Streetwear poetry: see the latest capsule collection by Gosha Rubchinskiy and artist-author Slava Mogutin

Russian-American artist, author, and activist Slava Mogutin and designer Gosha Rubchinskiy have joined forces on a new capsule collection that blends Mogutin’s artwork with the designer’s famous skateboarding-inspired streetwear.

Launched during Paris Fashion Week, “The Dawn is Coming” is a special collection by Rassvet (Russian for ‘dawn’), the streetwear brand and art collective founded in 2016 by Rubchinskiy and Tolia Titaev. Colourful t-shirts, shirts, hoodies, socks, scarfs, and skateboards feature in Mogutin’s photography, drawings, and texts, with what the brand describes as a “unique view into the artist’s diverse universe”.

Mogutin wanted to contextualise the collection within his own reality and source of inspiration, so, alongside it, he created a limited edition zine of portraits documenting his friends, queer youth, and fellow artists in NY and LA wearing his designs. The photographs range from digital to analogue and polaroids, and are presented in collages along with his visual poetry and artworks.

“I’ve known Gosha Rubchinskiy since 2005 when I went back to Russia after years of exile with my exhibition during the first Moscow Biennale,” Mogutin, who was born in Siberia but was granted political asylum in the United States for his outspoken queer activism, told The Calvert Journal. “Gosha helped me with the installation and we immediately became friends. I have great memories of us going to a flea market together and taking pictures there. After Gosha and Tolya Titaev started their skateboarding brand RASSVET, it became a perfect platform for our collaboration.”

To celebrate the collection launch, a multimedia exhibition of garments and Mogutin’s artworks has opened at 3537, an art space in Paris’ Marais neighbourhood, running until 8 October.