Flowers Know Better: Litkovska and Nick Knight Present a Charitable Capsule Collection
As Paris Fashion week begins, Ukrainian fashion label Litkovska continues an avant-garde approach to innovative design, this time in collaborative partnership with renowned image-maker, SHOWstudio director Nick Knight. Designer Lilia Litkovska and Knight engage in a poetry of perseverance, where the label’s enduring spirit for Ukraine charges Knight’s iconic floral photography across a capsule collection filled with printed symbols that balance fragility and strength.
Nick Knight developed a series of floral imagery for Litkovska to incorporate into contemporary shapes. These images have been reconstituted by embroidered applications onto fabrics so form and vibrancy can express optimism. ‘While in peacetime, flowers decorate and bring comfort to us in our homes, the flowers that grow through the rubble or on the battlefield provide hope and demonstrate the power of beauty and nature,’ Litkovska said. ‘The goal of our collaboration is to support children of Ukraine affected by this terrible war and to warm the souls of people around the world by bringing these flowers closer to their hearts.’
LITKOVSKA and Knight came together through creative director Holger Homann, whose humanitarian relief nonprofit Be an Angel, has provided relief and evacuation efforts in Ukraine since March 2022. Their capsule centres the collection’s S/S 25 theme called 'Жнива' (Zhynyva), the Ukrainian word for 'harvest.’ A t-shirt with the slogan ‘Flowers Know Better’ emphasises the collection’s message of endurance through difficult times. ‘I abhor violence and brutality of all kinds, wherever and however it happens,’ Knight said. ‘If within this collaboration my work can bring any relief from, or shine a light on the cruel and inhuman suffering that this dreadful war is causing, then I will be delighted.’
Drawing inspiration from visually reaffirming, thematically enduring themes, Litkovska x Nick Knight explains how roses can indeed grow from concrete. Their optimistic fashion statements on the redemptive power of resilience symbolise the best values towards Paris Fashion Week.