Galina Smirnskaya Archive

The Galina Smirnskaya archive includes two portfolios she compiled herself: one with documentary evidence of her career as a fashion designer, the other featuring materials showing her work as a fashion model. The archive contains drawings of her fashion designs, magazine clippings with articles and announcements of events from the Moscow fashion world of the 1990s, model photo shoots, including those produced especially for Ptyuch magazine, and photographs of fashion shows. The archive also includes materials donated by fellow artists (Alexander Mareev, Dina Kim, FenSo Lights group, and others), a number of Smirnskaya’s drawings, DVDs, and photographic films.

About the archive creator

Galina Smirnskaya (b. 1967, Ryazan) is an artist, fashion designer, and model, and a member of the Fourth Height group. From 1982 to 1986, she studied at Ryazan Art College for a degree in Theatrical Costume Design, before moving to Moscow in 1986, where she continued her studies at A. N. Kosygin Moscow State Textile University. After graduating in 1991, Smirnskaya began working as a fashion designer. In 1994, she started producing collections of avant‑garde clothing, which were shown at numerous fashion festivals and used in the filming of video clips. In 1995, she became a member of the International Association of Designers and in 1998 joined the Poster Section of the Moscow Union of Artists. In 1990, at the Gilbert & George exhibition at Moscow’s Central House of Artists, Smirnskaya met artist Anton Smirnsky, whom she later married. She was an active contributor to the art and club life of Moscow throughout the 1990s. In 1993, she joined the Fourth Height group. She lives in Moscow, where she works as a stylist and model and creates her own clothing collections.