Meet the Artists Designing Clothes For Businesswomen Who Micro-Dose LSD

Pinar&Viola: Alternative Collection – Universal Basic Income

Pinar & Viola make clothes for “peace warriors” — in their own words, “anyone who dreams, believes, and works towards an alternative world with more love and peaceful coexistence.” But make no mistake; the digital artist duo, made up of Pinar Demirdag (Turkish) and Viola Renate (Dutch), are not interested in drug rugs and bell-bottoms. “We are making business suits for femmes,” they said about their new collection of kaleidoscopic screen-printed “utopian visions.” “Imagine a hot power businesswoman micro-dosing psychedelics in a suit at work … a charming man, gardening in our permaculture kimono. Mmm yummy.” The artists spoke to Interview Editorial Director about making clothes with a different kind of sex appeal, the future of holographic runways, and digging deep into the subconscious.

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Why is this the right time to launch this collection?
We made these works in 2017, but for some reason we couldn’t launch it. It always felt like we were holding gold in our hands. Positive radiation, superpowers, healing, a complete alternative universe. Like a protection and hope mechanism over everything ugly that’s going on in the news. I fully believe in humanity’s cosmic superpowers, but this surpasses me. We put so much love in this collection, we always knew the right time would let itself be known. Maybe it’s not even me who decided to launch it?

Pinar&Viola: Alternative Collection – Microdosing Psychedelics

How would you describe this work? The themes and questions you are addressing.
It’s a collection of peace activism, celebrating alternative systems, people and communities who are dedicating themselves to offer alternative social-economic systems. Not only through clothes, but through digital paintings, wallpapers, and jewelry that visualize rebellious ideas which hope to rewrite the rules — not only break them. Some themes: Universal Basic Income, rise of the sacred feminine, anarchy, micro-dosing psychedelics, mystic Islam, permaculture, equal pay law, and emancipation of animals. We’re fed up with the current socio-economic system, and its abusive and corrupt dynamics. We made this collection to help us dream up a reality with more justice and inclusivity, where we all live a more conscious life. Our aim is to awaken ourselves to the need for a drastic change in the exploitative patterns of a system which are out of balance with the natural systems of the planet.

Can you describe your work process?
Our physical bodies had to be in the same space to work, before, but time made us discover that we are much more connected than we thought. Our creative partnership has evolved into something much more divine and cosmic, filled with trust and love. We used to need each other’s approval in every step of the process. Now, we have so much trust for the other that we can create in separate rooms or separate countries. While we create separately, we both know that the energy of the other is guarding and driving us.

(l-r) Viola Renate and Pinar Demirdag wearing their Femme Anarchy suit. Photo: Petra Petrovsky

Does female sexual appeal and seduction inform your work?
We didn’t plan this with our neo-cortex, but I am sure it is the case in our subconscious. I can definitely say that charm and humor play a big part in our work, as we turn hard to discuss socio-cultural topics into desirable and delish visual narratives. When it comes to sexual appeal, if it’s there in our work I think it’s there in the smartest and the most conscious way possible. Something about being “good” is so sexy for me. Being good and loving, this is the new dynamic, the future sexy. No longer buying this sex, violence, and “fear sells” thing. I find it so old and dusty. People now know better. They woke up.

Describe how you want your clothes to be worn.
They’re for anyone who feels like a peace warrior, who dreams, believes and works towards an alternative world with more love and peaceful coexistence. We are making business suits for femmes. Imagine a hot power businesswoman micro-dosing psychedelics in a suit at work. We’re also making kimonos. I’d like them to be worn by anyone who feels free, or needs these garments to feel more free, to have more belief and trust in a more prosperous future like a charming man, gardening in our permaculture kimono. Mmm yummy.

Pinar&Viola: Alternative Collection – Sufism

Do you get frustrated by the traditional forms of clothing, skirts, pants, socks, etc.? Are we constrained by these traditional ideals of what to clothe ourselves in? Can technology help us rethink this?
Until we did this mixed reality holographic catwalk for a virtual fashion line, I didn’t believe in the collusion of technology and clothing. For Amsterdam Fashion Week back in 2016, we made an experimental catwalk for the virtual fashion line of the Dutch designer Amber Jae Slooten. The model wore a skin-color catsuit, while her clothing was changing. We visualize a future where you befriend your clothing. Animism coming alive. Your clothing and you, both wearing each other, becoming a team.
Visualization plays a big role in the creation of the future. We made a positive story, and I now believe in it. I also believe that the more technology becomes invisible, it will be more elevated into a state of magic. It’s already making people more curious and infatuated with their invisible, spiritual selves. Things are shifting from hardware to software. All the crafts we did in in real life for the last century are now done just as well in virtual world, but multiplied by the velocity of speed. We want everything, in an as little space-occupying possible way, with as much quality as possible, oh and for free, too. In no time, brands will be providing free virtual clothing covered in logos and/or branded patterns. Dystopia aside, it would be kinda cool to go to work in a dressed to killer outfit, then go to the gym and have a sexy date outfit after work, all not even needing to carry luggage with you.

Pinar&Viola ft Jasper Griepink and Ines Alpha: Alternative Collection – Permaculture

Describe what a world of feminine virtues looks like.
Collective rather than individual. Internally focused. Holistic and process oriented, rather than result-oriented. Collaborative rather than competitive. Being rather than doing. Patient, intuitive and heart-driven as opposed to urgent, analytical, and mind-driven. More listening. Less speaking. More accommodating than assertive. More relationships than cause-and-effects. More integrating than differentiating.

How does your past inform your future?
I believe in the power of attraction. Things don’t happen to you. You attract them to yourself. This is the secret of all secrets and the only way to truly change your life. Like Jung said, we live as prisoners of our subconscious. Events, sentences, energies we receive in our childhood, especially between birth and 7-years-old, get recorded as tapes in our subconscious. As part of this truth, our current work, life, love life, and social life are shaped according to the tapes which got recorded during our childhood. Even though we may say that we take our decisions with free will, actually they are remote controlled by these subconscious tapes. Until we fully comprehend this truth, we will keep on attracting the same type of people, events, affairs, situations, and compensations. Hence, history repeats itself. But I now know your future will be different than your past only if you change your subconscious.