Mrs. Petkova is artistic director and chief designer of Irida fashion house

She is a historian by education, but by vocation she is an aesthete, poet, a young person in love with romance and daring, who found her right place and made her first steps with this fashion house, faced the challenges of the situation to create and establish a new Bulgarian fashion mark. Today she proudly says she has fulfilled her dream. Since recently, there is a new challenge in her life – she is the mother of a lovely son.

Mrs. Petkova, on the last day of February Irida fashion house made its latest grandiose parade on the stage of the National Theater, which went off with unseen before interest. Whose idea was it to present the spring and summer 2005 collection in such an untraditional way?
Irida has always chosen untraditional places for its shows. The National Theater, this is a stage emblematic for the country, real and valuable, rivaling in glamour other world stages.

The fashion parade-show “Symbols and Idols” is the product of a whole team. On the background of a kaleidoscope of major historical, political, scientific and cultural changes, events and figures of world-scale importance, little Bulgaria, clutched in the fist of “advanced socialism” remains isolated. The world develops dynamically – hurried, breathless, dashing. Bulgaria waits silently with eyes closed. Can we catch up with the western world? Can we become open and get inscribed in it? Irida proved that art, and fashion in particular, has long been in step with the world achievements, because art knows no barriers. This is our concept.

The parade-show carried an expressive message even in its name. Why did you chose Andy Warhol as a principal idol, and how would you comment the fact that Irida fashion house has become a major symbol of style, elegance, refinement, high class and brand in the fashion art of Bulgaria?
The underlying idea is the most popular art, born in the 1960s, the pop and pop art. After the supremacy of abstraction, art ceased to be alienated to life. Pop art brought in the galleries and museums advertising posters, photos, household goods as a sign of social class and a symbol of lifestyle – a sign of stereotype behavior and link with the idol. The viewer became a hero in the works, and Andy Warhol became the idol of manufacturers and publicity agencies.

Our designer team creates refined dresses, precisely cut for the female body. They emphasize the magnetism of the female figure and add nuances to fire the imagination. These trends have always been leading in the creation of any collection. To me it is a great recognition that Irida is a standard of style, elegance and high class.

What is the history of Irida fashion house?
Established in 2000, it is a real follow-up of the creative idea of the president of Irida Art. The existence of Irida Gallery, which already has a leading role on the cultural scene of Bulgaria, set high standards for the fashion house, too. Within a short time from its starting, the Irida fashion house organized and carried out a number of projects: seven parade-shows of artistic charm and original titles (Sofia Modern Vision, Sofia Women’s Ball, Ball of Flowers, Perfection, The Diamond, The Matrix, Symbols and Idols). The performance Balgarka (Bulgarian Woman) presented famous and emblematic female characters and names from Bulgarian literature (Mina, Lora, Elena Petrasheva, Niya, Katerina and Irina). In 2004, we stepped on the international fashion podiums too – during the Days of Bulgarian-Russian Fashion in Moscow.

The year 2004 brought Irida the first official recognition from the fashion circles in Bulgaria – nomination for The Golden Needle of the Fashion Academy. In the early 2005 Irida, and more specifically its president Temenuzhka Zdravkova, received a nomination for Person of the Millennium from the Made in Bulgaria program, and although this award does not sound like art, it is evidence that in a purely pragmatic aspect we are moving in the right direction.

The president of the fashion house is a figure enigmatic for the public. She avoids publicity and stays “behind the scenes”. Shall we lift up the curtain a little and introduce her?
Mrs. Temenuzhka Zdravkova is a person carrying the experience of the past and the spirit of the future. She is the one who gives us a chance and a field of operation. She believes only the genuine and valuable things are important, and not excessive ostentation and faked coquetry. Like any confident and professionally fulfilled person, she does not push herself to the foreground. With her militant spirit and optimism, she inspires us with confidence that we can be very good at what we are doing, as long as we really want it and in as far as we are ready to pay the price – a part of our hearts.

You personally have a very pleasant aureole of an artistic, and at the same time easy-tempered and balanced woman, who is since recently a mother. How do you combine the many roles and which one of them is your favorite?
Indeed, since recently there is one little creature in my life. But there are many things in common between the birth of my son and the birth and establishment of Irida fashion house. Both were created with great love and give great joy. Irida is like a family, in an artistic sense. It is not difficult to combine an artistic career with the raising of a child if they are your dreams fulfilled. Of course, I do have a terrific team who have always helped me. Without their assistance and support, I would not have been able to be so successful.

I cannot not say which role is my favorite because each has its fascination and brings me a different kind of satisfaction. I would not like to compare the smile of my son with the creation of a dress, as they are part of my self-respect as a mother and artist.

Are there inadmissible things in fashion?
Fashion is an art, and art is dictated by the purest motives and intentions. Anything that gives pleasure can be brought to the foreground. The time of uniformity and unification is gone. Every woman has to build up her own style, regardless of the vicissitudes of fashion. Our dresses are a product adequate to the personality, ambitions and desires of both the adventurous and the conservative type of women. Irida’s credo is the combination of individual vision, aesthetic criteria, perfect execution, and brand textile.

If you should quite practically offer to one of your clients the vision of the fashion house for the new season, in what words would you embody it, with what colors would you describe it and what silhouette would you draw?
In its collection “Symbols and Idols”, Irida fashion house combines in a provocative way the classical line with the youth dictates. We manage to bring together the aristocratic spirit of the 1960s and the riotous experimental impulse of youth, which brought forth pop culture and street fashion.

We favor eccentricity, challenges and the sense of style, we create dresses, which are not subject to precise definition, but in them we interweave our passions and anguish, pleasures, pains, political views! In our newest collection we stuck to the motto “Long Live the 1960s!” A decade we come back to in order to recreate it in a new light.

Marilyn Monroe is coming back. Dresses with flared skirts or elongated with a train are our proposition for the unforgettable summer nights. For more extravagant occasions, they are supplemented with lace and fluffed up as if blown by a tender breeze. The “Gypsy” dresses with many variegated and asymmetric flounces revive a little forgotten romance.

An accent in the classical line of the evening dresses are the pleats of the 1960s. “Like an accordion” are also the eccentric lapels of the jackets, taken in at the waist and with fine jewelry as a discreet accessory. These are the suits of Jackline Kennedy, a paragon of elegance and style.

For the coming spring and summer everything is colorful, as bright as possible – red, yellow, from petroleum to grass green, azure, lilac… and the unforgettable black and white. The handmade fabrics of multicolored ribbons, as if taken from the rainbow and interlaced in intricate forms, give us back the romance and harmony of pop art, the irresistible feeling of intransient chic. The preferred material is natural silk of satin luster, combined with open-work lace or natural chiffon. The design is a blending of a prime color or big floral patterns. The main accents are emphasized by buckles with Swarovski stones and accessories which are part of the aesthetics of the last century.

Your message?
I would promise that Irida will continue moving ahead, rather than live with old memories and transient distinctions. It will never betray its nature, which is giving the best of ourselves to give pleasure to our customers. Whether we get prizes or not.

Neli Kostadinova