Collar Swimwear

'Collar' believes in the beauty of unconventionality. A strong visual image and clean aesthetics is the quintessence of the label’s identity. Through means of visual and textual storytelling, collection pieces are placed in a peculiarly intimate setting thus communicating through senses conceivable to all.
Label was founded by Monta Apsane. Adding to each other’s skill sets, Monta leads the design process while Ieva enhances the visual aesthetics and feeling through textual narrating. Julia Prohorenkova is a photographer, mostly interested in portrait, human and emotion. Drawing inspiration from paintings by Renaissance, Pre–Raphaelite and Romanticism masters, her works are characterised by feminine, pictorial and romantic motives. This creative collaboration blossomed while shooting mood photographs for swimwear collections and continued to grow when everyone involved found themselves willing and needing to say and do more and push the boundaries of fashion and photography further. The label strives to retain fashion as an art form and aims for an unaccustomed presentation of fashion. That is how in May 2015, Collar Swimwear came to collaborate with Julia Prohorenkova to carry out an instant, two-hour live fashion and photography exhibition ‘Grown’, covering contemporary dancers in peat and enlivening them as the first shoots of grass in an early spring, reaching for sunlight through slow bodily micro-movements.
The Captured collection was chosen to officially represent the Latvian young fashion talent at Mados Infekcija – the most progressive fashion show and competition for young designers in the Baltics, taking place in Vilnius, Lithuania.