Review of Dzhus ‘Anticon’ 2025 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Irina Dzhus and Photographer Marta Chudek with models Marta Gac, Adriana Gołębiowska, Kolas Vodonovsky, Yuri Vedenyapin, Kate Artman, Yeva Batriak, Agnes Samuel, Barbara Dmowska, Rita Jako, Denis Novikov, Lena Shtyk, and Ania Kos
Ukrainian designer Irina Dzhus has never shied away from challenging fashion’s conventions, but with Anticon, she pushes conceptualism to its furthest edges yet. The campaign unfolds as both a performance and a meditation: fashion becomes sacrament, garment becomes ritual object, and wearers become vessels for coded philosophies of selfhood, spirituality, and survival.
Filmed at CONCEPT_11, the campaign pairs stark, whitewashed spaces with surreal garments that morph before our eyes. Quilted coats open to reveal rainbow-painted linings. Sleeves collapse into hats; hats unfold into bowls; garments transform into objects of ritual dining. Models sit in a tableau reminiscent of The Last Supper, their faces marked with lines of Dzhus’ poetry, underscoring the campaign’s literary and spiritual weight.
Dzhus encodes her trauma into the collection with visual density. Blank exteriors conceal flashes of rainbow interiors — an eloquent metaphor for hidden resilience, hope, and joy beneath suffering. Religious motifs surface throughout: communion wafers, table settings, Byzantine zoomorphism, Kabbalistic geometry. Yet, the work never feels didactic. Instead, Dzhus asks: what path leads to paradise, and what does paradise mean to you?
The collection is inseparable from its Ukrainian roots. Produced entirely by Ukrainian craftswomen, soundtracked by Kharkiv-based Hennadii Biliaiev, and partnered with CHOICE Ukraine, Anticon keeps its activism close. Dzhus donates 30% of profits to animal rights causes, and paw prints hidden across garments remind us that compassion extends beyond humanity.
This campaign is as inaccessible as it is uncompromising. Its semiotics may alienate casual observers, but therein lies its power: it refuses to dilute its message for mass appeal. In an industry awash with surface-level accessibility, Anticon opts for depth, provocation, and risk. Fashion here is not merely wearable—it’s philosophical confrontation and personal healing.
With Anticon, Dzhus transforms trauma into a phantasmagoria of symbols, silhouettes, and shifting forms. It is a campaign that insists fashion can still be radical art, offering not comfort, but catharsis.
Dzhus Creative Director | Irina Dzhus
Direction, Poetry, Styling, & Photo Editing | Irina Dzhus
Photographer | Marta Chudek
Lookbook Photographer | Maria Salivonova
Backstage Photographer | Tina Zaborowska
Videographer | Yuliya Simutkina
Models | Marta Gac, Adriana Gołębiowska, Kolas Vodonovsky, Yuri Vedenyapin, Kate Artman, Yeva Batriak, Agnes Samuel, Barbara Dmowska, Rita Jako, Denis Novikov, Lena Shtyk, Ania Kos
Sound Design | Hennadii Biliaiev
Stylist Assisstant | Mariia Horbenko
Makeup & Hair | Karolina Żukowska, Marta Kozłowska, Agata Kowalska, Sveta Safronovskaya
Technical Production | Sviatoslav Mykhailov, Gianluca Pica, Filip Kurczyński, Wojtek Nurzyński, Oleh Shypkov, Maciej Kowalewski
Partner | CHOICE Ukraine
Organizational Support | OTOTO Art Foundation
Location | Concept_11 – Warsaw, Poland