Meet Viktoria Marchev

Viktoria, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I realized that many people think of it as a choice, but actually the choice is an illusion. Once I accepted that this is something I need to do no matter what, giving up was not an option anymore. It took me a while, I did try to put it on the side a few times, but I had sleepless nights and I was incredibly unhappy. So once I understood this is not an option, I tried to think of ways how I can make it work. What are the things that trigger these feelings the most and how I can overcome them.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Curiosity, Precision, Drawing. I think these were all important in my career. Curiosity was important for me to want to learn whatever comes my way, and explore and experiment with new technologies. Precision is important in everything you do, but when putting together a garment and design the details, the more your designs include all details, the smoother the implementation will be. Drawing is essential in jotting down ideas, understanding and knowing how to depict the human body, in my case mostly female anatomy, being confident about proportions is very helpful.

As far as giving advice is concerned, Curiosity can only be developed if you have a true interest in what you do. So the first step in that is to find your real passion, I believe. Precision can be developed with practice, but also I would say know your limits. For drawing, even though I did have some formal education, watching tutorials on YouTube and spending days with drawing is what helped me a lot.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am a fashion designer, and I have been experimenting with silicone rubber since 2014. I started my journey with swimwear, but then I started to broaden my horizons, overall I focus on statement pieces that can be worn well on stage, for film/photoshoots, red carpet or anywhere where fun and joy is encouraged. What I love most about what I do is how I can translate my suppressed emotions into pieces of garments, and the shapes and colors will more accurately reflect how I feel, than I would ever dare to express it in everyday settings. I also enjoy the fact that I get to meet a lot of other artists and had the chance to travel while showcasing my designs at different fashion events, so there is a lot of adventure involved. Currently I am working on my S/S2025 collection, which I am about to showcase at NYFW this September. (The show later on got cancelled - Added by the Designer.)