Taken from the winter 2022 issue of Dazed. You can buy a copy of our latest issue here
In the belly of an inflatable igloo, a couple of models trundle out from a miniature tipi, wielding their bindle sticks in the air while a makeshift fire smoulders in the distance. It’s more playground than it is pagan, with stylist Lawrie Abie accenting Ienki Ienki’s AW22 collection with a simple naïveté. Quilted ski trousers are reimagined as scarves, jackets as parachutes, and puffers as blow-up dolls – artful quirks that compound Abie’s wide-eyed approach to image-making. “As adults, we become fearful and lose hope,” he said of his practice last year. “So it’s okay to act and think like a child sometimes.”
“When you look at the images, and follow each chapter as it progresses, my work should read like a movie script,” he continued. Indeed, there is a cinematic quality to the shoot – not least because of the Midsommar feel – but because of all the emoting going on (concerned faces, group chanting). Almost a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, Ienki Ienki is one of the many labels continuing to bolster the country’s economy despite – and in spite of – an ongoing, illegal war. For AW22, designer Dima Levenko drew inspiration from a mythological hinterland, tacking animal ears onto hoods and knitted balaclavas, with yeti boots, cinched puffers, and wadded corsets.
Click through the gallery above to see the rest of Abie and Timothy Schaumburg’s shoot from the winter edition of Dazed.