site.btaPaulina's Friends: from Plovdiv to the Big Four in Fashion

Art historian, philosopher and Byzantine art specialist Paulina Tsvetanova is the person behind Berlin-based avant-garde couture brand Paulina’s Friends. She adheres to sustainable concept fashion and uses pieces of fabric that would otherwise end up in the dump, and prefers zero-waste designs, the BG Voice website write in a feature about the Bulgarian-born Berlin designer.

Her clothes are unisex, they come in one size and are for every season. People in wheelchairs are among the Paulina’s Friends models at fashion shows. "This is my way of reminding people that fashion is for normal people, not just the super-skinny models," she says.

Paulina Tsvetanova was born in Plovdiv and she and her twin sister Ioanna have always love sewing, starting from making clothes for their Barbie dolls. Paulina also wrote poetry as she dreamt of becoming a fashion designer.

The twin sisters studied together at the German-language high school in their home town of Plovdiv and right after school they headed for Berlin. For Paulina, the hope was that leaving behind her „old life“ would help her cope with anorexia. She had been anorexic since the age of 12 when she and her sister started modeling. She says she simply stopped eating.

"My deepest crisis was I was 21 or 22. I was in clinics in Germany but nothing helped and the doctors saw no chance for me to survive. At one point I told myself that help had to come from within. I decided to put on weight and came back to Bulgaria for three months. Now I am 63 kg, but I don't care about the few extra kilos," Paulina told BG Voice.

In Germany she found herself in a difficult situation: with no money or help from family. She had to work five jobs. She studied at the University of Freiburg earning three master's degrees: in Art History, Philosophy and Christian Archaeology.

She graduated university at the age of 24 and by her 31st year she had worked as a gallery curator, in a publishing house for applied arts and in a metal sculptures workshop. "When I was 31, I was having problems at work and I said to myself that having this day job was not going to work for me,” she said.

She started the brand Paulina's Friends as a concept store for art, design and vintage fashion in a shopping mall in Berlin. She exhibited the work of other artists and choses vintage fashion from the flee markets in Paris, where her sister moved to live, fell in love with a Frenchman and made it her home.

Now Paulina's Friends clothes can be seen at the Fashion Week shows in New York, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Helsinki. She is determined to be at the Big 4 this year: Paris, New York, London and Milan. She is also planning shows in Tokyo and wants to show her collection in Seoul, where people have much appreciation for unconventional fashion.

She has travelled to 40 countries in Europe, America and Asia, and brings pieces of fabric from everywhere to incorporate into her designs. This adds a new, cultural element to her clothes. In February, she is going to Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bali, Thailand and Vietnam.

She has also published four books, writing about leaving life to chance, life during the CORONA crisis, her creative process and other matters.