Belarusian fashion

There is such a place in Minsk. House of Miracles. Gallery "Ў". It is in the center, but you need to be able to find it. Gallery "Ў" has become a kind of place where young people come. Young designers, young writers, young viewers. There is also a shop of various, often strange designer crafts and a bookstore. And there is also a design studio "Adliga".

Design studio "Adliga" is a lot of fun, and it is also pure hooliganism. Such hooliganism is born only where everything is too correct and true, where there is an outer layer, an outer cultural layer, shiny and bright for prying eyes, but under which completely different meanings and symbols are often hidden. It must be assumed that the designers of "Adligi", by the way, translated from the Belarusian adliga means a thaw. This is not an accidental name, because everything they do is thaw. So the designers, presumably, are young and have a good sense of humor. And they are undoubtedly talented. What are they creating? Bags, T-shirts, notebooks. And this September they even organized an exhibition of an alternative Belarusian poster "Entrance through Design", which is held under the slogan of "patriotic vandalism." Well, if you try to characterize the activities of "Adligi", then this is he himself, vandalism, and also mockery, banter, but certainly patriotic. After all, in this country there is something to laugh at.

For example, it is quite possible to find a slogan and it will be, no, not Marxism or even Leninism. Hockey! This is our slogan. Comrades to the victory of hockey! Here's a T-shirt, quite patriotic, although, no, it's vandalism. Or New Minsk. This is New York for you, and here ... Skyscrapers are also being built here! True, here is the National Library instead of a torch at the Statue of Liberty. Belarusians and potatoes are not separable things, as you know, and this is also played up. Here is the slogan "I love Bulba", and below the signature "Tuteyshy Bulbyany beetle", the same ineradicable and annoying Colorado beetle. He is also tutays. Tuteyshya, this is how Belarusians define themselves, we are neither the same nor these, we ourselves do not know who we are, we are just tuteyshy, good old literary classics. Everyone finds their own meaning. The most famous T-shirt is of course “404. Belarus not found ".

"Adliga" is a play with meanings and associations. Only Belarusians will guess why Alyonka is depicted on the T-shirt, the image from the chocolate bar of the same name, and what is the meaning. However, what is depicted on T-shirts can always be placed on a poster. And if there is Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus, why shouldn't it be Colorado too? However, it is especially good about Beltelecom, oh, no, Eletelecom.

It cannot be said that what Adliga does is always successful. This is still the same design within the framework of an artistic experiment so beloved by the twentieth century: these are fancy shelves in the form of books and no less strange vases, as well as cardboard chairs and pillow lamps ... But here is a play of meanings, they are quite successful in banter. What is the idea of ​​the collection of bags "Alkashka"? Everything is even very glamorous, and why not.

And a little history, "Adliga" appears in 1998, and until 2010 exists exclusively as an advertising agency, but only "with a pronounced creative bias", which, presumably, made itself known in 2010. They also have their own online store: www.aaaooo.by. According to Artur Vakarov, artistic director of the Adliga studio, “There is an alternative Belarusian social design. Make sure and smile. " Maybe you are right. Why not.