Creativity as a form of expression, the Russian firm proposes that you connect with your true “self” through your skin.
Nudity as the main concept and tattoos as a form of expression. The brand TTSWTRS presents its new collection Second Skin Séries. The firm was born in 2013 as a collaborative project in which "art is entangled with clothing", directed and founded by the designer Anna Osmekhina.
TTSWTRS proposes the body as the canvas where you expose your experiences, forms and subcultures, it is the space in which to feel safe with your true version and express it through tattoos.
Discover the essence of the brand, as well as the great tattoo references that collaborate with it in this interview for #VEINDIGITAL:
What motivates mixing the idea of a naked body but full of tattoos?
For me it is the definition of beauty, and my perception today is the same as the first day I was shocked to see Ien Levin wearing them as clothes on his body.
I think all bodies are beautiful and meaningful, and the same goes for tattoos. These are like the crypt of contexts, feelings and emotions; by recording them on our body it makes us a little more vulnerable, since we are basically baring our inspiration, ups and downs and much more. It is a beautiful mixture of the naked body and the naked soul.
Through this “second skin” can we better express who we are?
The “second skin” effect makes you feel very comfortable as if you were naked or wearing your favorite T-shirt. Also, it makes you feel comfortable being the real “you”, therefore increasing self-expression, effortlessly making you feel at home no matter where you are.
Is there a link between different tattoo designs?
All tattoos are connected by powerful cultural or contextual messages: no tattoo on our clothing appears randomly, it is carefully thought out to reflect our inspiration. There is always a link between the tattoos we wear for TTSWTRS, they inspire the whole team. We look at them and we know that we have to add them to our collection.
We see 8 tattoo artists, how would you define the work of each one?
Traditional Japanese symbols of primarily dragon and tiger motifs appeared on the capsule thanks to Japanese ornamentalist Nissaco, who has been working in dotwork and blackwork techniques with Japanese cultural codes for more than 15 years . The graphic images of plants, flowers and mandalas are the work of Ukrainian tattoo artist Sasha Masiuk, known worldwide as Sashatattooing, who has worked with Adam Levin (Maroon 5) and Behati Prinsloo.
We have several masters: kyiv-based illustrator and tattoo artist Ian Levin, who works exclusively with black, blending pop culture and the underground; Moscow-based tattoo master Nikita Khomyakov, Katya Ponomarenko, who works in the hand poke style and goes beyond minimalist tattoos reminiscent of children's drawings. Also on the list is Misha Kozlov, a Russian tattoo artist who works with ancient Japanese motifs, and Artur Muzechenko, a Kiev tattoo artist who works in his own style with signs, symbols and images, combining primitive lines and forms with realistic ones.
What made you choose these artists?
Our main artist and visualizer is Nina, she's basically been half the main tattoo artist for a long time. She felt how she wanted to weave a tattoo from each artist and we chose the most charismatic ones for ourselves.
How was the creative process for this capsule collection? What about the production process of tattoo printing?
The creative process was quite complicated and exhausting for the whole team, as it took time and effort to find a perfect match between the type of fabric and the tattoo.
It is a delicate and time-consuming procedure for us, mainly based on working with color tests, because the colors of the tattoos must match the style of the tattoo artist and the color of the fabric itself . The entire mix of elements had to look as natural as possible. In the end there are 7 graphic designers, the art director, our main visualizer and I worked on the collection 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to achieve the result we wanted.
As for the printing process, it depends on the article, since we use both digital printing and screen printing for different elements.
Discover the Second Skin Séries collection by TTSWTRS through its website
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