Having already conquered the catwalk — attracting the elusive Rei Kawakubo to his front row in Paris — and taken on art books with his post-Soviet photo-monographs Crimea / Kids and Youth Hotel, Gosha Rubchinskiy is back with a triple threat. Launching a new, three-pronged creative project as a guest designer at Pitti Uomo, the Russian polymath’s latest vision comes in the form of an eclectic collection of reimagined sportswear labels and tailoring, a photobook, and a short film collaboration, all dubbed The Day of My Death.
A day after its premiere in Florence at Gosha’s guest designer showcase, the photobook has been revealed exclusively on i-D today, and the film has debuted online also. A black and white, silent short film with a stirring orchestral soundtrack by Igor Vdovin, the film presents a dark exploration of family, sexuality, and violence. Written and directed by Renata Litvinova, who also stars as the androgynous head of a pretty freaky family, the film features model brothers Lousion and Titouan Savignon, Renata’s IRL daughter Uliana Dobrovskaya, Gosha himself as a soldier, and stylist Lotta Volkova as a guard. The film is dedicated to ‘Pier Paolo’ — aka Pasolini — the director of controversial feature Salò (otherwise known as 120 Days of Sodom).
Responding to the controversial elements of his own work, Gosha told i-D in Pitti: “I don’t want to answer. I only pose a question. I ask, what is Europe now? What is Italy now? What is Russia now? It’s the same reason why Pasolini did his iconic Salò movie. It’s ideas on the map and I’ll only pay attention to what’s happening now — what’s in the air. People can decide what they like and don’t like. I only ask questions.”