In a historic Kyiv location, a quiet revolution unfolded—one that redefines who gets to be the face of fashion
There’s a particular quality to morning light in Kyiv—the way it spills through old windows and settles on worn floorboards, illuminating possibility. It was in just such a space that MINT, the Ukrainian womenswear label synonymous with fluid minimalism, staged its latest campaign. But this wasn’t your typical fashion shoot. The women before the lens weren’t plucked from modeling agencies or scouted at sixteen. They were teachers, entrepreneurs, mothers—women who chose fashion, rather than being chosen by it.
Welcome to the BRANDFACE revolution.
The MINT Philosophy: Where Fabric Becomes Second Skin
Since Yuliia Knyzhka and Oksana Rozhko founded MINT in 2016, the brand has carved out a distinctive space in contemporary fashion—one that privileges tactility over trend, restraint over excess. Their signature? Silk that moves like water, cut with an almost architectural precision yet allowing for absolute fluidity. It’s the kind of design that understands a fundamental truth: clothes should enhance a woman, not eclipse her.
For this campaign, that philosophy found its perfect expression. Because when you believe in honoring individuality, why not celebrate it at its source?
Casting Call: Real Women, Real Stories
The faces of MINT’s new campaign read like a manifesto: Iryna Zhuzha, Svitlana Kanochkina, Viktoriia Borodina, Solomiia Vitrova, Alla Chumachenko, Iryna Leshchenko, Tetiana Doroshenko, Olena Drobotenko, Nadiia Fenchenko, Olga Rusyna, Inna Zhurba, Iryna Kotliarova, Anna Panasiuk, and Tetiana Polishchuk. Fourteen women, each bringing something no casting director could brief: authenticity.
These are the graduates of BRANDFACE, Ukraine’s pioneering fashion education platform that has spent seven years dismantling the industry’s most persistent myth—that fashion is only for the young, the thin, the discovered. Founded by Malika Beatrice, BRANDFACE operates on a radical premise: that desire and dedication matter more than age or appearance, and that the door to fashion should swing wide enough for everyone to enter.
On Set: The Moment Everything Changed
“I joined BRANDFACE because I wanted to try something new,” Nadiia Fenchenko recalls of the shoot, her voice carrying the wonder of self-discovery. “Standing in a silk MINT dress, I realize I am capable of more than I ever imagined.”
It’s this quality—this sense of becoming—that elevated the shoot beyond commerce into something approaching art. Svitlana Kanochkina, draped in MINT’s signature silk, spoke of belief systems shifting in real time: “I always thought shoots like this happened somewhere far away—not for someone like me. Today I am part of this process, and it feels incredible.”
But perhaps no one embodied the campaign’s spirit more than Iryna Leshchenko, who, at 57, proved that reinvention recognizes no expiration date. “At 57, you can begin a new path in fashion—just as you can at any age,” she stated, her conviction absolute.
These weren’t sound bites. They were declarations of possibility.
The Vision: Fashion as Force for Change
“For me, this shoot is more than a collaboration,” Malika Beatrice reflects. “It is proof that our country creates real opportunities for women. We are proud to build a space where every woman can open up, evolve, and rise. It brings me joy to inspire women around the world to become stronger, more confident, and better versions of themselves.”
It’s a vision that aligns seamlessly with MINT’s design ethos—both believe that fashion should empower rather than intimidate, include rather than exclude. The partnership feels less like a marketing strategy and more like a meeting of philosophies, a shared understanding that true luxury lies not in exclusivity but in possibility.
What This Means for Fashion
In an industry still grappling with questions of representation and access, the MINT x BRANDFACE collaboration offers something increasingly rare: a blueprint. It suggests that the future of fashion might not be found in the familiar cycle of discovery and disposal, but in platforms that democratize access while maintaining creative excellence.
The shoot itself—with its play of natural light and architectural shadows, its celebration of silk against skin that has lived—stands as evidence. Ukrainian fashion is writing its own rules, and those rules prioritize substance over spectacle, transformation over transaction.
The Final Frame
As the last frame was captured and the silk dresses returned to their hangers, one truth remained illuminated: every woman who stepped before that camera had chosen courage. They had chosen to see themselves differently, to step into a space traditionally closed to them, to become.
In the end, that’s what both MINT and BRANDFACE understand—that there are no ordinary women. There are only women waiting for their moment, for their platform, for someone to hand them the silk dress and say: This is yours too.
And in Kyiv, in that light-filled room, fourteen women proved it.
The MINT x BRANDFACE campaign is currently viewable online. BRANDFACE continues to accept participants regardless of age or background.
CREDITS:
Photograph : Anton Tkachenko
Project: Brand Face
Stylist: Kirill Savchenko
Make up & hair: 96 group agency
Producer: N1 Buro
Clothes: Mint