Highlights of 2019
It’s time to sum up this year. It was full of events. Have you missed something? Let’s recall and put everything in order.
Collaboration with VISION Magazine and Arnold Veber / January 2019
In the summer of 2018 the editors of the Chinese magazine VISION contacted us and asked for an interview. The guys were preparing a whole issue dedicated to Moscow and its modern culture, and arrived in the city for a week to see and learn the most interesting things. As a guide, they chose Arnold Veber, our friend, photographer and artist, known to many as a chronicler of Moscow nightlife.
One interview was not enough - VISION invited us to Beijing to participate in the organization of a party on the occasion of the issue release and offered to make a small drop of the merch. The result was a capsule collection of clothes on which the screenshots of Arnold's archival VHS records were used as prints. This drop was our first release in 2019.
Launch of the VOLCHOK: St. Petersburg drop / January 2019
We strive to ensure that each of our three stores in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev has its own life and that its own community is formed around it. The first small drop - a t-shirt and a hoodie with old Petersburg engravings - was the beginning of an exclusive line, items from which can only be purchased in the store of this city.
Collaboration with the NE VINOVATA festival and photographer Emmie America / March 2019
On March 8, a large-scale action was held in 19 cities of Russia and Belarus in support of women survivors of domestic violence. We actively supported the event in Moscow, someone from our team even participated in the organization, and our biggest contribution to this business is the production of the merch. Emmie America, a fashion photographer, took the photo for the print, she also shot an advertising campaign. The shooting took place right in one of the spacious halls of the Elektrozavod, which in a year already became the "home" for our team. Our friends and subscribers were the models.
We transferred all the profit (84 814RUB) to funds that help women who have experienced domestic violence. Many popular media wrote about this collaboration, among them are Afisha, The Village and even GQ. We were happy about it.
Collaboration with the graffiti artist Lambo and another trip to Barcelona / March 2019
We met street artist Lambo in Barcelona when we arrived with the presentation of the CRASH TEST collection. Lambo has loved cars since childhood, and in his graffiti the car often becomes a central element, so he liked the CRASH TEST collection, especially the video from our performance at the Winzavod.
Presentation and release of the PREDATORY THINGS OF THE CENTURY collection / April 2019
This collection has become innovative for us from several points. Firstly, an unexpected choice of location - an unfinished penthouse - made us stop at the closed format of the event and come up with a whole performance instead of the usual show. There were no more than 200 guests, everyone else watched the show live on YouTube. The recording is here.
Secondly, this is the first collection of Volchok, which includes few black clothes and many clothes of other colours. In the process, we’ve experimented with fabrics and color combinations, but in the end we were convinced that our audience was still not ready to give up black, and realized that we had to work a lot to bring the production processes to the ideal.
The first party in St. Petersburg at RAF25 / April 2019
VOLCHOK: 5 YEARS / May 2019
This year our brand has turned 5. On this occasion, we threw a grand day-time party in the Boiler Room at Hlebozavod.
Collaboration with LOVE LIFE TATTOO / May 2019
For a long time we were planning to do something together with our friends and here we are: four masters (Andrey Kichatiy, Kolya Koka, Andrey Novitskiy, Ruslan Tsvetnov) and four designs.
Collaboration with PRETTY POISON / June 2019
In 2019, the collection which was planned three years ago was finally released. Pretty Poison is a Balinese project, combining a bar, the main skate spot Cangu and a skate brand known throughout the world, which gathered around a whole multicultural community. Vasilii Volchok thought of a collaboration during his first visit to Bali in 2016, but it was only in 2019 that he finally managed to get to know the Pretty Poison team personally and even shoot a short documentary about them.
Antidoto28 drop at VOLCHOK: Moscow / June 2019
Our friends from Barcelona - brand designer of Antidoto28 Carlos and his girlfriend Fleur - after many promises finally came to Russia. They came during the busiest summer time: Faces&Laces at Aviapark’s parking lot, rallies and the Golunov case were thundering around Moscow, and Kultrab arranged an enchanting party “Russian Day 228”, so that the guys had enough impressions for the year ahead. You can read about it in their Moscow diary. We also had a small party for friends in our favorite courtyard at Hlebozavod (to which we had to say goodbye this year), we also celebrated the start of Antidoto28 sales in our store.
Participation in the FACES&LACES exhibition / June 2019
The first "conscious" Faces&Laces. At the request of the organizers, this year we came up with an installation and not with a corner for express sales. More precisely, we’ve made even two ones - the first with the presentation of the collaboration with Pretty Poison (also the premiere of the documentary was showed there), and the second with the presentation of a new collection.
Collaboration with the German music festival MELT! / July 2019
MELT! Is one of the largest European festivals, which takes place every year in the German city of Ferropolis, on the territory of a former coal mine among huge abandoned cars. Every year, the organizers assemble an interesting line-up in which such world stars as Björk, The XX, Tyler, the Creator, Bon Iver and Jorja Smith coexist with new curious names in the world of electronic music. The art director of the festival wrote to us and suggested a collaboration just a month before the festival.
Video release from a trip to Shanghai / July 2019
This video is from the vacation of Vasilii and Lesya in Shanghai. Honestly, we didn’t want to include it in this selection, but in the «Video of the year» on VK it got the most votes, so it turns out to be the video of the year!
Presentation of the UNITY collection in Kiev / September 2019
The fall-winter 2019 collection was a large-scale collaboration with the tattoo community Euthanasia Sport, which we have been thinking about for a couple of years. And since the core of the community is in Kiev, we decided that it would be symbolic to present the collection there. It happened that it was in September that the guys planned to open their new headquarters - a tattoo studio in the territory of the Closer Family space, symbolic for Kiev. We decided to combine this event with the presentation of a joint collection and make a big event. It was also the birthday of the ideologist of Euthanasia, Slava Kononov.
This presentation is so far the largest event that we managed to organize outside of Moscow. It was a challenge that we basically dealt with.
Presentation of the UNITY collection in Moscow / September 2019
In Moscow, we presented the collection in Mutabor, we’ve arranged an exhibition and a day tattoo camp with the participation of tattoo artists from Euthanasia Sport instead of a fashion show. Everything was cool, even though it was Wednesday.
The start of sales of the UNITY collection in Spain / October 2019
In October, we’ve made a small tour around the partner cities in Spain - to Barcelona and Madrid. In Barcelona, as always, we had a small party at Antidoto28, and in Madrid we met with the Painkiller store and WAG1 - an agency and magazine that promote young brands. At the same time, they shot an editorial with the participatin of local models and a photographer. It turned out to be funny.
Merch for Philipp Gorbachev / October 2019
We’ve made merch for the release of Philipp Gorbachev's new album “Kolokol”. Got some plans for the first part of 2020 to release something else together.
Collaboration with Amediateka / October 2019
In honor of the release of the new series based on the comic book “Watchmen”, which we love, we made a small drop together with the Amediateka service. It included a balaclava and a scarf that can be worn as a mask.
Party and pop-up in Kazan / November 2019
The first trip to the region with so many team members. It’s like a tour.
Collaboration with Volkovskaya Brewery / December 2019
This summer, we suddenly realized that we have an obvious similarity with Volkovskaya Brewery, and decided to celebrate this with a friendly event. We released two t-shirts with a collective design and developed a special label for a limited edition of beer. As a presentation we’ve organized a hardcore festival with a powerful line-up.
Collaboration with VOXNOX Records and rave in Berlin / December 2019
Fabio, the founder of the VOXNOX Berlin label, was originally our customer; he found out about us through the Endayz store in Berlin. One day, he wrote us a letter and offered to make a joint party. We were not taken aback and immediately agreed. The preparation process took much longer than we expected, and communication was at times just a torment. Nevertheless, as a result, everything had happened - El Chulito made a cool design for a t-shirt, Artem Grebnev and Roma Ptashenko played powerful sets, Fabio turned out to be a very good guy, and the party itself turned out to be a real German rave, although everything happened in the afternoon, which is why we were also a little worried. Now we plan to arrange a party with the participation of the residents of Voxnox Records in Moscow.
Have an account with Tiktok / December 2019
And finally, by the end of 2019, we gave up and created a TikTok account. We are enthusiastically watching the huge number of views and the rapidly growing number of subscribers and plan to come up with new stuff in 2020. Subscribe - @volchokclothing.