Antiideal Project: Lithuanian Fashion Fights Against Stereotypes And Ignorance

In 2015 Lithuanian fashion designers and filmmakers started a unique project ANTIIDEAL (lith. ANTIIDEALAS). The aim of the project is to spend an enriching time together and wipe out the stereotypes, ignorance and fear that usually comes with the phenomenon of mental disability.

Though mentally disabled people in Lithuania have their living centers, events and laws they still seem to be dissociated from “normal” society. They’re being humiliated or ignored in public, the workers and disabled people feel shame to show themselves in public places. To fight this the author of a project Irma Bogdanovičiūtė invited the most talented young Lithuanian fashion designers Rūta Lendraitytė UTALLA, Vidmina Stasiulytė, Milita Balčaitytė and Elzė Sakalinskaitė (INDIGO TEKSTILE studio), Modesta Kremerytė KREMER and Aleksandra Glušinatė to visit and make a contact with mentally disabled people from Markučiai daycare center in Vilnius, Lithuania. The concept was to create a clothing collection and a documentary film and reflect the insights and experience that artists and models gained and to encourage everyone else not to be afraid to contact. Also to express the personality of a model through her or his clothes and to contemplate and widen the idea of beauty and fashion in totally different way.

Every week designers used to come and spend time in daycare centre watching the visitors living their everyday life – doing sports, theatre, painting, going for a walk to the city, visiting museums and shops. In the end designers chose 8 visitors (of 63) and decided to work with them personally. The models are Ramūnas Nausėdas, Petras Liutkevičius, Indraja Kalnikaitė, Aliona Zborovskaja, Jolanta Dobralovič, Marius Mikoliūnas, Giedrius Supranavičius, Oksana Tulko. This wasn’t a single-sided choice though. The daycare centre clients expressed a strong wish to work together. People who felt authentic connection became creative couples.

Designers and their models continued developing their contact and deepening awareness about each other. They spent time in couples while going to art galleries, discussing the sketches, visiting shops and choosing the material for clothing.

In December 2 2015 the ANTIIDEALAS collection was shown for public in Vilnius Tolerance center. Models did a catwalk in the spotlight hand in hand with their designers while live jazz band was playing and people were watching. Few days later couples went for a photoshoot to Raimonda Vyšnia’s studio.

Director of a documentary Irma Bogdanovičiūtė: “I watched everything from the beginning. During this tough and magical time together all the participants have changed including myself. The designers became calmer and more rooted, the models became inspired and happier. Everyone found answers to questions that they didn’t even ask out loud. And this continues to happen with audience as we’re travelling and making presentations of exhibition and film all over Lithuania.”

The ANTIIDEALAS project is travelling now and is being exhibited in various spots in Lithuania. In 2016 the project took part in contemporary art and fashion festival VIRUS and was awarded with the special prize from Wãpsva LT fashion house. In 2017 ANTIIDEALAS participated in Fashion week Lithuania.

For more information search ANTIIDEALAS in Internet, visit our facebook page and feel free to contact the project coordinator Irma Bogdanovičiūtė via facebook or e-mail mlle.irmai@gmail.com.

All photos taken by Raimonda Vyšnia.

More info: Facebook