics, and create a unique outfit.

 

– When stylists get in touch, do they usually have certain requests or do they want to hear what you propose first? Is there room for you to exercise your creativity?

– I like the fact that most international celebrities have a very clear approach: if they come to you, they trust you. If they approach the brand, it means they already like what we’re doing, and your opinion matters to them. It’s this opinion – the brand’s point of view – that they seek out. There can be technical issues related to choreography, staging, or lighting. And they give us a moodboard with the overall idea; I couldn’t work without it.

But no one’s controlling us, and we can even choose the fabrics and materials we want to work with. We’re given freedom – people want the brand’s identity to shine through, they want Frolov’s distinct features. I think that’s the right approach, and a professional one. If you want to achieve the best results, it’s better not to set too many constraints and to trust the experts.

That’s how I also try to work, even during our photoshoots. If I choose a photographer, a make-up artist, a hairstylist, I tell them what my preferences are, but I also relinquish control and I trust those experts. I listen to them, whether they think the light’s good, whether something’s a good idea, and so on. I think you have to trust the experts for best results.

– You said that celebs want to see and recognize the brand’s unique aesthetics in your looks. Is there a feature that you think should be part of every garment you make, as a sort of Frolov signature?

– Often our fans are able to identify our clothes before we make an official press release. That’s what happened when Beyonce performed in Dubai. All of Instagram was talking about our dress, though at the time we still hadn’t posted an official statement about it or image on social media. Still, everyone was tagging us in their posts, convinced that it was a dress we designed. At that point, I felt that we had really created a brand with a very distinct identity, easily recognizable, and unlike anything else.

As far as Beyonce is concerned, she did wear our trademark corset, which had our signature embroidery on it – we call it Saliut (Firework) – as well as garters, stockings, and gloves covered in crystals; her outfit had it all. [Laughing] That’s why it was so easily recognizable.

I think that our distinct style exists on the level of my sense of the body’s shape and the way I approach silhouettes. This is what makes us stand out. Right now I’m very interested in working with details that are maybe less recognizable, but still distinctly Frolov.

For example, not everyone recognized the last look we created for Beyonce as ours. It wasn’t as obvious that we made it – and we also didn’t know when she’d make an appearance in it. Our friends sent us a video of her saying “This looks like your work.” That outfit has our signature heart shape, but the fabric the dress is made of is unusual and uncharacteristic for us.

Though it’s a technique that I developed all the way back in the third year of my degree, it’s from my archive collection. We don’t use it very often, but it’s very much a Frolov trademark. It has corset-like plates.

– As far as I understand, you were in touch with a lot of the celebs, including Beyonсe, before the full-scale war. But the first time she wore one of your looks in public was in early 2023. Did you create those outfits during blackouts? Have they affected your production capacity?

– We’ve made a deliberate decision not to move our production facilities anywhere. We wanted to remain in Kyiv. Looking back now I can say that we adapted and [the blackouts] haven’t affected us that much. [Smiling] But it was objectively the most difficult winter in our history from the point of view of technical supplies. At some point we obviously had to get generators for our production facilities to make them entirely autonomous, but there were still times when we were working despite having no power.

For example, we lost power when we were making an outfit for Sam Smith’s music video, and we had only three hours until we had to send it off. We had to finish sewing and hand-stitching the corset. I was extremely proud of our team: everyone split up into groups or pairs – one person would hand-spin the sewing machine, the other person would sew. We taped our phones to the sewing machines for light. Embroiderers also all came together and finished their job. We shipped the outfits to Sam Smith within those three hours, as promised. There was no power for another few days after that.

It all sounds funny now, but at the time it was very stressful. And obviously every missile strike and every air-raid alarm cause a lot of stress, especially when you hear explosions nearby.

– Do you tell the artists you work with about how their garments were created?

– Obviously no one issues official letters certifying the fact that our corset was made during war, under bombardments. [Laughing] But when we meet the artists or their managers, we tell them about it.

– Many celebrities have made appearances in your clothes: Sam Smith, Beyonce, Doja Cat, Sabrina Carpenter, Maneskin, and Jamala and Tvorchi among the Ukrainian artists. Who else would you like to work with? Is there anyone you’ve always dreamed about working with?

– Beyonce was at the top of our wishlist. No one expected that we’d start working through our wishlist from the top, rather than from the bottom. [Smiling] I like a lot of international and Ukrainian artists and the person’s status is totally irrelevant for me as an artist. I put as much work into clothes for anyone who wants a couture gown from us, who works with our studio, as I put into outfits for Beyonce. There’s no special bells and whistles for the top stars. I’m happy to work with anyone. I want to find something special for everyone I work with.

Unfortunately, I can’t name any names because we’re waiting for several important releases. I really hope that it will soon be difficult to find a world-famous celebrity who has not yet worn our brand.

 

 

– Are you hoping to open a showroom or a studio abroad?

– For now, it’s impossible for us as a business, and it’s not our chosen growth strategy. We’re hoping to do it at some point in the future, but for now the most important thing for us is to survive in the current circumstances.

It’s nice to see the interest from global buyers grow and that the brand is well-represented across the world. It’s represented by great partners, multi-brand retailers. We’re right next to other famous international brands. We’ll work on the idea of our own space later at some point.

– How has the war affected you personally as an artist? Are you more productive now? Have you found new meaning? From the outside it seems that Frolov has been very active from the very beginning, both in terms of your activist work, and making new collections, and working with celebrities…

– We’ve actually always been this active. We’ve always worked on a lot of projects. Unfortunately, we can’t take on many more, because then there’d be too much Frolov. [Laughing]

I have as much work as I would’ve if the war wasn’t affecting me. That’s my way of showing our strength – we’re invincible. Though of course everyone on our team has been traumatized by the war, and our experience of these events is very painful. Everyone has their own losses, their own horrible stories from this war. Everyone has a relative fighting on the front. Everyone is grateful that we can keep working, thanks to the Armed Forces defending us.

We are fully aware of this and always keep it in mind. Each day, we support them with our donations, our thoughts, the help and support we offer. But we equally realize that everything depends on how long it will take to secure our victory. We can’t stop [fighting].

 

 

– To follow up on your idea that you continue to be the brand you’ve always been, I wanted to ask you about your latest couture collection. Tell us a little bit about the looks you created, and about the first item in the collection, a mirror.

– I’ve had the mirror idea for a long time. And we’ve been working on it and figuring out different ways to make it happen for a long time. But when I met Ivan Voitovych, the creative director of Oito Design [a Kyiv-based industrial design studio], I told him about my idea, and my long-awaited dream came true. We created the mirror very quickly.

Before the mirror existed, I had an idea for a shoot, which referenced the intimate couture shows from the 1950s and 60s, which staged scenes in little rooms, where models would be very close to the viewers and clients. It’s all about the set, with models playing certain roles.

 

 

This is our first collection that’s this small, but at the same time so wide-reaching. There are only nine looks; the mirror is the tenth one. I really wanted the mirror – an object, an inanimate story – to be part of the collection, one of the looks. You look in the mirror and see yourself and your body. By the way, the mirror is the only item from this collection that you can just buy on our website. It doesn’t need any individual adjustments, like couture gowns, or individual tailoring. It’s the only couture object that you can just click and buy. This mirror reflects something that’s always on my mind. Frolov is about the naked body, sensuality, and studying your own body. How can we study our own bodies? Consider their proportions? Only in a mirror.

Iryna Danylevska [the founder of Ukrainian Fashion Week] once told me that she loves the teasers for our collections because it’s cool when an ad for clothes features no clothes, but still manages to convey what both the collection and the brand are all about. That’s what I consider our strength.

I think that in our couture collections clothes aren’t always the most important thing. In one way or another, we’re working with bodies, and I really wanted to say that our bodies are already couture objects. Everyone has such a unique body, so special and so beautiful. This mirror gives everyone an opportunity to confirm this and to try on couture without couture clothes. If you look in this mirror while naked, you’re already in couture.

There are another nine looks, each of which has its own inspiration and alludes to a different image. There’s a reference to Virgin Mary, a famous Catholic icon with a heart. Some of the looks were inspired by sculptures, others were inspired by Ukrainian artists. Each of those looks is special.

 

 

– You’re talking about being inspired by the body and working with the body. Most often in your work, this is a woman’s body. Is it in your plans to expand into men’s fashion?

– We had several men’s looks in the previous collection. There aren’t any in this collection, but I never put boundaries around our looks, corsets, and dresses. Because we’ve had some very interesting feedback from partners representing us across the world – they tell us men are buying our corset dresses. Sometimes even rather masculine men, who for some reason want to experience how those clothes feel on their bodies. This can happen for all sorts of reasons, and I find it very interesting. I believe that this [interest from men] is the way it resonates with people because there are no boundaries for me when I’m creating those looks.

Sometimes the artists’ stylists approach us. That was the case with Måneskin. Their stylist only selected women’s looks for her moodboard, but we revised them for the band members, to adapt them for their technical requirements and make them more masculine, among other things. Our brand has no gender, sex, or race boundaries.

Merch for the Antonov aircraft manufacturing plant

 

 

– Let’s move from couture to your collaboration with an aviation firm. It’s an abrupt move, but your new releases are always equally sudden and abrupt. On Ukraine’s Independence Day you announced that you were releasing a collection of merch for the Antonov plant. We were just talking about sensuality and the brand’s DNA – what does any of it have to do with Antonov? How was this collaboration born? Why is it important for you?

– This really is a great honor for me, and I approached the collaboration very carefully. In our imagination – and the imagination of the Antonov team – [the collaboration] should’ve materialized much sooner, but unfortunately I couldn’t do this quickly, given the responsibility I felt. I needed half a year. I went through 13 different ideas – it wasn’t until the 14th that I realized that was what we needed.

It was an interesting job for me, because we spent time at the plant, in all the workshops, in Antonov’s personal office. We had access to all the processes, we’ve delved deep in the plant’s history. Their team gave us a lot of information on aircraft manufacturing, the plant’s history, and Antonov himself.

I can’t do something just to get it done, to court media attention. That’s not who I am, I’m not interested in doing something only for the sake of easy attention. We had a really symbiotic relationship with the Antonov team, we felt really close to them – that’s a necessary condition for collaboration. I felt a lot of responsibility, and I continue to feel that way because the things currently available online are just our first drop. We have several more lined up. I was ready for people to say that they weren’t expecting me to make merch, weren’t expecting something that wasn’t super sexy. But it’s important for me to show that Frolov’s identity also has depth: it’s about research, details, and nuance; all of this is on display in this collaboration. The question now is what will happen next, how the collection will grow, what we’ll have in the end. This is a different story. [Smiling]

But I really wanted to make a few things I would be happy to wear myself to mark 24 August [Ukraine’s Independence Day]. When people say this isn’t sexy, I disagree – I find a white t-shirt with the Antonov logo sexy. Any white t-shirt in the summer is sexy, especially if it has our signature lightning bolts on the shoulders: they can be unzipped, worn on one shoulder only, styled in different ways.

Well, and I also think that the way we approached the concept with artist Vova Vorotnov was really cool. This wasn’t our first time working together, he’s an absolute genius with things like this.

When the entire collection is released, I think we’ll have crossed all the t’s and dotted the i’s. Actually dots are an important symbol in this collection – they symbolize the wheels and engines of the Mriya [the largest aircraft in the world, designed by the Antonov bureau, and destroyed in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine]. I think very shortly this collection will take on a different meaning.

 

 

– Did the Antonov team contact you, or was it your idea?

– The Antonov team came to us with an offer to create something [for them]. Eventually we settled on the idea of these merch items. It’s important for me, though, because I want to show other businesses in Ukraine how to collaborate – especially with an organization with as much gravity as Antonov.

There’s a huge issue with copyright in Ukraine – it’s a real disaster, no one has any ethical standards, and it’s important for businesses to have them. There are so many t-shirts depicting Mriya or sporting the Antonov logo. You can buy those t-shirts online, at makeshift stalls in underground crossings, and in souvenir shops – but those t-shirts’ makers haven’t been licensed to use those images. None of those manufacturers or business owners are paying royalties. I think that’s wrong. We have a licensed agreement to use them. Antonov gave us the right to use the logos, names, and images. And we’re paying for it. All of the profits from sales will be used to rebuild Mriya – in accordance with the memorandum we signed.

In this instance, we worked with one other partner. Which was part of the reason why it took so long to produce the collection. I had a childhood dream – to work with Roza, a Kyiv-based factory, whose t-shirts I remember from when I was a kid. I always have plain white and black t-shirts I bought in Roza stores in Kyiv. They’re my favorite t-shirts. There’s no better shirt.

When I realized that the Antonov merchandise would have to be mass-produced, I wanted as many people as possible to be able to touch the legend. The cost [of the items in the collection] was very important to me. I couldn’t order Italian silk or do hand-embroidery. It was important for me to make something that would cost as much as it costs now in TSUM [a shopping mall in central Kyiv] and on the Antonov website. This is a mass-market price, which isn’t typical for our brand, but it’s an opportunity to communicate with a larger audience.

Our production facilities aren’t set up to mass-produce things like that, so I’m very glad we were able to collaborate with the Roza factory, which has really supported us. It really is a factory we can be proud of: it produces its own raw materials, knitwear is spun in Brovary [on the outskirts of Kyiv], and runs are sewn in Kyiv, meaning that these items are totally “made in Ukraine”. Thanks to the production volumes and local materials, we were able to achieve a minimum cost. These clothes are affordable for everyone. And that was my main goal. I’m very glad the first editions sold out quickly, and people are already waiting for the next batches.

I hope our future drops will be as successful. All of the profits are invested in rebuilding Mriya, and it’s nice to know that we are the second brand in the entire world – after Microsoft – to officially collaborate with the Antonov plant.

– You mentioned you had 13 different ideas when you were working on the merch for Antonov [that you discarded]. What inspired the 14th?

– As a result of all these drafts we were able to get rid of all the unnecessary things. I was inspired by Antonov himself and his pursuit of perfection. We’re working on clothes, while aircrafts were his domain. There were cases when after years of working on an aircraft the final measurements revealed that the cabin had to be 20 centimeters wider for greater efficiency, and years of work undertaken by hundreds of people would be scrapped, and work would begin anew. Antonov was one of those people who’d always choose to start over. That’s how brilliant designs like Mriya are born.

That’s why I couldn’t have anything I didn’t like in my collaboration with this legendary manufacturer. It took me 14 attempts to figure out what it should look like. No detail in this drop is there by chance: not the colors, not the dots, not the logos or the writing. I really like the fact that NATO documents refer to our Mriya as Cossack. It sounds very nice: concise and effective. As far as I’m concerned, there’s a lot of Frolov in this collaboration, at least in the pipeline. And I think we’ve achieved our goal. It’s about to get even more exciting.