DZHUS
ABOUT THE LABEL
DZHUS is a Ukrainian conceptual brand internationally known for its multipurpose outfits made from cruelty-free materials. Designer Irina Dzhus' pattern-making innovations help to minimise physical shopping and create a versatile yet sustainable wardrobe from a few transformable garments. Since the start of the war, DZHUS has relocated to the EU and donates 30% of its profits to Ukrainian animal welfare organisations and soldiers. Since its launch in 2010, DZHUS has been a vegetarian-friendly brand and uses only ethical materials. In 2019, DZHUS won the Cruelty-free Fashion prize at the Best Fashion Awards Ukraine.
Shortlisted for the International Woolmark Prize in 2015, DZHUS is now stocked in concept stores in Japan, China, Belgium, Portugal, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Australia, Poland and sold online worldwide. Originally designed as womenswear, many DZHUS garments have a unisex aesthetic and fit. Among the brand's clients are American avant-garde musicians Zola Jesus and EYIBRA, and Eurovision 2016 winner Jamala from Ukraine. The fashion house has collaborated with films such as The Hunger Games and Star Trek Discovery, as well as leading beauty brands Saco and Davines.
DZHUS has been featured in the top international press: Vogue, Dazed&Confused, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, Elle Decoration, Cosmopolitan, L'Officiel, Kaltblut, ASVOF, Dezeen and many more. DZHUS collections have been presented at Paris Fashion Week, Berlin Fashion Week, Ukrainian Fashion Week, Milan Design Week, International Fashion Showcase London, Brussels Fashion Week, Helsinki Fashion Week, Vegan Fashion Week in Los Angeles, Amsterdam Design Week, Designblok Prague, Feeric Fashion Week in Romania.
DESIGNER QUOTE
I'm pretty sure that Berlin has something to offer everyone. This city has brought me some life-changing experiences, enriched my mindset and challenged the fundamental questions of my existence. My design has always been extremely personal, translating themes that resonate most with my state of mind, and my sources of inspiration are thoroughly filtered through the prism of my peculiar perception of reality. Of course, my artistic language and concepts as such are transforming simultaneously with the evolution of my personality. In this regard, I can say that Berlin has had a significant influence on my work.
ABOUT THE SHOW
As part of Berlin Contemporary, Irina Dzhus once again presented her collection during Berlin Fashion Week. In the Fall/Winter 2024 edition, the Ukrainian designer showcased how the boundaries between art and fashion can be blurred. All of her looks are not only intricately designed, progressive in silhouette, cut, and materials, but above all, transformable. In the NEWEST-Showspace, the press café, Irina Dzhus turned her runway into a stage to narrate her very personal story through her designs. She shares the details of this story here.
Your collection is called “ABSOLUTE”, which thematically circles around your personal trauma. One is escaping the war, the other one is processing an abuse experience. How do you transport these quite heavy topics into fashion?
Self-ironically enough, I have utilized my ‘OCD-driven’ design potential in order to generate highly dialectical, multipurpose outfits. In the mode of self-rediscovery and self-reinvention, I translate ‘patterns into patterns’, deciphering the complex structure of my trauma and redirecting it into avant-garde design solutions. I freeze my intimate memories in 2D-iconography-based outfits with encoded messages. For the first time fragments of my normally unpublished graphic art is shown.
All of your looks are so well handcrafted, so detailed and on top of that transformable. Where did you find inspiration this season?
Thematically, I revisited my comfort zone, referring to modernist comics and gnostic narratives, attributes of social conformism, and gender representation speculations. Sustainable sartorial techniques and textile manipulations pay homage to the craft of kintsugi, as I shape my sculptural apparel from fragments of pre-owned headpieces and scarves.
What did you focus on color, material, silhouette wise?
The silhouettes of “ABSOLUTE” are equally naïve and profoundly structured. Also I focus on black and white but the collection is softened with a range of ecrus as well as shades of nude and grey, whereas chromatic choices are deliberately neglected. The fabrics selection is rich in distinctive textures and conceptual finishes, such as a distressed-corset-inspired top with superstructures imitating a face profile, or a transformer jumpsuit constructed from two upscaled gloves holding together.
What is your personal favorite look?
The key piece of the DZHUS is an oversized men’s coat with an inset contrast silhouette of an embracing female figure. This semi-supernatural counter shape is indivisible from my identity, a mirroring indicator of my existence, and describes an euphoric dream and a paralyzing dystopia.
What is your personal highlight this season?
In the mode of self-rediscovery and self-reinvention, I translate ‘patterns into patterns’, deciphering the complex structure of my trauma and redirecting it into avant-garde design solutions in a sharply literal way. For the first time fragments of my normally unpublished graphic art is shown.
All images, brand descriptions and further information are available at the official Berlin Fashion Week MEDIA HUB.
