Photographs Pierre Toussaint Producer Chris Hemmings at Contact Studios

‘My name is Yulia and I’m from Smolensk town, Russia. I always loved wandering around flea markets in Japan when traveling and I discovered that they sold a lot of antique and vintage kimonos. I fell in love with how beautiful they all were and with so much history (some over 100 years old). They are mostly hand painted and made from silk. So I started collecting them.

I then decided to start an account on Instagram to try and sell them to overseas. LOVEFORKIMONO became popular between friends and their friends.

Soon enough my collection started to fly to all over the world. I’ve had designers buy from me for fabric inspirations. I have sold over 300 kimono since I started a year ago.’