7 min readAngelina Nagornova is enamored with fashion, not in the trend-driven, shopaholic, It girl way, but the head-to-toe Comme des Garçons Spring 2003 kind of way. Just look at her Instagram. Posting under the handle @justwhatyouknow, she’s curated a feed barren of color, but resplendent in silhouette, oddity, even perversion. She shares surrealist OOTDs, highlights of her personal archive—think: peeling white Tabi boots—Dover Street Market hauls, and her own fashion-inspired sculptures. Her content is a sartorial ode to subversive, avant-garde brands and designers like Maison Margiela, Rei Kawakubo, Ann Demeulemeester, Noir Kei Ninomiya, Junya Watanabe, and Yohji Yamamoto—some of whom have begun to take notice. She’s attended a number of their shows in Paris and, a few weeks ago, Margiela slid into her DMs.
Nagornova, who left her corporate job to create content full-time as her online presence began to grow, caught the eye of Margiela’s team after she shared the process of creating two chairs, one covered in the hair of 17 wigs, another blanketed in found leather gloves, with her followers. The pieces were each inspired by individual archival Margiela collections—so Margiela prompted her with a new challenge: to create a new one inspired by Fall 2008 in tandem with the promotion of this week’s Fall 2026 artisanal fashion show presented in Shanghai. There, Martens continued Martin Margiela’s longstanding codes of reimagining the mundane into something beautiful via otherworldly dresses constructed of shattered porcelain and coated in peeling white paint (just as his young superfan was inspired to do). And that’s how we found her—and promptly slid into her DMs, as well.
Ahead, we emailed with Nagornova about cultivating her devout obsession and how she’s turning that love into art.
Where did your fashion obsessions come from? Who were the first designers to stoke it?
I used to envy people who were raised in environments where art, aesthetics, and fashion were just part of everyday life. My childhood was very different—a working-class family in Eastern Europe, with a mother devoted to raising three kids and a father working on construction sites. Fashion wasn’t something through which you’d express yourself. My relationship with it came much later—and not directly. It developed as an extension of my curiosity about culture, music, and traveling.
The first designer that I was attracted to was Martin Margiela. The surrealism of some of his pieces, like glove bags and wig hats, resonated with me, which I think was influenced by my obsession with David Lynch’s work.
My next big influences were Japanese designers like Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto. My obsession with Japan was initially cultivated by photographers such as Daidō Moriyama and Hajime Sawatari.
Who are your design north stars now?
I am repeatedly drawn to the 1980s, when Japanese designers arrived in Paris and disrupted the industry. What they introduced wasn’t about beauty in a traditional sense; their work was conventionally ugly but carried a strong intellectual charge.
Then, in the early ’90s, Martin Margiela pushed this even further—not just redefining clothes but questioning the entire system behind them. That sense of rebellion captivates me. Fashion sometimes is meant to be ugly, and that’s where its beauty lies. It should make us uncomfortable and challenge our thinking.
How do you cultivate your interest?
Whenever I come across someone who creates something, my first instinct isn’t just to look at what they’ve made, but to try to get inside their heads. I start wondering about the inner process: what were they thinking? What were they feeling? What shaped their decisions? What kind of things were they drawn to? That curiosity is what makes me so interested in the personal side of designers.
With Yohji Yamamoto, for example, that connection becomes especially tangible through his music. The way he sings in Japanese carries this quiet nostalgia, and his songs often appear in his shows. At the finale of his latest show a month ago, one of his tracks started playing, and I recognized his voice immediately. It hit me unexpectedly, adding an entirely new emotional layer to everything I was seeing. I found myself crying!
How would you describe your obsession with them? It seems like they play such a huge role in your life.
I love a holistic approach. The environment you build around yourself is never neutral—you choose it, shape it, arrange it, but it also feeds back into your life and influences who you become. Everything is interconnected: fashion, interiors, architecture, books, travel, music, and your political views. None of these things exist on their own—they constantly inform and reshape one another.
Tell us about your personal archive of pieces from these designers. What are the highlights?
Last summer in Osaka, I came across a Yohji Yamamoto shirt from 2000 with a small, intimate text about Yohji-san and his dog. I have a dog too, so there was already a sense of connection—but what made it unexpectedly meaningful was that the text was in Russian. I’m originally from Moscow, and seeing my native language there turned it into something much more personal than just a vintage find.
I always think about the importance of having a personal connection with the things you wear and surround yourself with. Clothes aren’t just objects—they only make sense when they reflect something personal, whether it’s a collection of handmade knitted hats or rock band T-shirts.
What made you want to start posting about your love of fashion?
I’ve built my own online space where I document my relationship with fashion and objects. What interests me most is the personal connection we form with the things we live with. In a world driven by constant trends, I’m drawn to the idea that what truly matters is your relationship with what you choose.
I also collect avant-garde and Japanese fashion, and I absolutely hate gatekeeping—yet very few people actually share where to find things, how much they cost, or direct links. When I once found a Yohji Yamamoto book from the ’90s for €17, my first instinct was to post it on Instagram and share the link to buy it. There’s a common belief that great archival or vintage pieces are always out of reach, but that’s not entirely true. We’re in a moment where something from a mass-market brand can cost just as much as a Margiela piece on resale. I want people to discover that for themselves, and I think that sharing is cool.
What made you want to start creating objects inspired by specific collections?
I was always jealous of people whose work results in physical objects. I create online content, and I miss being able to physically touch the result of my work. I decided to try making something with my hands for the first time, and I made a chair out of wigs.
I didn’t have any big goal or expectation that people would like it; I did it primarily for myself, to satisfy that creative itch. I believe that what resonates most with people is what you create sincerely for yourself, without seeking validation. My first love is fashion, and my second is interior design. And one day I simply thought: what if I combine the two?
What sort of materials do you like to work with? Where did you learn your artistic skills?
When I start working, I have no idea what exactly I’m making—my only goal is to have fun. I love surrealism in design and fashion, so I enjoy working with completely nontraditional elements that were originally meant for something else—wigs, gloves, construction pipes. You can combine things that were never meant to be combined. I think that’s exactly why I’m so drawn to Margiela’s artisanal approach.
What was the first piece you made? What is your favorite piece you’ve ever made?
I saw Margiela’s wig jacket from the Spring 2009 collection and thought, “Okay, what if I turn it into a chair?” It was the last collection Martin Margiela made before leaving the brand.
I found a free armchair on a German equivalent of eBay, bought 17 blonde wigs, and started gluing them on. It took 12 hours—at one point, I started to hate the process and felt like it would never end. But nothing compares to the moment when you finish and see what you’ve made with your own hands; that feeling is exactly why I started.
What was the process like after you received the prompt from Margiela?
They reached out to me via DMs asking if I’d be interested in collaborating on their Margiela Folders project ahead of the brand’s Artisanal exhibition in Shanghai, and to talk about it in a digital format. They sent me some materials—a rope referencing a sweater from the Fall 2008 collection, and suggested using it as a starting point to create anything. They gave me complete creative freedom to inspire others to make their own artisanal projects and to give new life to everyday objects.
As I had previously created a chair made of 17 wigs and then another one made of 20 gloves, both inspired by Margiela, I thought it would be a beautiful narrative to create one more piece to complete a triptych. That’s how the bench came to life—made from construction pipes I bought at a hardware store, wigs, and rope.
Do you hope to continue making objects like this in the future?
I think once I opened that box of creating, there was no going back. While I was working on the last bench for Margiela, I came up with the idea to make a lamp—so that’s my next project. My main goal is to bring my ideas to life immediately without questioning them, even if it’s something ridiculous as a chair made of wigs, and to enjoy the creation process and have fun along the way.