Frozen in time: where avant-garde fashion meets Soviet-era design

Throughout the Soviet era, VDNKh exhibition centre hosted numerous conferences and meetings to trumpet the greatest achievements of the USSR. Much of the grandiose Stalinist architecture still exists today filled with pavilions, fountains, an amusement park, a space museum and even a rocket. In a series of photos shot exclusively for The Calvert Journal, fashion photographer and designer Christina Abdeeva, brings several of Russia's most cutting edge labels to the centre's surreal surroundings. Abdeeva, a recent graduate of the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow, showcases the work of young Russian fashion labels such as Forget Me Not, and designers Panika Derevya and Asiya Bareeva against a backdrop frozen in time. "The weird visual aesthetic of VDNKh inspired me a long time ago when I was taking a stroll through is pavilions," she says. "They still remain naively romantic and sentimental, and are a clear echo of the Soviet Union. While Moscow grows and expands, this place always stays the same. Going there is like time travel. I guess that's what I tried to capture, a weird clash of past and present."

Style: Christina Abdeeva/Asiya Bareeva.
Model: Ursula Kim