ARTE, May 2004
Arte & mercato, Photoshock, p.215

The Shark of the Balkans

A mix of grace and strength, pride and cruelty.
This is the Bulgarian author Mariela Gemisheva, born in Kazanlak.
“Creativity and fashion must combine to make us free,”
proudly says the author, who works and lives in Sofia. In “Fashion Fire,” a performance and video installation, after completing her casual and romantic collection of dresses, filled with precision, she throws them into the fire at the end of the show.

She shows her models as if they were slaughtered. She makes them pose with defiance and arrogance, hugging the shark’s head like a Kalashnikov or placing it on their knees like a child hugging it.
“I am a stylist who is not interested in fashion. Clothes for me are just an excuse, I use them to provoke, to transform the show into a performance and the models into an art object.”

She aims for elegance or war.

Back to Fashion Fire (The Nice Thing of One Decent Beauty Quееn)