The collection’s primary inspiration is the “nestinarstvo” ritual, a barefoot dance on smouldering embers, protected by UNESCO as Bulgarian intangible cultural heritage. Believed to bring health and fertility the ritual takes place on St. Constantin and St. Helen’s Day on the 3) and 4 June in southeast Bulgaria. After the morning procession with participants carrying icons of both saints the festivities culminate in the evening with the “fire dance”.
Bozhilov based each of his five “looks” on a distinctive item of Bulgarian traditional dress: women’s dress called saya, the traditional women’s litak, traditional men’s trousers potur, and men’s fabrics aba and yamorluk. The pinnacle of the collection is a hand-made gaytan arranged in a colourful composition that frames a woman’s face into exaggeratedly symmetrical proportions. Bozhilov also refined the silhouette, which is more basic and rough in its traditional folk version, so that it shines through the black and white palette in a completely new, elegant dimension. He also added very original, extended collars made of intertwined neoprene threads as the dominant fashion accessory.
The key reference of Spirit’s visual expression is the work of Vladimir Dimitrov – Maistora (1882-1960), one of Bulgaria’s most prominent artists. Maistora was the quintessential Bulgarian painter whose work captures the “Bulgarian spirit”. He dedicated his entire body of work to Bulgaria, its people, in the first place the commoners, its land, history, wars and battles, tradition, folklore, customs, natural beauties and women. Some call his “Bulgarian Madonna”, which depicts a girl from the village of Shishkovtzi, his Mona Lisa.
Spirit is not a collection that simply evokes vernacular mysticism and sublimates the traditional clothing culture. It is much more. It is Nikolay Bozhilov’s unique fashion monument to the painter who was fatally seduced by the fantasy of a perfect woman. The iconic “Bulgarian Madonna” has turned into a true fashion icon.
Nikolay Bozhilov graduated in fashion from the National Academy of Arts in 2011 and completed his Master’s degree there two years later. In 2020, he completed his doctorate at the same academy.
In 2010, when still a student, he received the Golden Needle, a prestigious award conferred by the Bulgarian Fashion Academy. In 2011 his project Morphology won the International Triumph Inspiration Award at London’s Fashion Week. In 2013 he officially launched his own brand and received yet another Golden Needle in Sofia. The next year, he presented his collection Symbiosis at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin. In 2020, his SPIRIT collection won the BIG SEE FASHION DESIGN award and in 2022 he was awarded One in 50 of 2022 certificate of achievement
from Kyoto Global Design Awards for the same collection.
Bozhilov works in the creative field of conceptual fashion, intensely focusing on experiments in fashion while trying to create new, timeless aesthetic standards by combining past paradigms with contemporary ones.
