The main purpose of the fashion program at the forum was to identify the internal commonality through striking external differences. Sloboda Ukraine and Zakarpattia, two frontiers in the West and East of the country, are in fact in many ways similar to each other.
We also aimed to introduce young designers, to establish cooperation between professional educational institutions, to offer young designers a platform for presentation.
We were also interested in expanding the thematic range and showing such seemingly ordinary things as clothes – as one of the most important ways to learn the cultural code. A separate important experience was the cooperation with the Transcarpathian and Kharkiv libraries for children and youth in the search for archival photographs that showed the commonalities and differences of socio-cultural processes in the region at different times.
The fashion program also provided an opportunity to expand the audience and find new formats: conversations in small groups in Mukachevo coffee shop and Uzhhorod Skansen about the relationship between clothing and social processes and our internal states.
