NATALIE STEKLOVA

Born in Ostrava, Czech Republic on 5.7.1975.

Natalie studied Postgradual Studies at SPSO in Prague and at SPST in Liberec. Right after being expelled from the school (for “cheekyness”) she made it in the final round of “Smirnoff International Fashion Award” for young talents. Then she started to design clothes under her own new brand name “Kika” which was sold in New York and London. In Prague the brand was sold in Myrnyx Tyrnyx boutique ,in Faux Pas store and in Parazit shop and is a part of StudioLibenaRochova now.

Kika fashion shows were a success in Radost FX, Mecca and other leading Prague’s clubs.

In April 2005 Natalie received “Talent Of The Season” award at Prague Fashion Week. This is the highest award for young designers in Czech Republic.
During the spring 2006 was her collection with a big succes part of the EU Young Fashion Summit in Vienna\Austria .
Following years she showed her collections on Prague fashion week, Designblok and currently in her new shop&cafe.

“I used to love to work with Vietnamese and Thai silks, leather and cotton, combining prints and drawings but most of all I love to work with ethnic fabrics inspired by traditional cultures and ideally also produced the original way… I love the combination of Asian influences with functional punk and I like sci-fi movies, especially the ones from 50’s, but maybe it’s just because there is always a lot of travelling there.Now i do only organic fabrics, bamboo, peace silk and up cycling.There is no way back.”

Her major current inspiration are the lifes of dolphins. She also stubbornly ignores the seasons.

She now lives and works in Prague as fashion designer, stylist and illustrator. For more than fifteen years she is one of the best and most progressive stylists in the country, named “the most sought – after stylist” by Czech lifestyle magazine “Hype” last year.

As the stylist she started working both in commercials – styling one of the first Coca Cola TV campaigns in the country, among many others – and for fashion magazines as well, styling numerous fashion stories and covers for Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Premiere and Rolling Stone (all Czech editions).

During the years she continued working for the fashion magazines and also for new breed of original Czech lifestyle magazines Zivel, Hype and Time In. She also did fashion stories for French edition of Marie Claire and international lifestyle magazine Oyster.

She is also one of the busiest stylists for commercials, especially if they call for strong visual statement. Working on average of 15 – 20 commercials each year she contributed to the success of TV spots for Budvar (dir. Justin Reardone), Bass (dir. Bjorn Stein), McDonalds (dir. Kjetil), Playstation2 (dir. Lawrence Hamburger), Boeing, Toyota (dir. Yasushi Kurihara), Ikea (dir. Carl Astrand), Pierre Cardin (dir. Alistair Taylor Young), Philipshave (dir. Betsan Morris Evans), Czech Telecom (dir. Jaromir Maly), Keloggs Poptart (dir. Mikko), Eurotel (dir. Nic&Sune), Aquila Miss Czech Republic (dir. Jonathan Lennard) and others, all these in last two years. Other work includes clients like Jablonex, Sprite, Dell,Dove,GHD,T-Mobil, AOL, Philip Morris, Antismoking campaign for MTV, Carlsberg,Pilsner Urquell ,Kinder bueno,Vodafone,Footlocker and many others.

She made her mark in many music videos too, last time creating an amusing late 70’s - early 80’s look for “Attention aux hommes!” by popular Czech group “Tata Bojs”. This video won the “Music Video Of The Year” award from Czech Academy Of Popular Music in 2003 (local version of Grammy Award).

For film she worked as the costume designer on American short film “Most – The Bridge” shot in Prague. This film was nominated for Oscar in “Best Short Film” category in 2003. She also worked in L.A. as the assistant on the “Adams Familly” series.
And now she designes costumes for the thiller film OKO with dorector Milos Kohout and the theater play 8women .

Her work as the illustrator includes mainly cooperation with Beautysalon magazine.