PSYCHOSIS, ARMOUR, CATHARSIS: 25 QUESTIONS WITH ILONA
There are designers who build brands, and then there are designers who build worlds. ILONA belongs to the latter.
Raised between Los Angeles, Berlin, and Paris, her work feels less like fashion and more like a lived archive, a diary stitched in fabric, charged with memory, trauma, devotion, and obsession.
From sewing alone in a Paris apartment to presenting collections born from psychosis and hospitalization, ILONA has never treated clothing as surface. For her, it is survival. It is control. It is confession.
Her aesthetic has been labeled “dark feminine,” though she resists categories. White makeup becomes armor. Industrial sound becomes silhouette. Sandpaper becomes texture. What emerges is a body of work that refuses shame, rejects restraint, and insists on radical honesty.
In this conversation, ILONA speaks about vulnerability without embarrassment, loyalty without compromise, and creation as the only thing that ever truly saved her.
©Patrick Saunders
GATA: You grew up between Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin, how did each of these cities shape your creative vision?
ILONA: Los Angeles was where I spent my teenage years which was when I found myself and creativity, Berlin where I spent my formative years as an artist and experienced its culture, and Paris I really hated so I spent a year locked up in my apartment sewing, I really never saw anyone.
GATA: Do you remember the first moment you realised fashion was not just clothing for you, but a necessity?
ILONA: Honestly I don’t remember the exact moment, but probably when I started making clothes for my Barbies out of cheetah napkins. Also, when I was 11, I used to beg my mom to take me to the mall so I could try on the Betsey Johnson dresses, I was already obsessed with dresses.
GATA: When did you first understand that creating was a way to survive?
ILONA: When I was about 18, I was detoxing and I saw a photo of a painting, and I remember thinking, “this is why I need to stay alive”. I have no idea what that painting was, but life saving.
©Patrick Saunders
GATA: Where are you living now?
ILONA: I now live in Los Angeles, it wasn't something I planned, I came here to visit my family and friends, and just never left. I fell in love with LA again.
GATA: Your brand debut was in Sept 2022. What did that hands on process teach you about yourself as a designer?
ILONA: I would say it taught me that I literally can do anything I put my mind to.
GATA: When you create, do you start from an emotion, an image, or a physical sensation in your body?
ILONA: I literally get visions, they take over my mind and I work out the details for a little bit while doing something else, then I start creating.
GATA: Your first collection drew inspiration from industrial sound and from Romeo Castellucci's Parsifal. How do those influences manifest in silhouettes or materials?
ILONA: Castellucci's work was a major influence for my colour palette, and industrial sound helped to shape an energy for the collection that I couldn't put into words.
GATA: Your second collection, Psychosis, draws from a deeply personal experience involving hospitalisation. What was the process like of turning such a raw and emotional chapter of your life into a physical collection?
ILONA: It was honestly really difficult turning that experience into a collection, because I had to revisit the trauma that I previously put behind me. But it felt necessary.
My ultimate goal was for other people who struggle with mental illness to feel represented, and people reached out to me saying they felt seen and it made it worthwhile. There were also people who reached out telling me I was a horrible person for using mental illness in a fashion context [laughs], not everyone understands the vision.
GATA: If that period of your life had a texture, what would it feel like on the skin?
ILONA: Sandpaper.
GATA: Did designing save you, or did it push you further inside yourself?
ILONA: Both, it definitely saved me, but it keeps me so busy. I’m always alone.
GATA: When someone wears your clothes, what do you hope they feel first: power or exposure?
ILONA: Confidence.
GATA: What is the most misunderstood thing about your work or about you?
ILONA: I think because of the way I dress and do my makeup, people have told me they thought I wouldn’t be friendly before meeting me, but really I’m pretty chill. It makes me sad when people think I'm intimidating, I hear that all the time.
GATA: What scares you more: repeating yourself or being misunderstood?
ILONA: Being misunderstood, which is the story of my life.
GATA: What emotion do you avoid designing for?
ILONA: Not an emotion, but boring people.
GATA: What are you no longer willing to sacrifice for your work?
ILONA: My sanity.
GATA: Lady Gaga has worn your pieces. When an icon wears your work, does it change the way you see yourself as a designer?
ILONA: It didn’t change how I see myself, but I think it changed the way other people see and treat me, which is interesting.
GATA: If you had to dress Lady Gaga not as a pop star but as a human emotion, which emotion would you choose?
ILONA: Not an emotion but I would choose an angel, because she is a real life angel.
GATA: Do you feel like people are copying you or do you feel more like a muse?
ILONA: There’s a few clones out there and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t bother me. It’s upsetting because to me, an identity is something you build over time with elements from your personal life experience, and someone stealing every detail feels disrespectful.
GATA: You're very protective of your friends. What does loyalty mean to you, in real life?
ILONA: Loyalty is everything. My friends are my ride or dies, I would help them bury a body.
GATA: Do you believe friendship can be more intense than love?
ILONA: Yes, friendship is love to me, I also believe that your partner should be your best friend. And my platonic friends are on the same level to me as a romantic partner; I love them the same amount.
GATA: Are you afraid of losing the people you love or of letting them see everything?
ILONA: One of my biggest fears is my loved ones passing away.
GATA: Do you design differently when you're in love?
ILONA: No, but I get distracted more easily.
©Jaxon Whittington
GATA: Who are you when you're not working, not creating, not "ILONA"?
ILONA: I think I’m always her, I can’t escape it, she’s not a character, it’s truly me.
GATA: If tonight you could be anywhere, with anyone, doing nothing where would you go?
ILONA: I would be with one of my best friends, Patrick, drinking a Margarita at Sunset Tower Hotel
GATA: Do you have anything coming up? A new collection?
ILONA: I hope so! Yes! I haven’t announced it yet, but we have a collection coming this year, mid-year. I’m so excited for a new era; I think the most excited I’ve ever been about a collection. I’m really pushing myself to go outside of my comfort zone for this one.