Tata-Naka: "It's weird to take fashion seriously"

Tata-Naka is a British brand known for its ironic prints and bright fabrics. It was created by two sisters: Tamara and Natasha Surguladze. The girls left Georgia in 1991, entered Central Saint Martins and for 12 years built a brand that is charming not only with clothes, but also with personal stories behind it. Tata-Naka arrived in Moscow on the occasion of the launch of a line of T-shirts for Aizel Moscow and told Wonderzine, what distinguishes such collaborations from their main line, why fashion should not be taken seriously and what it takes to build a swimming pool inside an old building at the collection presentation.

The third most popular query by your Google name is "Tata-Naka internship". Often look for interns?

In London, internships are held year-round in each company, to get into the brand team is not so difficult, you need motivation. Many lazy students come to us, and in a small company you must have enough energy to do literally everything (and this is actually a plus). We ourselves were interns and saw the whole process from the idea of ​​the collection to the preparation of the show from beginning to end.

Some interns do not withstand the load. Have you heard the story of student exploitation in Alexander McQueen?

Yes. When we ourselves were in college, we were told about the horrors about how badly the students were treated during the internship there. But you know, this is how to turn the story. We often see students who whine, do not want to do anything and say that everyone already knows. I remember that we worked until one in the morning when we were studying, and were so excited about the new tasks that fatigue faded into the background. And unmotivated guys are pretty easy to hurt by asking to stay a little longer. You never know how it really was.

We will return to your studies and even earlier, moving from Georgia to London. How did you decide to leave the country?

We left at the end of 1991 with our cousin to America (he studied there), at that moment war broke out in Georgia, the situation in the country was tense, so we decided not to twitch back. Soon we wanted to move to Europe, to London, where we went to school, then went to college. We did not decide: "Everything! We are moving from Georgia!" It happened.

Do you often go home now?

We often go to Georgia. It is interesting that there and in Russia a new market is emerging, many talented designers appear. The only problem is production. His in countries that want to support young talent in the field of fashion, you need to build. Even in a prosperous city like London, production is not so good. It seems that you come to the showroom of a young designer, and the collection is interesting and well made, but the designer cannot fulfill the order of the buyer, there is no production.

Do you add Georgian motifs to the collections?

Our first collection was closely connected with our memories from childhood. But this is not the song of the nation, it’s rather our personal perception of Tbilisi: grandmother’s house, school, something personal. We do not like to take things literally, it is important for us to interpret them.

At the same time in the collections a lot of color, handmade.

Yes, these are things that we do intuitively, this is what we already have in us, because we are Georgians. We love color, a little naive prints, handicraft - Tbilisi masters are famous for it.

Speaking of naive prints. You have printed portraits of girls in several collections. Who are they?

We already have four heroines, we did the first one to last year’s SS13 collection. In the 1960s in America there was such a photographer, Slim Aarons, he took military photographs, and then he realized that he began to get depressed from constant negative, and decided to shoot simply "beautiful people in beautiful places" - he photographed girls from high society. We liked this idea, and we decided to draw for prints of secular ladies in the style of paintings that hang over the fireplace. It is important to understand that all this - and girls with a luxurious hairstyle and necklaces on prints, and the presentation that we did with palm trees and a pool - is part of a big game. For the new pre-collection, which will be presented in January, we decided to create a new heroine, but to draw her in different clothes: here she is going to one social event, here to another, each time looks new. We like to make up stories for things, such funny stories. After all, it is even strange to take fashion seriously.

It is always interesting to watch your presentations. How do you cook them?

Our visual merchandiser worked on shows Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Chloé - she is a super creative person. We are meeting with her, telling the concept of the show, and she can translate into reality anything: we kind of jokingly say: "Imagine if we would have a pool," and she replies: "OK, let's build a pool." Imagine? Inside the historic building Somerset House - and the pool.

For us, presentations are very important, through them you can better experience the collection. This is not a show, this is an event where you come, see the surroundings, look at things, listen to music, even get a soundtrack on the disc. This time for the London show we are doing Russian ballet. True, again, our interpretation, and not what you immediately imagine in my head. During the three-hour presentation, we are there and remove the bowbook. That is, people come and see how we create a product that will soon appear in the network: we install the scenery, we do the styling, we actually remove it. We communicate with guests, what usually happens behind the scenes, turns into a show.

Your latest presentation was inspired by the films of John Hughes. Do you like movies about teenagers?

In general, we love movies very much, even once we thought of making them ourselves, and films about teenagers are our childhood. Our collection was called "First Love in American College", we were inspired by Hughes films, even painted "Pretty in pink", "Breakfast Club" on the walls. At the presentation were school decorations, cheerleaders, baseball players and girls in prom dresses (in our interest). For us, this is such a nostalgia.

Sometimes we start to think about one topic for the collection, do a search (we love this business very much, because during it we learn a lot of new things), develop the concept, sometimes go to something completely different and automatically find topics for the next collection. Right now in the process of researching for this season we have found a topic for the next one. This is an interesting process.

About the process. Have you ever had a question, do you make a brand together or separately? How does it feel to work in pairs?

Since childhood, we wanted to sew and used to do everything together. Many teachers in the school did not distinguish us and called one “Tata-Naka”. We have always worked well in a team, we don’t even share the responsibilities especially: it turns out that someone draws a print, someone deals with a form.

Net-a-Porter purchased our TNTEES line, and we made exclusive T-shirts for them, the same with Aizel

You made t-shirts for Net-a-Porter and Aizel Moscow. What do such collaborations mean to you?

Net-a-Porter purchased our TNTEES line, and we made exclusive T-shirts for them, the same with Aizel, the T-shirts are sold here, which we did in collaboration with the store. To make such collaborations is something special for us. This is very different from the process of creating a collection, you work in great limitations, but it gives you an incentive to come up with something new in them. In front of you is a white T-shirt, you need to make it interesting, but at the same time inexpensive. So you test yourself.

And in the end they are probably wildly popular in the market. In general, how do you see sales that girls want to wear now?

We seem to have found our skate - these are the same T-shirts with faces. At first, we considered them rather specific, but it turned out that such a bit strange and funny things they want to wear a lot of girls. In general, we noticed that people began to dress in colorful bright things. Perhaps it's street style influence. Photographers love to shoot something that looks good on camera, and colored things look great on them. Look, even the Comme des Garçons have moved from monochrome to prints.

It seems that the Tata-Naka brand has become particularly popular just under the influence of street-style blogs.

The fact is that we have existed for 12 years, but restarted the brand in 2011. Just then, blogs began to develop actively, our prints got into the lens of photographers, they began to look at us especially. It's amazing that blogs have now become such a powerful marketing tool: you made clothes, you bought it, and then it all worked by itself. We remember that when we first graduated, we participated in the exhibition of young designers at Barneys, it so happened that a bit later we were noticed by the stylist of the series “Sex and the City”. She ordered the entire collection, Carrie Bradshaw appeared in things from our collection on television, and then on the cover of the book. It was fantastic! We do not remember that ever after there was a show that had such an impact and could make a college graduate a designer with a name. Now streetstyle became a similar tool. It just works.