Bulgarian designer Bozhilov winner of the BigSEE award
Bulgarian designer Nikolay Bozhilov, author of the Spirit collection designed for the Forum of Slavic Cultures’ Transformations project, is one of this year’s winners of BigSEE fashion design awards. He received the national award for his exploration and interpretation of Bulgarian traditions in contemporary design.
Fashion designer Nikolay Bozhilov, recipient of the prestigious Bulgarian Golden Needle Award for the best designer, designed the Spirit collection for the Forum of Slavic Cultures. Inspired by the traditional Bulgarian costume the collection culminates in handmade gaitan, arranged in a striking colour composition. The central fashion accessory in the collection comes in the form of originally designed, extended braids around the neck area, made of braided neoprene threads. Bozhilov’s main inspiration comes from the tradition of nestinarstvo, the ritual of fire dancing, which has been protected by UNESCO as Bulgarian intangible cultural heritage.
Bozhilov’s Spirit collection placed him among the winners of the national Big SEE Fashion Design Award. By means of the BigSEE awards, Zavod Big aims to systematically explore the creative and business potential of the Southeast European region, and to recognise and expose its excellence in architecture, interior, product and fashion design, wood, and creative tourism.
The project Transformations: FROM the Slavic Clothing Tradition TO Contemporary Designs is one in the series of FSK’s activities that showcase Slavic cultural heritage and promote it among the general public. In the first stage, the project featured collections by Nikolay Bozhilov from Bulgaria, Jelena Proković from Slovenia, Nevena Jovanović from Serbia, Russian item Galina and Nikolay Biryukov and Andrea Pojezdálová from Slovakia.
Bulgarian designer Bozhilov winner of the BigSEE award
Foto: Peter Giordani, Nikolaj Božilov