Ienki Ienki is a breakthrough outerwear brand focusing on both innovative and wearable shapes and silhouettes, which never existed before. When entering the outerwear market in 2016, there were many puffer brands, but we created something new there – puffers in new shapes and silhouettes that quickly became a must-have all over the world. Now, three years after we launched, it’s hard to find a mass brand which is not copying our core Michlin Jacket; it’s everywhere. So, I would say that Ienki Ienki has an innovative, functional and commercial vibe.

The team I’ve gathered to create Ienki Ienki is a group of product-inspired professionals, designers and constructors. Product is our focus. And the way we work is slightly different from the typical understanding of work on the collections. We are inspired by design and functionality mixed with our vision of fashion and modern lifestyle.

As to how similar Ienki Ienki is to me, I would say that it’s who I am. But again, it’s not just me, we are a group of passionate people with the same vision and passion for creation and development. Ienki Ienki is present everywhere in my daily life. As the key purpose of outerwear is to serve people to protect them from natural impacts, I examine every vital aspect through the brand. I’m always searching for a product that still can be created and how to properly introduce it to the market.

My professional career was always connected to fashion and included publishing business, marketing, buying, visual merchandising, branding, etc. However, my key focus was always retail. I visited many showrooms where I couldn’t find outerwear that was fulfilling the current interests of the customers. This led me to the idea of working in this niche and creating a garment with all the characteristics I admire: high quality, warm, simple but recognizable, stylish and created with the newest technologies available. I always had a passion for outerwear, so at some point, I could picture the ideal product that would be interesting for both buyers and final customers.

I believe that a ski collection is a next step for many outerwear manufacturers and that’s why it was so challenging and appealing to me. Also, it was a logical development to get to a different league, where it’s not only about fashion but also science and technologies. Nevertheless, the real inspiration for a ski collection were our customers, who were in love with our puffer jackets; they were wearing them on the slopes while skiing even though the garments were not specifically produced for that purpose. For me, this meant that people really liked the idea we offer as a brand, so they wanted to look different from the other available options on the market, even specialized ones. This is why we decided to offer them our garments but suitable for these specific ski purposes.

Thank you, I’m happy to hear that! For our ski capsule, we researched the top technical solutions and merged them with our DNA. Therefore, our ski jackets and pants were made with advanced three-layer membrane fabric, which is created with WB-formula allowing water vapour to get outside and, at the same time, to provide protection from snow, rain and wind. Of course, you are right, and feathers are not a waterproof material, but it’s technically impossible to get through them because of this three-layer membrane fabric and ultrasonic welding process we used, meaning no threads or stitches.

Ienki Ienki’s ski capsule is also produced with one of the warmest substitutes for the goose down: PrimaLoft, developed for the United States Army in the 1980s as an alternative; Velcro textile fasteners with more than then thousand attachment cycles, and Riri customized waterproof zippers. Additionally, we equipped ski jackets and pants with Recco rescue technology which, with the help of detectors, lets the rescuers find you if any unpredictable or dangerous situation happens. Moreover, we plan to use the technologies of the ski capsule in the brand’s main collection next season.

Ienki Ienki is planning to continue to lead a niche of functional outerwear where we will keep creating both innovative and wearable outerwear pieces that you will be able to use every day. I don’t find it interesting to create crazy things just for the purpose of creating a crazy thing. It’s way more interesting to create something new that will give everybody comfort and pleasure by wearing it every day.

I wouldn’t say that it’s the main reason for this partnership but it definitely was important. Sasha is an incredibly talented artist who has achieved a lot professionally and I have been constantly enjoying her work. Eventually, we started to discuss working together on Ienki Ienki’s upcoming collection, and then Death Valley and LA just happened. So, I’d like to highlight that I really love the idea of building a Ukrainian team around the brand, but this partnership with Sasha happened mostly because of how awesome her work is and not only because she is also from Ukraine.

Of course, we are also planning to shoot in Ukraine as well. In fact, our previous campaigns were shot there.

From the very beginning – and still today –, I’m one hundred per cent involved with every main aspect around the brand. I should say that campaigns are actually one of those main aspects I always work on, along with the collection itself, its presentation, distribution and all the other creative aspects that I’m overseeing. However, with the brand growing, it also grows the number of its operating tasks and I try to delegate small ones as much as possible.

AR is one of our newest innovations, which we took on board this year to create the most advanced product experience that exists in the world at the moment. It works easily by simply visiting our website from your iPhone with no apps, no data transfer and no obligatory sign-ups. You are able to merge the digital image of our best-seller Michlin jacket into the real world, explore it, play with its size and placement, etc. I personally found it very entertaining during the last fashion week in Paris, you can check it out on my Instagram.

In general, I have a real passion for innovation and technologies which we use for all processes, especially in production. At the moment, we have the most advanced equipment for working on our ski capsule as well as for puffers’ fillers, but I think that this equipment is a must for the outerwear production. When it comes to the final product – to ensure that you have an original Ienki Ienki puffer –, we have implemented special cards in each item so you can just place your phone on a puffer and then be redirected to the brand’s official website to find all necessary care instructions.

Currently, we are working on our first sustainable vegan collection that we plan to present in March, 2020, in Paris. For puffers, we are using fabrics out of recycled fishing nets no longer usable and fibres of recycled oyster shells instead of goose down filler. We are truly excited to make our contribution to changing the actual situation of the planet, especially in the fashion industry.

I love this question, thank you! Now, we have Ienki Ienki for women and men, and also we are back on track with our kids capsule. Therefore, we’d like to move forward, improve and get established in these three categories on all of the main markets with our own corners and flagship stores. Additionally, for casual fashion products, we are interested in expanding our outerwear range with specialized lines for specialized markets, such as the ski capsule that we are launching at the moment and outerwear capsule for extreme environments – like Everest climbing gear, which is planned for the nearest future.