Berlin diaries: days 7-20 (ENG)
The second series of our Berlin adventures. Finding a place for a pop-up store, going to clubs, new local friends, doubts, worries and much more.
Vasilii: I was very glad to be in the office. When you open your laptop, you find yourself in the most familiar environment of sales reports, work chats and graphics programs.
In parallel with Berlin, we are solving current work issues. Making edits to the animated video for the INTEGRAL STRUGGLE collection. Getting ready for the release of a new vlog series. We are looking for new employees in Almaty. We are moving to Kazan with a store and agreeing with the construction team on repairs. Vlad and Alice are now in Tbilisi, they brought the clothes to our future partners.
Anton and Kaplya filmed a video about courier delivery in Berlin. The task was just to shoot a short video, but it seems that they will come up with something comparable in scale to the advertising of some fancy taxi service.
Masha went to meet our friend, who moved to Berlin a year ago, and I sat in the office until the evening, finishing the print for the summer drop.
While driving home to Nastya, I got so loaded with worries that missed my station and did not immediately understand which branch I was on.
I am very afraid of making mistakes as a leader. Part of me thinks that we have been doing this for a bunch of years and everything will work, the main thing is not to stop. The other is that we will spend a lot of money and nobody will need us. Of course, you need to doubt, but it is very exhausting and takes strength.
At home, Nastya greeted me with jokes, I drank a little Yagermeister and everything started to seem much easier.
It rained all day. For myself, I called this day “the day of returns”. Today we were supposed to be given the keys to a new building in Kazan, but instead they broke the contract with us.
And also had to issue a refund of 300 euros. The girl to whom we sent a parcel to Serbia, the customs asked for 700 € fees. Some kind of madness. She, of course, refused to take the parcel. And in general, the atmosphere in the office today was tense.
But we posted the first part of our Berlin diaries!
There is not much news about the preparations for the event. For the premises that we were looking for on the sites, no one answered us. We will act in the usual way for us - search through IG stories. It is also not yet clear which DJs to ask to play. But we seem to have found a designer who will make a poster.
I received an aggressive Facebook comment from an artist friend from Odessa under a post about our stay in Berlin. Was worrying all day. I don't know if I need to write anything at all. It hurts, it's scary, it's embarrassing. Constant internal dialogues. And the most annoying thing is that you can not say everything as it is. You can't even think anymore.
Today is our meeting day. At 12:00 we went for coffee with a local young artist with whom we have been following each other for a long time. We talked about ourselves, he – about his work, about the fact that Berlin is oversaturated with contemporary artists and sometimes it is quite difficult to break through here. He showed a video recording of his performance about the post-war legacy. It turned out that he has relatives from Russia and Ukraine. He shared the contact of his friend who has a gallery that might be suitable for our pop-up.
The next meeting with X tin, who recorded a podcast for us a few years ago, was in a couple of hours, so we went to the Voo Store to try on the sneakers. I didn’t buy sneakers for a year, I kept thinking what to wear now, if not Adidas. Masha said that the coolest, in her opinion, are now Salomon. So it seems to be my new love.
We worked a little in a cafe, ate curry again, of which there are a huge number in Berlin, and almost all of them are awesome, and went to shoot a short video for our post about looking for collaborations in Berlin.
We stood for a couple of minutes at the subway and realized that we were late. And we also forgot a bag with the clothes that we planned to bring our friend. But she said don't worry and don't rush.
Masha: X tin is a DJ and co-founder of the UY Studio brand. There was an interesting interview with her for our podcast. She and the other two co-founders once studied together in Barcelona, then moved to Berlin and created a brand here. They are all obsessed with techno but kind of over with the days of partying 24/7. But their passion shows in clothes they create: there are cozy ones like hoodies and t-shirts, there are interestingly tailored dresses made of flowing fabric, there are rave items, belts and other canonical stuff. All things are unisex and most are made in such a way that they will suit the owners of any complexion. This also goes hand in hand with the ideas of inclusivity and freedom that are important to rave culture. In Berlin, they have a very cool space: a shop, an experimental workshop, a kitchen, a warehouse, and even a small space in front of the entrance outside where you can sit and chill. Goals.
Vasilii: Immediately after the meeting, we went to the opening of the Avgvst brand office. We met our friend and went to get prosecco, as we didn't want to go empty-handed.
We discussed, of course, the housing issue. Met some people, among whom Masha from New York, who said that we definitely need to go to the Berlin Atonal festival. Talked to Andrey from SHU about some business stuff. In the end, I left Masha with Nastya, and went home myself.
Due to the fact that we live together, sometimes it's nice to spend some time alone in your thoughts. While riding the subway, listening to music in headphones, you usually have time to reboot.
When I got home, I received a message from X Tin, who invited us to the Kitkat club where she played tonight. She wrote that she added us to the guestlist. I was tired and didn’t really want to go anywhere, but just in case, I forwarded the message to Masha, who almost immediately replied: “Let's go”. Well, then I thought, we are in Berlin for only a month, and not every day our friend DJ is inviting to come.
Nastya said that she would not go there and that everyone there are usually naked. I thought it was a joke, but I still put on my most naked clothes - a tank top.
While walking to the club, we discussed our diaries. Masha said that they were useless and uninteresting. It was quite painful to hear, because it seemed to me that you can definitely find inspiration in them and that they are sincere. But I thought that her criticism might be useful to me. But it is unlikely that in one evening I will learn to write better. I can’t stop either, because most of all in life I hate unfinished business.
We got to Kitkat, went down to the basement and immediately found ourselves in front of a line of almost naked people. A little taken aback, they took off their jackets, hoodies and handed over to the wardrobe. We were also asked to leave our phones in our jackets.
Having looked at what was happening around, we decided that we couldn’t make it without drinks, and immediately ran to look for X tin. We found her at the booth in a hall full of people. She looked cool - with a gloomy make-up and hair gathered in two tails. We approached, she immediately happily hugged us and handed us 3 tickets for drinks. We swayed a little to the music, looked at each other and went to the bar. While waiting for drinks, I furtively looked at people. Girls with naked guys on leashes passed by. Everyone was dressed in every possible variation of BDSM lingerie and accessories, so we were the most dressed in our tank tops and jeans.
We grabbed glasses and went chat. In front of us the guy was licking the foot of his mistress. We decided to move. We passed a role-playing room with a gynecologist's chair and ended up in another room with a DJ, who was dressed in a sweatshirt and calmly was playing music to his own separately from what was happening. Having thrown off a couple of condoms from the table, we continued the conversation. It was difficult to talk about work in such an environment, so for some reason we started talking about the relationship between people, let's call it that. Then we danced to X tin and went home full of impressions.
These days passed in a work routine and mild melancholy, when I did not understand whether it was worth writing anything at all.
Today we are going to look at the space for a pop up. And not just anywhere, but in Mitte, which is considered a fancy district of Berlin. And besides, on the dates of Gallery Weekend, when supposedly people will wander through the galleries in different parts of the city. This place is located not far from the Civilist store, on the street that is not very to the view, and therefore it is not clear whether walking people will come across us. But in any case, this is a great success.
The story with the space was fun too. At first we were refused by the owner, fearing that we would play too loud music and wallow drunk. But the next day she called and said that she was ready to hand over. It turned out that the she watched some kind of interview with me on YouTube and was imbued with the sympathy for our project.
There is a store in this space, with an assortment that is not very close to us - toys and jewelry made of felt. The walls are painted with dark black paint. The owner was from Belarus, but had not been there for a very long time. We discussed the difficult situation in which we all found ourselves and shook hands. I felt much better.
Today after work we are going to visit our old friend Nastya Pilepchuk.
I spent the whole day in the office, and Masha was riding around looking for the locations for a shooting. We met at the 032c store, looked at their clothes. Previously, it seemed that 032c was a brand reference for us, we wanted to be equal to them, but in the new store we did not feel the same connection.
Masha: 032c has a very inspiring story. It's a DIY zine that has evolved over time into one of the top fashion magazines, and 5 years ago they've also become a clothing brand. Their former space in Berlin had this DIY backdrop, where you could take a look a the clothes and buy something, and at the same time where their photo studio was located and, apparently, their office. There was an atmosphere in which something is being created. The new store seemed too "fashionable", but, perhaps, this is an inevitable and natural growth process for any brand.
Vasilii: Nastya and her boyfriend Dima live in a large studio in Kreuzberg, with high ceilings and access to the roof. We chatted about this and that, talked about our successes with pop-up.
I kept trying to find out from them how to rent such a room, to which they answered that no, this is now impossible, there are no places like that anymore in Berlin. But I still believe that someday we too will be lucky to find something cool.
Vasilii: Before leaving, we want to manage to shoot the lookbook of the new PURGATORY drop, so we walk around the locations near our office. We walked along my favorite Oberbaum bridge and took a couple of test shots.
After that, we went to RAW, it's something like an art cluster, but quite small. There we had a meeting scheduled for today with Valera, our longtime partner from the ENDAYZ store. He talked about the markets, said that, for example, in RAW in the summer, markets are held every Sunday, and it seems like a place costs 70€. He shared the contacts of the printing house, offered to borrow pipes for the rails. In general, it was a good meeting. Then we sat in a clearing in the park and chatted about this and that.
After lunch, we went to the client day of the jewelry brand SUMEI. It's the brand of Lisa Smirnova from St. Petersburg, and she has a nice little store here. We congratulated her on the release of the new collection, stood a little in the sun with wine, met a couple of friends and went to UY Studio to get some clothes.
Masha: One of these days we are going to do a shoot for the Berlin account. At first I thought that we could try to shoot an editorial for KEYI Magazine, a Berlin magazine that writes mainly about music, but also about fashion and culture. I wrote to them, found out about the criteria by which they take the shootings. I was told that you need at least 10 looks to publish, at least 10 luxury brands or independent designers, and more than two looks with the same name is considered advertising. This probably means that the shooting cannot be given to them. However, I have already written to a couple of brands asking for a loan of styling items. UY Studio is one of them. I liked this experience. The shooting became an occasion to get acquainted with brands, to look a little closer at how they work and communicate.
This morning we went to the markets that take place here every Sunday. Markets are one of the main ways to introduce project to a new audience, and we wanted to see what they look like here. We woke up at 8 am, the weather was gray and it was raining a little. The first one, Maybachufer market, takes place on the embankment not far from our house. It seems that the most part of the year it is a food market, but in spring it turns into a flea market.
When we got there, it was about 10 o'clock. Some of the participants were still laying out their jewelry. Basically, the second-hand segment was represented there. There were a lot of old toys, there was even a stand where the children themselves sold their stuff. There were also several stands with ceramics and some handmade brands such as handmade kimonos. We realized that most likely this market is not for us, and went to RAW.
It was more fun there. Spacious, closer vibe to us. Someone played music from the speakers. Here, too, of course, it was mostly vintage, but we were able to find a few new brands and took business cards.
And our attention was also attracted by the stand, where there was nothing but posters and three girls. Masha chatted with them, it turned out that it was a promo of the parties. She entered the lottery and won candy beads, and I looked at Berlin Luft's welcome shots. I said to Masha, let's treat ourselves, it will be more fun to wander around here. After that, one of the girls said in Russian: "Of course, on the road." We drank, chatted a little more and moved on.
And I began to think that as if the locals, unlike Eastern Europe, do not really bother with working on brands. There, brands appear almost every week, but here it seems to be mostly second-hand. Why is it so, I still do not understand. Maybe with conscious consumption. Maybe with the ease of entry into the vintage segment. Whether this will play into the hands is also not clear. Maybe it will be something new and interesting for the city, or maybe, on the contrary, alien.
Tonight we are going to Beghain to listen to Oscar Mulero. But we, worried that there would be a long queue, decided to go in advance to get bracelets. We were closeby, read in the chat that there was no queue, and went to the club. Our friend Nazira started to play right that moment. We quickly walked in, paid 25€ for entry, drank a shot of Jagermeister and began to explore the space.
Masha was here 5 years ago, and I was only on the summer terrace, so it's great that we came in advance. I realized that I definitely need to wear a tank top and shorts. The sound is great, the people are dancing, the lights are pulsating, the atmosphere is great. I think it's definitely one of the best clubs in the world.
We got a little stuck on the computers at home, waited for Nastya, gathered ourselves together and left. The line took 10 minutes. We paid another 5€ for Re-enter and went dancing. Returned home at 7 am.
Chatted about death, egocentrism and a bit about the club industry.
