І. THE NEW GENERATION

A fashion review as a diploma work was organized in the summer of 2004 for the students from the faculty Industrial Art – Fashion for a bachelor’s degree at the National Academy of Art, Sofia. The project was given the symbolic title AIRPORT and provided the opportunity for the first professional demonstration of a group of young fashion designers. The following graduating students presented works of theirs – Yoanna Marinova (Stages), Ratka Dzhambazovska, (Globalization), Veritza Tsakovska (Identity), Stefka Dimitrova (Chaos), Antonia Pashova (A Man at the Airport), Konstantin Stoyanov (Non Verbal), Olivera Atanasovska (Travelling in Cyber Space), Vancho Kertakov (Bermuda Triangle), Stanka Traikova (The Genuine in Him), Leda Ekimova (Airport), Hristina Nikolova (Freedom), Zhivka Dacheva (Corridor).

The team of lecturers to the young designers includes Professor Gredi Assa, Professor Panaiot Panaiotov, Associate Professor Lubomir Stoykov, Associate Professor Maya Bogdanova, Boriana Tsaneva, Ekaterina Tsaneva, Mariella Gemisheva, Sandra Klincheva, Vesselin Jordanov and Anni Avramova. The objective of the project is to design a fashion collection and its presentation before the audience. The AIRPORT topic is to attract the attention of the society to problems, related to modern art, culture and the relations between people. It provides sufficient freedom for the participants in the project to demonstrate their personal position within the context of the modern fashion trends. Provides them with the opportunity to make an analysis of the time, in which we live focusing on the AIRPORT as a centre, a world stage where different nationalities, cultural and fashion traditions meet and pass each other. The topic offers rich possibilities for interpretation, provides a chance for overall creative demonstration, demonstration of modern thinking and individual creation on behalf of the team members. The fact that more than half of the group are foreign students is a perfect condition for study and development of the topic for tolerance as a problem of the modern time.

In general, the AIRPORT topic may be reviewed as a crossroad, a place that is neutral and hospitable, a place that puts people together without introducing them to each other. Going into details, the project participants deal with some of the possible aspects of the theme. It could be considered as movement in the real space of people of different generations, of different cultural identity, who have set out on a travel through life in search of the direction. A travel in the past, through the present or with a ticket for the future. A travel in the reality, the fantasy or the cyber space. A travel in the problems of the modern society: globalization, integration; the passenger in his rush for the seat on the flight of his life, etc. The diploma fashion show was realised with the kind assistance of SOROS CENTER for cultural politics; CULTURE National fund; PROHELVETIA – Swiss cultural program for Bulgaria; L`OREAL; The National Academy of Art; ROLLMAN. Make-up is by Mariana Mihailova and Ani Andreeva and hairdos by Milena Najdenova and L`OREAL. The models of Visage Fashion Agency showed the garments of the young designers.

The diploma fashion show of the students from the academy of Art is not the only success of the new generation of Bulgarian designers. The works presented by the students from the New Bulgarian University as well as the young fashion designers Dessislava Stoycheva, Maria Doichinova ( recently she was appointed as an assistant of the famous French designer Veronique Leroy), Milena Dobreva (who attended a training course in London and was, though for a short time, a probationer of the famous queen of the punk fashion Vivian Westwood), Tsvetelina Brankova–Taneva and Silva Borisova for fashion house Zebra, Nina Todorova, Ani and Krassi Stefanov (Studio Kav), Nikolai Pachev, etc. were also very impressing.