ANETA KERNOVÁ TALKS NAIVISTA WEARABLE ART
"First Fashion Week was pure stress"
Daniel John
Art is something you carry in many different forms, as a multidisiplinary artist using imagination in not only fashion but also film, music and painting. You’ve even walked the runway as a model, in your own designs. Have you always created so much?
Since I was a little girl! I was always creating, painting, playing the violin, singing, dancing! Later, I was admitted to a prestigious acting school and dove deep into the world of theater. With that came a lot of doubts and internal battles. Am I good enough? Am I too weird, too unpredictable, too out of the box? For a long time, I was afraid to share my art with the world because it reveals so much about who you are and what your inner world looks like. It’s incredibly vulnerable. So I started slowly, sharing small fragments like my paintings, my short artistic films and later created my art brand Naivista. Somehow, people were drawn to the world I was creating, and their response gave me the confidence to keep going. There are still things I keep hidden from the wider audience. I’m always working on something, sometimes I release it, sometimes I let it rest. I trust that when the time is right the art will find its way into the world.
Do you get your energy from working or what keeps you doing so much?
I am single, so I have all the time in the world to do my art! (laughs) Plus, I also have ADHD, which means I always have to do something, because otherwise I get insanely bored.
Where did the vision for this fashion brand, making the art wearable, start out?
It started simply, my friends saw my paintings and wanted them on phone cases or as prints. So I began making phone cases and bandanas, and little by little it grew into something much bigger. Now it’s a full wearable art brand with a clear vision. Fashion and art are just the beginning. I want to expand beyond that and support artists who don’t have the financial stability to fully focus on their work, to provide housing where they can simply create, without the constant pressure of working other jobs just to pay rent. For the longest time, true artists have been suffering financially, but I would love to change this once for all. Because world needs art, world needs authentic artists and unique visions. Especially now when everything is turning to be artificial.
Do you think that a bit of naivety helps, in creative work, to believe the impossible is possible?
Yes. Bit of naivety let you expand the world and uplift you into a dreamer, inventor–persona and you can gain a lot of power to live a completely beautiful life and help other people to loose their energetically heavy baggage and show them that if they live their life with honesty and good intensions, amazing things can happen to them!
Is there anything you learned from the first Naivista collection that you worked on that you kept with you in your process going forward?
I learned that everything you do requires a serious amount of hard work. Even though I thought it would be easy to create eight full outfits for my first fashion show, it turned out to be incredibly challenging. When you really think about it, a “full outfit” means everything, socks, shoes, accessories like purses or sunglasses. I remember that even on the day of the show, I had to wake up super early and rush to the center of Paris to buy more fabrics, which I then customized and assembled last minute. My first fashion week in Paris was pure stress, sleepless nights and hardcore work mode but it turned out amazing. The second fashion show in New York was much more relaxed. I brought many of my beautiful friends to walk in the show, and I already knew which pieces would suit them, so I designed the outfits specifically for them.
Where did you draw inspiration for the 'Likable' collection. Where did this play on a rich and luxurious style come out of?
The 'Likable' collection is conceptual art mixed with a bit of satire. Last year, I met many influential and very wealthy people, and I started to understand how that world, and its business dynamics, works. As an artist I felt the urge to reflect on it. So I created a painting called 'The Most Likable Painting'. I filled it with everything people seem to desire, a private jet, a yacht, luxury watches, mansions. All the symbols of ultimate status and success. Then I took the concept even further. I calculated how much all of those items would realistically cost together. The estimate came to around five million dollars. So I priced the original painting at five million dollars. But I also wanted to play with the idea of abundance and accessibility, so I printed each luxurious symbol from the painting onto separate t-shirts. Now anyone can “buy” a private-jet or a yacht for fifty dollars. I gave people the chance to say, “I just bought a mansion from Naivista”, simply by wearing it on their shirt. Ironically, many people have contacted me wanting to buy the original painting. But as I said, the price is five million. And for the sake of the concept, I’m not selling it for anything less.
Are there more current or upcoming projects you are excited about across your many other creative ventures?
I directed a comedy movie, 'Brigáda', that is going to be release in theaters around Central Europe this year. I also wrote a script for my experimental, psychological thriller movie called 'Insomnia', so far I am looking for funding so I can start filming, it is by far the biggest and my most important project, because it shows exactly how I want to be making movies and it also reflects on some things that are happening in this modern world. I also created a fashion-art music video that I will be releasing soon, so people can dive deep into this artistic lore of mine.
