ColourWalking:
Vibrant Flaneurs
Galina is a
stylist and owns a vintage store, Gigi’s Dressing Room in Walthamstow, East
London. I met Galina at ‘ColourWalk’, an initiative she launched 5 months ago
as a way to bring together the colourful personalities she had collected
through her distinctive way of dressing and being.
She kindly
agreed to meet up at Gigi’s to tell me about her philosophy and how she started
the ColourWalk.
How did ColourWalk come about?
I was
influenced by AdvancedStyle, I looked at what they were doing, and
I thought they are just getting dressed up, walking around New York. So I put up a Facebook page and said ‘who
wants to dress up and get together?’ And it became a celebration of who we are
and how we dress. The first ColourWalk was at the V&A, we wandered and
chatted. I was thrilled Molly Parkin came along, she has been an inspiration to
me, and it was lovely she joined us. We
all just support each other with the way we express ourselves through our way
of dressing, we love being creative. I used to think that I would need to find
ways to fund a foundation, to change the world in a big way, but you know this
is what I can do every day…..just be me. If I can be a little bit of
inspiration, if I can connect with people and share my values, then that’s
enough.
The
ColourWalk has already been forging new connections with amazing women like Sue Kreitzman, who attended the last one at Spitalfields, and now Advanced Style
are saying ‘shall we do a ColourWalk?’ As
Galina says, “they influenced me and then it goes back around….It’s always been
about sharing ideas and collaborating for me. I don’t see this as ‘mine’ it’s
for all of us to have fun with. I don’t have an agenda. It’s not like it’s a
movement that I want to control! And ColourWalk is about all shapes, sizes,
ages, colour, it’s about diversity and commonality. It’s for everyone to enjoy.
Where do these ideas come from?
I grew up
under communism, I didn’t have much opportunity to be creative, that side of me
was quite suppressed, I was sunny on the outside as a child but inside I was a
little bit depressed. I couldn’t express myself. Not with the way I dressed,
there was very little choice. But my grandmother had a sewing machine and I
took her sixties pieces and reworked them for myself so even then I was
beginning to take some control of how I looked.
Then at
eighteen I came to London and it was like Alice in Wonderland. I went to Epsom Antique Market and I just went crazy. All the colours and all the choice; such
a contrast to the greyness of growing up in Bulgaria.
And then I
had my children, I was still quite young, for a while I wasn’t so interested in
how I looked. When the children started school other mothers would ask about my
clothes and I’d say come to the house and they would try stuff on and borrow
things. I would style them; that would bring about changes in the way they saw
themselves. I realised then that this was a kind of way of doing therapy. I had
intended to go back to education and train in psychology but suddenly I had
this business and it didn’t feel relevant to train as a counsellor. I seemed to
naturally influence people to try something different, to step out of their
comfort zone. We all have a need to express ourselves, to be creative, if I can
encourage that, if I can help someone find out a bit more about who they are,
to be brave and show themselves, then that feels good. And that’s what
happens at Gigi’s. When clients say they have been ‘Gigified’ and they feel so
much better, it makes me happy. I’m playing a small part in making it better
for someone.
How does the way you dress reflect who
you are?
When I wake
up in the morning I look around my wardrobe and this item jumps out; so it
makes me look a certain way and my outfit of the day is literally 100%
reflection of my mood; of my vibration. Sometimes I feel down and I think I can
change this. I accept that feeling of being sad, I’m not denying those
feelings, but when I’m like that then that’s when I will choose something that
is even more outrageous. I don’t want to hide away on those days. I will
deliberately put myself in a position where I get more attention. I will
embrace my attention seeking inner little child! I want to maintain a sense of
humility but there is a difference between that and putting yourself down. When
I dress in this way, when I am authentic, I communicate with more people, I
make relationships and straight away that makes me feel better. And those
connections make others feel good too. And I am inspired to play with my
identity to forge more links to others and we create this cycle of inspiration.
And it’s all because of the manner in which I dress.
Do you see Dress as having a way to
make not just an individual happier but having a bigger part to play in the
world?
So on a
personal level when I suppress who I am it makes me unhappy, why I should be a
particular way to suit others? I don’t want to fragmentize my personality, to
split off my creativity; I want to express all of me so I can be a fully
nuanced person. I can be quite political in the way I mix up the symbolism in
how I dress; I take different cultural references and wear them together. This
often leads to a dialogue. That’s good.
I want to spark off ideas and debate. My clothes do that. People stop me
in the street and they may not always be complimentary but we talk and who knows they may go home and think yes we are all the same really. In this part
of London we have such a mix of cultures it’s good to learn about each other,
we are all humans underneath, I may not agree with your views but I can try to
understand them. I want to create a community where we are all accepted, I do
that in my own little way in Gigi’s. People drop by to chat and try on clothes
and play with the way they look, people from all backgrounds and communities.
It’s all-encompassing. That’s my vision that we all get along together, no one
is left out. I start with myself, my ideas about fashion, and colour and the
arts and how they have helped me, then I hope that my way helps others; that my
love, of creativity, colour, way of being, expands and brings about healing and
forgiveness. We can all share that. I don’t see fashion as being superficial if
it can help me with these goals.
Gigi's Dresing Room
My Reflections
Galina shared
so much with me during our chat. She has a beautiful philosophy on life. I can
see how transformative her way of looking at the world is for her clients, she
is nurturing, kind and encouraging. There is no sense that her way of dressing
is right for everyone, but she inspires others to find their own way of being
that can be expressed in the way that they dress. I love her vision for the
unifying qualities that fashion can have for communities. The ColourWalk is a
simple, tangible way of connecting people to each other, to walk and talk and
experience a time and space together that is constrained only by a love of
self-expression; like colourful Flaneurs, a moving art form through the streets
of London.
