My hometown of Kazanlak is known as a center for the production of rose oil and firearms. With Guns and Roses Oil, my aim was to turn the automatic weapon AK-47’s bullet into something as harmless and as innocent as a perfume. An almost mandatory step in the career of any successful fashion designer is the creation of her own fragrance. In order to produce a bigger run of the perfume, I returned to Kazanlak and used the Shipkoff (Rosehip) House as the place for its ritualistic creation. This play on the fashion industry’s requirement to keep adding new value and products contributed to a sense of completeness in my work as a designer. It was during this period that I seriously started to consider making a catalogue that would include all of my major projects not directly connected to fashion. It might sound like an exaggeration, but producing a catalogue can give the artist a sense of wholeness, as well as of having completed a full cycle. Almost like what creating a fragrance does for the designer.
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In 2011, at 0gms Gallery in a Drawer, I realized this idea for the first time and inserted authentic rose oil into a bullet. The resulting scent was the most crucial part of the work. The perfume could be opened and used, but the smell of gunpowder combined with rose oil was definitely unpleasant and required its audience to be somewhat daring.
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Since this concentrated smell was contained in the drawer itself, the surprise upon opening it was double—on the one hand was the loud clanging of the bullets against one another, and on the other was the overpowering aroma.
