To a new part of the podcast Off Record with musician Teri Čikoš the popular Slovak designer, stylist and photographer accepted the invitation. In the past, Lukáš Kimlička devoted himself more intensively to designing and was even a judge in the Shopping Maniacs. His refined taste and elegance were his hallmark. However, when he picked up a camera years ago, another extraordinary art was born that consumed his life.
Kimlička has headlines for various well-known magazines. From the Czech Republic and Slovakia, he photographed, for example, Daniela Peštová, Zdena Studenková, Lucka Bílá, Dara Rolins, Marika Gombitová and many other iconic women.
He realized that fashion and art would be his life in his childhood, when he spent his holidays in Záhorí with his grandmother and all his aunts and uncles. His mother’s sister sewed, and he was fascinated by how quickly she had finished things that she sat down at the sewing machine.
“And then it got me so excited and I said to myself that it’s absolutely amazing that I don’t actually have to go to the store, I can sew something myself. And then I started to think about it, that I would probably like to devote myself to sewing, that I want to be a fashion designer.” he mentions in an interview. He applied to the clothing industry school in Trenčín, where his aunt went. He also studied fashion at university and was dedicated to it until recently.
Slovak fashion has changed since his beginnings at school. He had a harder time in that it was more difficult to get noticed and somehow break through and get his work out there. Today it is enough to have social networks where designers, artists can present their work. For many years, he has been active in an area where trends, models, personalities of cultural life, actors alternate… He will also talk about these aspects of his work in an interview with Teri Čikoš.
At the moment, he is mainly engaged in photography, but he admits that he is most himself behind the sewing machine. Many popular personalities and celebrities stood in front of his camera, but the photos of acting diva Zdena Studenková resonated the most in Slovakia.
“It was actually one of those last photoshoots that left a big mark on me. It was last year, exactly like a year ago. And to this day, many people still remember those photos, they even ask me about them. Zdenka and I have known each other for a long time, even when I was a designer, even when I was still doing make-up, because I did that too, but I never photographed her. That is, for the first time last year. I was surprised myself, how the photos were very viral, how it spread everywhere, everyone shared it, everyone dealt with it, even in the Czech Republic, when I came to Prague, everyone asked me about it,” explained Kimlička about the enormous reach of his images.
They caused quite a stir with the photos! “Zdena is an icon, the fact that she is. And as soon as she entered that room, we knew that a personality had arrived. And it can be seen in those photos as well. It was very good for me to take pictures with her in that she really didn’t have to try at all, I didn’t have to say anything to her, she simply stood in front of the lens. Since she is an actress, she knows how to work with the camera, both in terms of expression and movement… I didn’t even want to stop, I would take pictures of her until the morning of the next day,” admitted the famous artist.
In Off Record you will also learn:
- how he taught himself photography
- how Slovak fashion has changed
- how to gain the trust of a person in front of the lens
- about the time when photos were not retouched
- when did he stop sewing fashion pieces and does he follow fashion
- in which the Slovaks have made great progress in recent years
- how he perceives the rise of AI (artificial intelligence) in fashion and art
- whether he ever refused to take pictures of certain people
