interview

“Interestingly, when I sing in Bulgarian, I also sound less queer than in English.” We were lucky enough to get ahold of one of the most idiosyncratic and eye-catching acts the Slovak 2025 Pohoda Festival has to offer, just a day before the event kicked off: Bulgarian choreographer, performer, and singer-songwriter Ivo Dimchev. His enthusiastic fandom knows him for a wild and vivid mixture of folklore, catchy pop, cabaret, and opera – and this year’s Pohoda should expect nothing less. With Ivo, we talked “fame”, multudisciplinarity, inspiration, queerness, and questions that haven’t been asked yet.

“How many times are gaps filled in a narrative to paint a specific picture?” asks Berlin-based fashion designer Elodie Carstensen regarding semi-mythical historical figures, whose stories have been told by all but themselves. In the interview with the designer, we discuss Jeanne d’Arc, marrying golden statues, and creating all-powerful beings out of the women wearing her clothes.

Italian artist Chiara Baima Poma transforms ancient stories into paintings that pulse with joyful sacredness; visual incantations that embroider mystery rather than explain it away. Learn how travel, ritual, and Renaissance traditions shape her contemporary practice in today’s interview.

Polish artist Zuzanna Romańska wields beauty to subvert and step into its costume to excavate violence and trauma beneath ornamental surfaces. Her archetypal figures transcend time and identity, captured between worlds. Join her mythmaking rebellion against linear time in today’s feature.

On her unorthodox journey from pathology to fashion design, Sumeyya Donmez arrived at the preferred creative tool of expression: the time-intensive and unpredictable process of salt crystallisation. Reminiscent of clothes swept into the ocean at high tide, Sumeyya’s collections sit somewhere between a garment and a sculpture. Read more about the symbolism of salt, savouring slowness and waiting, and how actually wearing the clothes sometimes isn’t the point in the in-depth interview with the designer.

“Passionate love appears very similar to religious obsession.” What initially draws the eye to Edyta Olszewska’s paintings are the ubiquitous scattered glints and gleams – but once you get past the form and technique, it’s the symbolism that makes you stay. In the interview, Edyta talks about leaning into the mesmerising power of Christian processions in all their solemnity, drama, and opulence, ecstatic tensions, challenging inner dualities, and more.

Under the inspired hands of Czech jewellery maker Tereza Otáhalíková, golden foliage creeps, twists, turns, and blooms, adorning hands, necks, ears, hairdos, and clothes. In the interview with the craftswoman, she talks the processes behind her dainty floral and organic shapes, how a piece gains depth and meaning through placement and context, researching a distinctive style, and more.

Justyna Baśnik creates a para-religious iconography to examine the post-truth world, and offers an atheistic spirituality through art. Accept the Polish artist’s invitation to her alternative belief system and learn about her approach in today’s feature.

“Imperfection feels authentic, touching, and full of history.” Polish fashion designer Karolina Pieniążek toys with the semantics, definition, and perception of “ugliness”. Her garments are sometimes adorned with false teeth or locks of hair, and a replica of a two-headed lamb serves as an accessory. Far from anyhow gory and macabre, though, her looks carry an enchanted and ethereal air, rooted in memories and oneiromancy. Enjoy the interview with the designer below.

Jakub Ružinský bridges medieval iconography with contemporary expression, creating works where mysticism and neo-expressionism converse. Through a metamodern framing, he explores beauty as both a mask and portal, inviting viewers to a place where opposing truths can exist side by side. Join us on this journey today, and learn about Jakub’s creative approach, love for history, and the insight that infuses his brushstrokes.

Wincenty Czwartos’ battle paintings navigate between Baroque excess and avant-garde abstraction, creating a contemporary visual language of war. Learn how the rising Polish talent transforms violence into contemplative panoramas where competing aesthetics and opposing realities collide.

“Woman portrayed as something unreal and unnerving is still very common.” The moodboards of Zuzanna Kordiukiewicz, a Polish fashion designer and jewellery maker, are filled with uncanny and eerie textures and shapes. The collection to which they gave birth, Chimera, is inspired by the fever dreams and rapturous visions of surrealism, often portraying female figures severely distorted and hybridised with other lifeforms. We invite you into her creative process.

Louise Reynolds transforms media overload into intimate drawings on wood, creating stillness in today’s chaotic information landscape, combining anxiety and tragedy with humor and triviality into her very own take on magical realism. Read today’s interview to learn about Louise’s artworks, and how the balance she crafts comes into being.

The Epitelio collection by Lorenzo Seghezzi draws inspiration from the sensations of body and gender dysphoria—deeply impactful experiences that shape one’s relationship with their corporeal form. Through bold sartorial storytelling and intricate, haute couture corsetry, the garments explore the altered perception of self and the discomfort many transgender and queer individuals face daily, challenging both aesthetic and gender norms.

Polish fashion designer Monika Łuczak’s creations immediately draw the eye with their intricate corsetry and lacing, assymetrical cuts, and figure-hugging silhouettes. But the lore behind these fetish-reminiscent designs is steeped in feminist social commentary and reproductive injustice resistance. In the in-depth interview, Monika shared her intrigue with the narrative patterns of “female transgression and reprimand” abundant both in mythologies and religions, The Handmaid’s Tale, reaching creative freedom, and more.

Interviewing Carla Boré, a fashion designer based in France, was a pleasure for both the mind and the soul. Her textured, layered, ruffled pieces are reminiscent of objects one might find growing or shed on the fairy forest floor. They are, actually, as the designer notes, supposed to evoke moulting, thus “rebirth and self-reinvention”, embodying the fluidity and resilient adaptability of femininity. Plunge into her world below.

Paweł Olszczyński’s latest painting series border between a reframing of surrealist ambitions and a radical commentary on form itself. Read today’s interview to learn about Phantoms, and how Pawel invoked them into being through a personal emotional alchemy, intermedia techniques, and early-20th-century influences.

In Alexandra Kamova’s works, dreams become a cipher. Through surreal landscapes, she creates places where beauty and sadness coexist, like asphalt cracked by blooming flowers. Read today’s interview to learn about Alexandra’s creative trajectory, poignant views on topics ranging from biology, philosophy and music, and glean the keys to reading her art.

“The brand is my fragile soul whereas I am a forever servant of its social mission.” We’re delighted to see Irina Dzhus make a reappearance in Swarm Mag with yet another bold, layered, almost monochromatic, textured, versatile and theatrical collection, the SS25 line. We caught up with the Ukrainian designer to talk personal developments of being a war refugee, escapist urges, self-alienation from the fashion world, crafting icons, and more.

François Thevenet moves between media as smoothly as he combines colors in his vivid paintings. Having recently discovered the joy of oil painting, his new oeuvre shows a new break in his artistic career. Read today’s interview with the acclaimed artist to learn about his influences, why he is inspired by martial arts, and how the environment informs his creativity.