The Kyivness vintage market is usually held in historical buildings. But surprisingly, heritage is not its main focus.
On the contrary, the event gives visitors a taste of modern, creative Kyiv.
The market combines chic aesthetics with sophisticated locations, antique goods and stylish guests. It is also a celebration of the capital’s creative class: producers of food and wine and local brands of clothing and accessories, who also sell their goods there.
Since its foundation in 2018, Kyivness has been successfully promoting conscious consumption, creating a community of progressive people who like to spend their weekend with a flair.
“We rediscover ourselves and the city,” the founder of the market, Helene Eigenmann, told the Kyiv Post.
Kyivness takes place once every season. It is a two-day event that attracts up to 3,000 people over a weekend. The last market was held on Sept. 21–22 in Countess Uvarova’s Mansion, a spectacular historical site in Kyiv. The next event will take place in winter.
Kyivness concept
Eigenmann, 29, had been involved in filmmaking for years before she launched Kyivness. For about six years, she lived all over the world — in Berlin, Paris, Los Angeles and Malta. Tired of traveling, she came back to Ukraine in 2018.
A long-time fan of vintage clothing and startling outfits, Eigenmann says that, at the time, Kyiv didn’t have much to offer to people like her. So she decided to start a market to fulfill the vacant niche.
She says she wanted to create “a cool event and community” to show how to combine vintage and local brands.
Although Eigenmann is a core founder of the market and she serves as its director now, one of her friends, Swiss film director Marc Wilkins, contributed to creating the ideology for the event. He also came up with the name for it.
Wilkins, 43, lived and worked all over the globe as well, until he discovered Ukraine and moved here in 2015. Since then, he has entered Kyiv’s creative community and is all over the place now: he owns an avant-garde gallery called The Naked Room, participates in developing Reitarska Street in the historic city center, and is one of the investors in the crowdfunded restaurant Urban Space 500.
Wilkins says that he was impressed by all the creativity of the younger generations of Ukrainians and “all the little shops and bars and all the little places all over the city.”
However, the filmmaker says he was also disappointed by their modesty — many of the places he adores are hidden in yards. So he created a page on Facebook called Kyivness to promote avant-garde brands, places and ideas flourishing in Kyiv. When he found out about Eigenmann’s idea to start a curated market, the friends realized it perfectly matched Wilkins’ concept of Kyivness. And so the market inherited the platform’s name.
“Kyivness is an expression for what excites us about Kyiv, and the potential of Kyiv to become an extraordinary city, which is different from all other European cities,” Wilkins told the Kyiv Post.
Eigenmann in many ways was inspired by the curated vintage markets she visited in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Paris and Berlin. However, she says that Kyivness differs from all of them.
“Everything here is for the first time, it’s a bit raw,” the founder explains. “It is precious and it can’t be found neither in Europe, nor in America.”
Wilkins agrees and says that in Berlin and New York, for instance, many creative communities are turning in circles. There’s nothing really fresh happening and the communities are a bit spoiled, while Kyiv is much braver and more radical in its creative expression.
“Because there’s an energy in Kyiv that I don’t find in those other cities, it’s important to make this energy very visible,” he says.
The founder of the Kyivness vintage market Helene Eigenmann poses for a photograph. (Kyivness)
Mise-en-scène
When Kyivness is happening, it looks like a scene from a period movie — except that all kinds of styles and ages are mixed together.
The visitors wear puff sleeve shirts, flared jeans, classical jackets and lots of accessories like chunky earrings, brooches, hats, scarves and sunglasses. In addition, many visitors to the market are foreigners, which brings diversity to the scene.
Wilkins, who often gives DJ sets at the market and is a regular attendee, says that guests from abroad who come to Kyivness are eager to discover the new, modern Kyiv.
What contributes to the picture significantly is the market’s historic locations, whether it’s the Simha Liberman Mansion, built in Renaissance Revival style and adorned with gorgeous molding inside, or the Small Mariinsky Palace with its grand chandeliers and marble columns.
But all that “cinematic-ness” of Kyivness is not accidental. Rather, it is Eigenmann’s intention. She says that she picks locations that match the season, weather and her inner feeling.
“When I plan out a market, I think about characters and mise-en–scènes” — a term referring to the visual and design aspects of theater — “about the interaction of these characters in the proposed circumstances,” she says.
Conscious consumption
The essential component of every market is, of course, shopping. Each event gathers over 50 brands or sellers offering all kinds of goods — from clothes, shoes and accessories to decor, books and vinyl records.
Around a half of the items on display are vintage. The rest are the products of local brands that sell both new and old collections.
Eigenmann says that the reason for such a mix is their goal to promote conscious consumption.
“And conscious consumption is primarily the support of local production, plus vintage,” she says.
The Kyivness market brings together the vintage sellers and local brands to promote conscious consumption and give a platform to the city’s creative class. (Kyivness)
One of the regular participants of the market is Maria Poliakova, 28, who buys vintage clothing all over the world and sells it under the brand name SaintXStuff.
“When I travel it is always number one on my list. Not museums, not galleries. I am looking for vintage shops, markets,” she told the Kyiv Post.
Poliakova fell in love with vintage around five years ago when she discovered the world of items with history.
“I love this feeling of finding something rare, unusual and there are no copies,” she says.
Poliakova hunts for clothes, shoes and accessories in Hungary, Austria, Mexico and England. She says she picks things with high-quality fabric, good threads and a nice cut. Her shop offers both branded items, like ones by Yves-Saint Laurent and Burberry, and also those created by unknown producers.
“When I fly I can’t ever fit it in my luggage,” she jokes.
Poliakova herself mostly wears vintage clothing and is a walking promotion for the conscious consumption approach.
“I do this not because I want to sell something, but because I love it very much. It is my culture, my life,” she says.
Building bridges
While many of the visitors shop at Kyivness, some appear to enjoy the event without necessarily buying things: They sit on the terraces, talk to friends or strangers, have a drink and listen to vinyl music.
Viktoria Tykhonova, 33, says that she loves the market for its atmosphere, interesting venues which are normally inaccessible, and the people she meets there.
“I like coming here alone, eyeing the interior design, people, having a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and enjoying the sunlight, like today,” Tykhonova told the Kyiv Post.
Wilkins believes that what makes the atmosphere special at Kyivness is the positivity that both participants and visitors bring.
“Everybody who’s selling something there — they love what they’re selling, their food, coffee, wine,” he says. “There’s a collection of people who are following their dreams and this creates a special energy.”
But most importantly, Wilkins says, Kyivness builds bridges between cultures by bringing together Ukrainians and the international community, as well as creating connections between different ages by combining the locations’ history and modern life.
“Bridges in history and geography are what make Kyivness so unique,” he says.
Eigenmann says that the market will continue to take place only once per season to give everyone the opportunity to start missing it and not take it for granted. The founder hopes to maintain the soulfulness of the event and doesn’t plan to change much.
However, she says she will hold other cultural events related to the market to continue spreading and showcasing the concept of Kyivness.
