Ivana wears NECKLACE & RING Hugo Kreit.
Ivana Vladislava‘s Polish mother was, by today’s standards, very young when she had her. ‘She was a very beautiful woman, very vain and charismatic,’ Vladislava says. Her Albanian father, on the other hand, was a ‘bastard’. When he met her mother, he was the leader of a powerful criminal clan. But he soon grew tired of Vladislava’s mother and sent the pregnant woman back to post-communist Poland. Vladislava’s mother never had any serious interest in the traditional role of a mother, marked even today by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s and Johann Pestalozzi’s definitions as a self-sacrificing, life-long task. Thus, Vladislava grew up with her grandmother. ‘I don’t think my mother influenced me in anything except my vanity and self-centeredness,’ she reflects.
But it is precisely this narrative of the bad mother that fascinates her – women for whom a child is at most a status symbol. For example, the image of the typical millionaire’s wife, who is already mentally organising her ski holiday in Aspen shortly before giving birth. The cliché of the child-hater, which has already given rise to iconic villains that we have to hate and love at the same time: Narcissistic, envious, power-hungry, grotesque, vain and dramatic Disney characters such as Ursula, Maleficent, Lady Tremaine or Cruella de Vil. Perhaps Ivana Vladislava is so drawn to them because she was confronted with such a bad mother as a child. A mother who didn’t want to be a mother. Instead, she poured her energy into getting revenge on the man who got her pregnant and then abandoned her without a penny. Vladislava’s mother left her to her grandmother and travelled to Germany to visit him, only to smash up his nightclub with a baseball bat.
‘Mother is power; mother loves you, and she punishes you,’ she muses as we speak on a Friday afternoon. She takes plenty of time for our interview, even though she is already preparing for the weekend. Vladislava has long since become an important figure in queer Berlin nightlife. She performs, does comedy or simply adorns a venue with her mere presence. Although she doesn’t have any children herself, the term ‘mother’ is certainly accurate for her. The term has long been firmly established in queer vocabulary and probably has its origins in the 1720s. Back then, a British woman named Margaret Clap ran a coffeehouse where homosexual men discreetly met for consensual intercourse. Her grateful patrons affectionately called Clap ‘Mother Clap’. The term’s diverse queer heritage is particularly deeply rooted in the New York ballroom scene of the Sixties, a subculture shaped by queer Black and Latinx drag artists. Here, the ‘mother’ of the house is the epitome of powerful, confident femininity – a definition that fits Vladislava like a glove.
LEFT Ivana wears EARRINGS d’Heygere NECKLACE Hugo Kreit DRESS Rick Owens SHOES Abra RIGHT Ivana wears SHOES Abra.
Ivana wears SKIN, EYES & LIPS Pat McGrath.
When asked why Ivana holds this kind of status in the Berlin queer scene, she speculates modestly that it must be because of her bust size. ‘Freud once said that breasts represent mother and milk. Therefore, I believe that many gays don’t see my breasts as something sexual but as a symbol of comfort,’ she explains. Yet Vladislava is so much more than just her appearance. At just 14 years old, she ran away from home. Her destination: Berlin. From that moment on, she saw many loved ones pass away, she says solemnly; this sadly includes her best friend and her very personal ‘mother’, Aria, who committed suicide. ‘Aria was trans and an elite Polish escort. She was the person who helped me become who I am today – she was a piece of work,’ Ivana recalls reverently. ‘She looked like Jerry Hall, wearing head-to-toe Chanel and a bright red Hermès Birkin. Opulent Cartier earrings hid the facelift scars on her ears.’ Experiences like these, along with the transphobia and prejudices she has to face on a daily basis, have made Ivana tougher. She appears like a rock in turbulent waters, radiating absolute calm even in full glam. ‘Every day is a celebration for me. I try to always have a positive attitude towards life,’ she explains. ‘It doesn’t cost anything to be nice!’ I can practically see the twinkle in her big green eyes through the phone speaker.
It’s no wonder ‘La Vladislava’ is so popular in the gay community. Vladislava explains that the LGBTQIA+ community often surrounds itself with mother figures because its members either have a very close or a disturbed relationship with their own mothers. Her relationship with ‘her gays’ resembles unconditional motherly love. ‘I love it, and the gays love me for loving it, and I love the gays for loving me, and that’s how we all love each other,’ she declares. Yet she herself thinks she’d be a terrible mother. ‘I would be a mix of Cinderella’s stepmother and the “cool mum” from Mean Girls… I would basically be like Kris Jenner,’ she laughs. Vladislava doesn’t see any need to have biological children of her own, pointing out that she has enough on her plate with her queer proteges and all her heterosexual lovers with mother complexes or a MILF fetish.
Ivana wears FULL LOOK Ferragamo.
As featured in SLEEK 79 – MOTHER. Available in print and digital here.
CREDITS
Images: Geray Mena & Sara Miguel
Styling: Joana Zibat
Talent, Makeup & Hair Artist: Ivana Vladislava
Creative Direction: Lorenzo L Pradelli
Set Design: Sandro de Mauro
Talent Manager: Jerome Glock
Production: Ruben Cortelletti @ Chérie Agency
Photography Assistant: Dennis Kragers
Styling Assistants: Diana Lukashuk & Amelie Bachert
Studio: Studio Chéri