Here, I want to tell you about an example of the amazing work of the stylists who organised a creative photo shoot for two-time European Figure Skating Champion Kawaguchi Yukko.

I was only on this shoot as a second guest designer and observer of the process. The total number of team members in the room was about 13 people, including the videographer and interviewer. But it didn’t interfere with the work at all, as everyone was a professional with experience and clearly did their part of the job.

Yukko flew in from Japan especially for the shoot at 4am. At 8am, she and the braiding masters started doing her hair in the dressing room of the photo studio. It took 6 hours to create the hairstyle! By 2pm the rest of the team pulled up. Jukko was still sitting in the make-up chair. Then she had a long make-up session. We got acquainted and started to discuss the images with the stylist – Dumas, and only at 16 o’clock the whole team entered the film set.

The first image Dumas put together from things by designer Nina Savranchuk. It is a red pleated skirt made of thin transparent plastic + shortened latex badlon. My black leather armour-sleeve was added to the image. The samurai sword was brought by another stylist of the organiser – Stasya.

And Yukko herself brought two real Japanese kimonos from Japan especially for this shoot, which were packed in beautiful flat boxes and wrapped in rustling paper inside. The most difficult task was to put them on correctly.