Lecture with Designer Ekaterina Fateeva "How Style is Born and What Role Does Art Play?"

It seems today that everyone knows what "style" is. But is that really the case, or do people just think they do? The concept of "style" has been so distorted that many may have forgotten where it originates and what it truly means, how it is born, and how it is perfected.

Today, someone who follows trends, who looks like someone else, just fashionable... People are ready to spend vast amounts of money, energy, and resources chasing endless trends, paying hundreds of thousands to personal stylists who come, dress them, and leave. Yet, the person remains as far from themselves as ever—far from their individuality, expressiveness, authenticity, their values, and perhaps their purpose.

True style is not just about clothes, not shoes, not a designer handbag, not the ability to mix the unmixable. Being stylish means being out of fashion yet sensing it long before trends emerge, all the while remaining true to oneself, shining uniquely, with or without trends. Being stylish is understanding yourself, seeing yourself, feeling yourself, being in harmony with yourself, being confident, seeing your expressiveness, and organically extending the internal into the external. Renata Litvinova, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Mayakovsky, Picasso - these are styles that are organic with the inner essence of these vivid personalities, with their appearance, with their unique gesture.

Style is, above all, a gesture. Kate Moss or Renata Litvinova remain themselves even without clothes. They sense trends, they are contemporary, but they do not chase fashion; they are beyond it.

Picasso, like Chanel or Schiaparelli, are long gone, but their style lives on, their gesture, their uniqueness. Moss is no longer young, but her style is timeless, and nearly every eighteen-year-old girl wants to emulate it.

Style is a unique pinnacle of artistry. Style is a path and a meaning, unique to each individual. Therefore, one should strive towards oneself, not towards trends.

And then, the birth of style is the birth of a person, their essence, their values in this world.