Smashing bombs, destroyed houses and violent conflicts. Children at war and on the run experience things that leave deep, long-term psychological scars. The effects on children are severe and often don’t become apparent until adulthood. Depression and anxiety are just a few of the long-term mental health impacts on children who have fled and children who have experienced war. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), at the end of 2020, 82.4 million people were refugees worldwide. Over 42 percent of those displaced people are girls and boys under the age of 18. Many crises last for years. The UNHCR estimates that nearly one million children were born refugees between 2018 and 2020. Many of them will remain refugees for years to come. Children who are refugees on their own are particularly vulnerable, as they become traumatized before, during, or even after the flight.
In 1993, Demna Gvasalia was 12 years old and, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Georgia, became what he himself calls a “lifelong refugee child”. Traumas lie dormant and are unpredictable because they can erupt again at any time.
“My childhood was not steeped in flowers or butterflies but war. It was a tough time then. Despite being away from the country, everything related to Georgia is important. It is my way of going back to the past and creating the atmosphere, as if I’m there. I was born and grew up in Georgia. I was living there until the age of 18. Georgia has played the biggest part in my personal and professional development. I grew up observing what Georgian women wore. As a result, everything I create says a bit about Georgia. Much of it has to do with the loss of identity. Actually, it was also about accepting my trauma and making art out of it. This is what people find hard to understand – turning trauma into art and giving birth to something new through it. This is an amazing thing that an artist can create. The war in Ukraine has triggered the pain of a past trauma I have carried in me since 1993, when the same thing happened in my home country and I became a forever refugee. ‘Forever’ because that’s something that stays in you. The fear, the desperation, the realisation that no one wants you. But I also realised what really matters in life, the most important things, like life itself and human love and compassion. In a time like this, fashion loses its relevance and its actual right to exist. I realised that cancelling the latest show in Paris would mean giving in, surrendering to the evil that has already hurt me so much for almost 30 years. I decided that I can no longer sacrifice parts of me to that senseless, heartless war of ego. So, I dedicated my work to fearlessness, to resistance, and to the victory of love and peace.”
As featured in SLEEK 73 – PASSION. Available in print and digital here.
Forty-one-year-old superstar Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia began his career working for Walter van Beirendonck, Maison Martin Margiela and Louis Vuitton. In 2014, he co-founded the avant garde label Vetements, and has since collaborated with Kanye West. In 2015, he became Balenciaga’s creative director.