New East Digital Archive

Life jackets: meet two Kiev creatives selling second-hand clothes to keep afloat

19-year-old photographer Vladislav Andrievsky is based in Kiev, and like most of his peers he’s preoccupied with developing his creative career while trying to make ends meet in the big city. During Urkaine’s recent recession he found the collaboration between his friends Kirill and Sasha particularly interesting. “Kirill and Sasha have a small business — they buy casual, vintage or tech clothing for little money in second-hand shops and resell it for a good amount on Ebay. In Ukraine you can buy a waxed Barbour jacket for $20 and sell it for $70,” Andrievsky says. “I photographed them to show how a young generation is looking for opportunities which allow them greater freedom to do what they like.” Kirill and Sasha both moved to Kiev from small industrial towns. In Andrievsky’s photos they try on the jackets which allow them to sustain their existence in the capital. Mockingly imitating the aesthetics of a fashion lookbook, Andrievsky highlights the strange mechanism of consumption and the unlikely power of brands — bargain for some, luxury of opportunity for others.