Hilarion, Chisinau (2026)

24/02/2026

I started making this jacket because I fancied “quickly” sewing some new drip similar to the ones I’d previously been commissioned to make. Well, I’ve now been working on this jacket for about two months, almost every day.
To begin with, the patchwork — the raw material for it was about seven pairs of old jeans and the scraps of fabric we’d used to make a bomber for a local fashion brand — took the first week of painstaking work. Then I had to take another three to five pairs to make two sleeves and the yokes for the front and back, and use the bomber scraps to make the collar. I had a bit of bother with the slit pockets, too.
I won’t even go into how long it took me to stitch together the cloths from those microscopic bits of fabric (the ones you can’t bear to throw away but from which nothing else can be cut) so I could cut the lining. The day I had already started sewing the lining — about three weeks after I began the entire project — I had to stop halfway through and go to a scheduled meeting. I cursed everything under the sun!
On the way back I came across a pattern of traditional Japanese embroidery, and that’s when I realised how lucky it was that I hadn’t yet attached the lining. It takes me roughly an hour and a half to embroider one of those little squares — and I’d never done embroidery before! I place the squares haphazardly.

08/02/2026

A friend of mine said of me long ago, “You like it when there is everything at once — and lots of it!” A former professor, who is now a dear friend, jokingly characterised my painting and graphic works as “Fauvism-Baroque” because of my love of detail and vivid colour, and I found that description very apt. That said, I do not like to call myself a maximalist — I dislike almost everything that goes under that label. Rather, I feel closer to the concept an art historian used for Victorian interiors — horror vacui, or the “fear of empty space.”

24/01/2026

Many thanks my teachers at college! When I was studying, we were taught both art history and design history — even in theoretical classes we used to make sketches in our notebooks. So today I still draw everything by hand, in the good old-school manner. 🧵🪡✂️✍️🏻

15/01/2026

Clothing should follow the person, be a complement, not merely a tool for a pragmatic purpose. For my part, I endeavour to make a lifestyle out of an aesthetic inspired by the past, placing it above comfort as a value capable of bringing vitally enriching variety into the modern world. I delight in humour, in mirth, in excess, in the Renaissance grotesque, in which the fullness of life is revealed through a rich spectrum of shades, all united by the singular aim of trying everything, experiencing it all, and attaining those pleasures that are both desired and within reach.

29/12/2025

I do not usually write end-of-year round-ups; they feel rather feigned. Still, better than ending the year in tears. 😌
A few days ago, I resolved to list a hundred achievements. Some surprised me; some were mundane. ✨
— This year I took up chess and find it absorbing despite not being strong at logic puzzles. (My forte is abstract thinking.) ♟️
— I appeared in five theatrical productions and was honoured by praise from professionals. 🎭
— I dared to start wearing pearls, as I had long dreamed, and I now wear almost nothing but turbans! (And my heels are getting higher and higher…) 🤍👒👠
— A highlight was joining the Q***r Voices festival team: I first attended Q***r Café for a screening two years ago, a few months later curated exhibitions, and now contribute to the festival programme. 🌈
— I have met committed artists and hope to build friendships. 🧑‍🎨
— Over the year I made only two large watercolours. One of them had taken me six months. I am almost satisfied with the results of my labour. 🎨
— My translation of a Wodehouse story for coursework received warm feedback—my mum asked if I had really done it. 📚
— People trusted my vision. I made several bespoke jackets that immediately catch the eye! And even a stage costume… 🧥✨
— My university average now exceeds my college one, so I feel confident about applying for a master’s. 👩‍🎓📝
— I fell in love with Hermann Hesse and was reminded of the virtues of spiritual life (not in a religious sense). 📖🌿
— I fell in love. ❤️
— I had plenty of fun. 😄
— This year I started a YouTube channel and argued with Pierre-Auguste Renoir about art. It was interesting, but I realised I did not need it. 🎥
— Crucially, I began my own ready-to-wear projects. I asked no one’s permission to revive old garments. I put my soul into it and can work day and night, favour quality over quantity. ✂️👗🛍️
There have been failures and hard days; I still shed tears and often see no reason to live. Yet near year’s end I realised how deeply I love my mum—self-sufficient and inwardly free—and how vital one close friend is. Thank you, dears. Happy New Year! 🥂✨️🌺🫶🏻

12/11/2025

Why do people nowadays dislike colour? Some tell me so outright; others favour the most neutral palette possible — browns, greys and beiges. And these are all young designers…

Meanwhile, my wardrobe is so full of colourful and patterned pieces that I sometimes find myself at a loss as to how to wear them together. I adore Léon Bakst’s costume sketches. The other day I came across a lecture on the origins of two important currents in late 19th–early 20th-century Russian art: Symbolism and Impressionism. Haven’t learnt anything new so far yet. It may be rather unfashionable now to describe oneself as belonging to those movements, but still why not borrow their attitude to colour and their love of striking images? Rhetorical question, of course.

(Says the person who is going to the opera tomorrow and who no longer owns a favourite pair of black gabardine trousers for every occasion…)

31/10/2025

How on earth did it come to this? How did we find ourselves here?

As a child I was hopelessly fond of leafing through vintage fashion magazines. I recall a large-format book with a bright, gilded cover on the history and psychology of fashion — I can’t recall the title or the author, only that I adored it. It was lavishly illustrated with wonderful images and elaborate ensembles.

My mother statedly made a point of dressing very well. Her school and university colleagues still recall her as something of a “princess” — tiny and unfailing. Our tastes have diverged considerably since, yet she undoubtedly instilled in me some principles of creating and dressing with a deliberate flourish — her garments ought not to shout, but they should be colourful and possess a small, clever twist in their cut.
My grandmother’s wardrobe consisted of no fewer than forty summer frocks.

So, there was never much a chance of my taking another route; only that the route proved rather serpentine.

Have you ever walked into a shop and felt that everything there is somehow not quite right — the colours wrong, the silhouettes ill-judged, the whole lot dreary? That’s precisely why I began designing clothes and dressing myself. One might say it was my beginning — if you don’t count the fact that I was sketching dress designs from a very early age after watching the film ‘101 Dalmatians’ with Glenn Close and its sequel. I have not bought clothes on high street for roughly ten years; flea markets or vintage second-hand stores are the only exceptions.
For me, clothes need not be merely comfortable in the physical sense — what matters is that one feels psychologically at ease in it. It simply makes life easier to live in society.

25/08/2025

It rained yesterday afternoon. I have a particularly tender, warm affection for August rain. A thought occurred to me: for me, “home” is not a city, nor even a particular building — indeed, it is not even strictly the people. For me, “home” is cosy comfort and a measure of solitude. For the time being, I am, in a sense, homeless.
Over the past few months, I have felt as though I’ve finally — even if not entirely — shed the peel that sort of shielded me over the last decade. This year, on the whole, has been very helpful. Perhaps the most bruising experience so far was taking part in a workshop on the making of art films; it rather bluntly revealed that cinema is simply not for me. (Once, I even considered applying to the directing programme at drama school!) Today I feel I have met myself again — that child who aspired to be Cruella de Vil. It is important now not to stray from the path, not to give in to despair after the first setbacks — and equally important not to programme myself to expect their inevitability or some apocalyptic outcome.
These days, I am sewing my first pieces not for myself but for private clients. In everything — in sewing and tailoring, in drawing and painting, even in the simple act of tying a turban — I follow a set of plain rules: I work diligently and persistently, and I try to concentrate solely on my craft; I do not overexert myself; I take well-timed pauses and leave things for the next day when it feels right; I remind myself that not everything comes at once, but if one conserves and spends one’s energy evenly, success will follow.
I am at a turning point. From painter I am becoming a fashion designer — a couturier of sorts — as I dreamed in childhood. Follow me so you won’t miss the updates from the front line of my atelier.
——
P.S. — Guess which three drawings were done in the past week and which are older? I’ll be charmed if you’re right.

19/05/2025

I truly admire people who know how to work carefully with sources and build a coherent picture in their minds, rather than painfully memorising thousands of disjointed facts. Yesterday, I happened to spend about fifteen minutes listening to someone speak about the history of interactions between different peoples over the course of some five centuries in the Balkans — and I didn’t even ask that person’s name.

23/03/2025

“…although she had a Roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier…”
Snippets of life lately: reading William Thackeray, studying P.G. Wodehouse’s stylistic devices, listening to Shostakovich and planning a series of homages to Hans Holbein’s ‘Dance of Death’.

13/03/2025

I’ve been noticing odd little quirks in myself—ones that neither a long kip nor a good chuckle can cure. Mornings are a battle since getting out of bed feels like a Herculean feat. Half an hour later, the bright southern sun spills through the window, setting the room aglow with shards of crystal light, waking up all my dear vases and lace—and all of a sudden, I’m in a poetic mood, quite ready to skive off lectures in favour of working on the next chapter of a yarn. An hour on, I’m dithering over what to wear; two hours in, I’m sobbing over nothing at all, and by evening—if I’m lucky—I’ll be laughing again. A decade ago, it was scribbling that kept the black dog at bay, and now I find myself trying to piece that old flim-flam back together.✨️🎨🎭🥂
This is one of my paintings from 2020 or whereabouts. It exists no more. Oil on paper, about 60cm x 80cm

15/02/2025

Balzac’s novel represents a unique synthesis of romantic philosophy and a realist perspective on society. This article explores the realist interpretations of the novel’s fantastical elements....

Hilarion

24/02/2026

08/02/2026

24/01/2026

15/01/2026

29/12/2025

12/11/2025

31/10/2025

25/08/2025

19/05/2025

23/03/2025

13/03/2025

15/02/2025

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