The U SO NICE brand presented a new clothing collection inspired by a sense of ‘lightness and clarity’. It includes 14 items — among them are both basic clothes and silk garments with a complex cut.
The collection consists of summer unisex tops, basic longsleeves, hand-painted cotton scarves, mini and maxi skirts, velveteen tops, dresses and sheer silk tops, as well as hand-knit vests, longsleeves and bonnets.
The U SO NICE team has been working on the collection since the winter of 2023. According to Kateryna Stepanenko, the founder of the brand, while creating the items, she ‘intuitively concentrated on the materials and forms, which should reflect the then moral state’. The main colors of items are black and milk.
‘The dominance of black is like black earth, milky color is like spring flowers, transparency, lightness and openness — like everything the most essential, it lies on the surface, simply and see-throughly’.
Kateryna added that the design of the new collection should be the opposite of the past, ‘loaded with meanings and symbolism’. However, ‘it was not without flirting with cultural contexts’.
So one of the scarves is with Vasyl Symonenko poem written on it by designer’s hand, and another one is decorated with ‘a symbol of the life-giving soil, which is in the eternal circle of life and death’.
The collection was also completed with a top with the inscription Dobroho vechora my z Ukrainy.
‘Our clothes are in showrooms in New Zealand, Italy, have an audience in Los Angeles, and generally are ordered by people from almost all over the world. The fact that a notional Jessica from Auckland will wear this T-shirt and consciously or unconsciously spread the culture and tragedy of my people is a powerful motivation’, Stepanenko explained.
You can buy clothes from the new collection on the U SO NICE website.
Kyiv brand U SO NICE was founded by Kateryna Stepanenko in 2021.
It specializes in creating gender-neutral clothing. The team chooses durable and predominantly natural materials for production, and does not work with fur and leather.
‘We believe that fashion is not about consumerism and violations against human and nature rights. We prefer the use of quality, durable and predominantly natural production materials to commercial profit’.
