Meet Viktoryia Varabyova | Fashion stylist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Viktoryia Varabyova and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Viktoryia, why did you pursue a creative career?
From the first day I remember myself, I never dreamt to be on the top floor of a big glass building wearing a suit, answering calls, and jumping from meeting to meeting as a figurative vision of success. I was always a creative person who prefers the privacy of myself and my craft with no rules, no ladders, no policies, and no hrs. I just couldn’t do it otherwise. Everything technical, everything exact that requires using other people’s particular knowledge for achieving the answer felt suffocating and too strict to me. Only now I can see art and creative space in math and biology, for example, but when I was a kid, I was only craving the freedom of being somebody without social proof of your achievements. Like poets, painters… You are influencing by just being in that head space and connecting the dots between your message and paper. making people feel something at the end. It was moving for me. You don’t need anything else. No university, no tools management. Just your imagination and the moment. And this path felt right and natural and important.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Since I moved to LA, I was determined to work in fashion and express my creativity through beautiful and majestic tool like clothes. The start was not easy at all. A girl from a mysterious country in Eastern Europe with a lot of passion and energy but still a little shy, a little shocked by all this freedom and emancipation of LA people. With no connections in business and no friends or family to support me financially or educate me about the new environment I got into. But I wasn’t intimidated or scared because I saw myself here thriving. I fell in love with that “organized chaos” of creatives and I finally felt like I can do art and be financially successful (the idea I couldn’t comprehend living in Belarus unfortunately) also growing and discovering more and more about myself. The first challenge was English and confidence overall. After I got to a small FSI fashion school and Jesse J is the teacher to learn about the fashion industry and styling, pretty quickly I found myself connecting with people and enrolling for as many as possible internships and stuff. I traveled in a few cities with different showrooms as an intern and everybody was encouraging me and believing in my potential. My first job in LA I got through one of these trips in a wholesale showroom as a helper of all kinds. It gave me perspective and I was around clothes but I was still craving that artistic part of a business. Later in the same school, we got to the styling class, and the teacher was taking us on sets and giving us the opportunity to show what everybody got from day one. Later I became his sort of intern/assistant. So the first gigs, connections, and industry pieces of knowledge I got, I got because of that school and the people I met there. They saw something in me and showed me that my “disadvantages” of being a foreigner or looking and expressing myself differently are actually my advantages and I need to move forward at full speed.
The second big challenge was driving. It was such a hustle to do my job with no driving license because I still had that European mentality and I couldn’t fully realize the impact it’s doing on my carrier and the level of stress I am experiencing being a new professional and struggling with transportation at the same time. It was the biggest celebration of strength for me when I dealt with this problem and after that, nothing could stop me anymore.
This career working in fashion, and being a freelancer is really rewarding but mentally challenging. It’s constant work on your craft, your communications, your stress control, your focus and so much more. But if you really love the essence of what you are doing, you will be ready to adapt every time and learn how to win new challenges with more gifts than losses. The life of an artist is never smooth but if you keep your head clean and high, you will attract that beauty naturally for her to shine through you and your work. I strongly believe in that.
I want the world to know that fashion is one of the most powerful tools to discover who you are and protect that discovery with beautiful armor which is style. Everybody is different and it’s so fascinating to see all the shades and forms of it unapologetically and open. Fashion is playful, emotional, fundamental, and serving so no need to be scared of vivid splashes from magazine pages. It’s water for everybody. Just find the source that speaks to you. I want to show the vulnerability and approachness of fashion through my work.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love Downtown and Echo Park in LA. Also Venice Beach. I love techno and this city has a really good techno scene. So definitely would go to the techno warehouse party after having a day checking museums (The Broad, The Museum of Contemporary Art, etc), and drinking wine and coffee in ilCaffe. For dinner would grab handrolls in KazuNori. Maybe walk around the famous fountain in Echo Park Lake in the afternoon or walk 5 minutes from there to thrift shop at Silver Lake flea market. This city has so much to offer!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’s definitely my husband Mark, with his help I got here, to the US. Who is always there for me, mentally and physically. When I moved to the US 6 years ago, I didn’t speak English. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I was lost and lonely. Everything felt different and even hostile. With his love, support, hard work, and patience, we ended up moving to LA from another place to pursue my passion for fashion and to look for a real home where we would feel like we belong and could become stronger professionally and personally.

Instagram: iamnot_shialabeouf

Image Credits
1. — photographer @alexevansphotography 2. — photographer @cristiaaandiaz 3. — photographer @cristiaaandiaz 4. — photographer @cristiaaandiaz 5. — bts photographer @keisukeogawa.jp 6. — bts photographer @keisukeogawa.jp 7. — bts photographer @keisukeogawa.jp 8. — photographer @cristiaaandiaz