Singer Sevdaliza has released a new music video for the track ‘HEROINA’, recorded in collaboration with Argentine singer La joaqui. The video was created by a Ukrainian-Georgian team led by director Tanu Muiño, with Ukrainian Margarita Shekel serving as the creative director and stylist.
DTF Magazine spoke with Margarita about the visual imagery in the music video and shared more details about the work.
‘HEROINA’ marked a new creative stage for Sevdaliza, who, according to Shekel in a comment to DTF Magazine, ‘is transforming her underground, conceptual experience into a project for a broader audience, particularly the Latin American market, with a new dance sound’.
‘This is not a music video with a linear storyline where the heroine drinks a cappuccino in a café, then gets into a convertible and goes out to have fun; rather, it’s a statement and a visual that remains relevant in the global discourse — without glitter and rhinestones’, Shekel explains.
In ‘HEROINA’, the artist ‘asserts her corporeality not in the context of objectification, but as an expression of freedom and strength’. She also expresses support, particularly for women, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and refugees. In fact, not only excerpts from the song but also specific visuals in the video allude to the themes of immigration and refuge.
About the preparation for the shoot
The music video was filmed in Tbilisi. According to Shekel, currently ‘not many international artists are willing to travel to Ukraine, where the war is ongoing, and this is not only due to fear but also because of specific restrictions imposed by labels and artists’ insurance companies’.
She described the organization process as one of the most challenging in her career, despite having worked on larger-scale projects. In particular, logistical issues with shipping clothing and accessories from different countries were a major factor, and the process was further complicated by anti-russian protests taking place in Tbilisi at the time of the video shoot.
‘I prepared this project in February in Kyiv, from a bathroom I used as a shelter. Amid sirens and explosions, we coordinated with brands from four European countries, China, and the USA, organizing delivery to Georgia. There were many logistical challenges: customs delays, difficulties with customizing [the looks] in Georgia. But the team was made up of Ukrainians and Georgians — people with extraordinary resilience who know how to survive in chaos’.
Shekel adds: ‘Sometimes the clothing didn’t arrive on time, so we urgently looked for local solutions, choosing from what was available from local designers. Besides the dozens of primary direct tasks, we also had to meticulously check that there were no individuals with russian passports in the huge team — neither among the dancers, nor in the technical or beauty departments. This was our fundamental condition’.
About the Ukrainian part of the team
Tanu Muiño worked on the music video with her constant partner, cinematographer Nikita Kuzmenko. Together, they have created videos for Lenny Kravitz, Dua Lipa, Cardi B, and Harry Styles.
The production designer for ‘HEROINA’ was art director Helen Gadjilova. For the video, she notably created an iron machine shaped like a giant high heel, in which Sevdaliza sits at the beginning of the video.
Ukrainian choreographer and director Maryna Kushchova, who previously worked with Muiño on the choreography for Lenny Kravitz’s music video ‘TK421’, also joined the team of dancers.
The nail design was done by Ukrainian nail artist Chummy Nails.
About the creation of Sevdaliza’s look and the 25-kilogram military dress
Describing the work on the singer’s looks, Margarita says that Sevdaliza ‘has very selective taste’, and from the styling team, she expected a ‘bold proposal’.
In ‘HEROINA’, the artist changed eight looks for the first time — Shekel explains that usually in one music video she has between one and three looks, but this time ‘she was completely open to a new vision’, so all the team’s ideas from the final presentation made it into the video.
‘For us, it was important not to create a completely new, ‘foreign’ image, but to transform the established visual identity into something fresh, strong, honest, and perhaps even raw. We worked with goddesses whose names are mentioned in the song’s lyrics — Anahitob, Saraswati, Aphrodite, Mama Kila, Anaidea — but not through direct quotes or copies of their images. We created modern equivalents: a refugee goddess, a military goddess, a gender-fluid goddess’.
One of Sevdaliza’s most striking looks was a 25-kilogram military wedding dress made from 20 ripstop military backpacks. This item was created by the young Chinese designer and student of the Antwerp Design Academy, aojierou.
‘This look is fate. At first, I found this dress and reached out to the designer [with a proposal], and then Sevdaliza herself sent a photo of this very piece. She had previously communicated with aojierou but couldn’t get it for the earlier shoot — the dress was in China at an exhibition, — Margarita says. — For me, there’s no such word as ‘impossible’, so eventually the dress, made of 20 separate parts, traveled from China to Tbilisi. This is not just a costume — it’s a visual manifesto. Fashion is not separate from politics. It is a tool of identity and global context. And this dress is about that’.
The dress was also complemented by a choker made of bullets and a piece of leather, which Margarita Shekel crafted by hand just a few hours before the shoot began.
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When asked why they didn’t choose one of the military-inspired works by Ukrainian designers, such as Polina Veller, for this look, Margarita replied: ‘Polina works with pixel camouflage designs. And I would gladly turn to her for a project with artists who are truly living through the war, not singing about it from another continent’.
About the other looks from the music video
Another standout look in the music video was the refugee dress, which alludes to the theme of migrants. Originally, Sevdaliza herself was supposed to wear it, but due to a schedule change on set, it was worn by one of the Black actresses in the video.
Visually, the skirt of the dress alludes to the white tents used for refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The actress’s look was completed with footwear and accessories made from barbed wire.
‘This look was born while listening to the track, because it contains references to migrants who have succeeded in new countries. For Sevdaliza, the theme of refuge is personal, as it is for me’, Margarita explains.
Recalling other looks from the music video shoot, Shekel shares a story about the 3D dress from the Shanghai brand weiræn: ‘It arrived literally on the last day before the shoot. I opened the box and saw not a dress, but a set of pieces, like Lego. I was both laughing and crying at the same time. Overnight, our Georgian contractor assembled it from scratch, without any instructions. In the end, the dress was worn in the scene featuring the transgender heroine’.
The team also embedded references to Ukraine in some scenes: ‘The final scene features a man in a politician’s suit trying to squeeze into a women’s high heel. If you look closely, you’ll notice familiar colors around the perimeter: blue, yellow, black, and red. Small objects — great significance’.
About Ukrainian brands featured in the music video
For the styling of ‘HEROINA’, the team of stylists also used items from Ukrainian brands. Margarita explains that ‘her dream is to style music videos for international artists exclusively with brands from Ukraine’, but this time, such an option was impossible due to the specifics of working with local brands during the war and the project’s tight timing.
‘Artists almost always require customized items, but under war conditions, Ukrainian designers and brands face certain limitations: not all items are available in the needed sizes, fabrics must be reordered, then you wait for delivery, sew, and then delivery from Ukraine to Georgia takes at least another week. Given the project’s timing, it was physically impossible to organize all this. That’s why I was mostly able to bring accessories and ready-to-wear items for fittings in my suitcase’.
Thus, the video features items from Anoeses, Zhilyova, Denis Klimanskiy, the jewelry brand Sasha Zayats, and the leather accessories label Nedbass.
This is not Sevdaliza’s first experience working with Ukrainian brands, particularly Anoeses. In 2023, the singer performed at Madonna’s concert in Amsterdam wearing a dress and leather corset by the brand.
