When fashion weeks take place from New York to Paris, so many fashion photos and videos are now uploaded to Instagram that there can hardly be any talk of reporting anymore. Spamming is more likely. Nobody can really keep up and during the last round in February not even the fashion world itself seemed to make it. Her latest thing became an account that doesn’t show any pictures at all.
His name is Stylenotcom and, strictly speaking, plays nothing more than headline posts in white capital letters on a royal blue background. Sometimes it’s just news: “Jaquemus is showing the next collection in Hawaii”. Sometimes little history lessons are given: “Lacoste’s first name was René.” Details of major fashion events are often announced that no one has ever asked about. For example, when Charlotte Casiraghi opened Chanel’s last couture show on horseback, appeared on Stylenotcom: “The name of the horse on Chanel’s catwalk is Kuskus”. The bottom line is that the account serves fashionable small talk knowledge. Somehow useless, but presented in an amusing and ironic way – an industry that likes to take itself too seriously jokes and honors this at the same time. Above all, it is noticeable. In the past eight weeks, the number of subscribers has almost tripled to more than 22,000. The most prominent followers include Marc Jacobs, Jonathan Anderson and the star critic Tim Blanks.
Responsible for this is Beka Gvishiani. The 30-year-old Georgian lives in Tbilisi. When the city was in lockdown again in July, he started Stylenotcom to pass the time. “The name is a reference to the fashion news site Style.comthe blue and white are reminiscent of the colors of the Colette boutique,” he says. Two fashion instances that closed in 2017 and are still sorely missed today. Note: someone who really knows their stuff is at work here.
Gvishiani’s real job is to help designers build a business infrastructure. But even in his private life, he prefers to deal only with fashion. Which house sent a certain collection down the catwalk, when and how, he rattles off like other people with their shopping lists. “I sometimes compare myself to Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada. There’s this scene where he explains that when he was a teenager he preferred reading fashion magazines to playing football,” he says.
Gvishiani’s first fashion magazine was the July issue of the Russian one Vogue from 2008. On the cover: Natasha Poly with slightly pursed lips, surrounded by gold letters. “I discovered the magazine at a kiosk. It was just wow! I had never seen anything like it,” he says. At that time there were no top models, designer clothes and their staging in Georgia (there wasn’t even H&M in Tbilisi), shortly afterwards the Caucasus War broke out. To dream away, Gvishiani bought a new one every month Vogue. “But only the Russian edition. I only found out that there was more after my parents gave me Internet access.”
More than 1000 printed fashion magazines are stored in his archive
He googled, “What is it Vogue?” And the cover pictures of the American and French offshoots popped up on the screen, those of the Harper’s Bazaar and des W Magazine. Gvishiani was so intrigued that he started commenting on new covers on forums and ordering issues “Auf Thefashionspot.com I got around 20,000 comments, and there are now over 1,000 printed issues in my archive.” At some point, he channeled his knowledge into his own blog called Glossy Newsstand – and when Tbilisi began to develop its own fashion scene, a designer asked him if he could help with a shoot. Gvishiani was 21 years old then.
Today his job is a kind of full service for smaller labels: shows, showrooms, shops. He organizes everything. That’s why he’s often been to Paris Fashion Week. But always in the background, working late into the night and far from being invited to a big show. He says, “I know what it’s like to be the assistant.”
Gvishiani’s path to the front row started when someone took him to the Balenciaga show in September last year. The location was the Théâtre du Châtelet. Inside the hall, the audience sat and saw on a screen what was happening outside, namely the actual parade: models and stars walked down a red carpet in the latest designs and mimed the show at an award ceremony in front of photographers. The pictures immediately flooded Instagram, and Gvishiani delivered Stylenotcom the appropriate headlines: “Naomi at Balenciaga”, then “Cardi B at Balenciaga” and “Standing ovation for Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga”. The designer’s team and some guests liked and shared his posts. Since then, the industry has been getting crazier about Gvishiani. “People say that I don’t post pictures, it makes them much more interested and almost seductive.”
On Stylenotcom he posted “Glory to Ukraine”
A few weeks ago, Gvishiani could hardly save himself from personal invitations to fashion shows in Milan and Paris. He completed one appointment after the other. “It was great that everyone wanted to get to know me, but because of the war in Ukraine the mood was also very oppressive,” he says. how to deal with it That was the tricky question that fashion, otherwise always in a good mood and party-loving, asked itself. Because Gvishiani wore a button in the shape of the Ukrainian flag, he was asked the question directly. “Some thought I was Ukrainian. Because I, as a Georgian, can understand the situation better than many others, I was at least able to clarify things.” on Stylenotcom he posted “Glory to Ukraine” and in Stories shared news and information about the war from other media, exceptionally including pictures. The media reactions of most designers, on the other hand, were hesitant, and some remained silent. Only Demna Gvasalia from Balenciaga became clear.
Like Gvishiani, Gvasalia is from Georgia. When civil war broke out there in 1993, he fled the country. A trauma that reminded him of the war in Ukraine and became the subject of his show: he had the models fight like refugees through a snowstorm. Backstage, Gvishiani and Gvasalia were introduced to each other. “I just spoke to him in Georgian, whereupon he said: Then you know why I had to do the show like this.” Doing what feels right is also what Gvishiani wants in his work.
He is currently receiving a number of offers for official collaborations with fashion companies Stylenotcom want to enter. “They ask if I can show a product.” On an account whose visual strategy only includes short texts? Sounds difficult to impossible to implement. Which is why Gvishiani is currently canceling everything and explains why he doesn’t want to take photos and videos. Incidentally, the answers from most companies are surprisingly positive: “They think it’s good and want to think about how to continue without pictures.”