Oh so pretty. Oh so cool. Oh so Albania.
We don't often get fashion shoots from this corner of Balkans. Wall Street Journal Magazine just published a big, beautiful story from Albania, with Prishtina's own Rina Meta being Creative Producer.
A pretty woman is wearing Luis Vuitton, Hermes, Prada, Celine, Maison Margiella, Row, Isabelle Marant, Channel, Bottega Venetta, Vivienne Westwood, Ralph Lauren, Harley Davidson, Chloe, Coach, Gucci, Michael Kors, Giorgio Armani, Lowe, Miu Miu, Akris…
But she’s driving an old dirt motor bike down from capital city of Tirana to south Albania. She’s tough, she’s relentless. And the countryside is spectacular. It’s rugged. It’s Eastern. It’s Western. Its real Wild West too.
She meets folk singers and dances with them having a raki. She’s amazed by sight of desolate Vuno and history-rich Porto Palermo.
She rides around the remnants of the broken old world of communist factories, she swims in the deeply azure sea next to castles that housed heroic princes and hedonist pachas.
Sun is always either raising or setting, it’s a world of permanent dusk or down and nothing in the middle, in a scene that reminds us of the old battles between gods of hope and despair, bringing forth the human fundamentals.
Indeed, she’s riding along the most basic human geographies, before humans - in plural - took over the nature.
The woman rides the insurmountable mountain roads, on unbeatable old paths, with an unconquerable spirit.
She’s in Albania.
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It’s a crazy story and it’s inspired by the photo editorial in Wall Street Journal magazine. But these sites, these places, these hidden gems of Albania were found by that researcher of souls and sites, archiver of love and lust, Kosovo’s own Rina Meta together with Tirana girl Amantia Peza. Rina was the Creative Producer, and she also did the location research and scouting with Amantia.
We asked her how they did this, and she said: “Working on this project alongside a huge team and an incredible photographer, in the height of summer, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees in Albania, I became acutely aware that this was the first time Albania was being viewed through a mega sophisticated fashion lens. Looking at it months later, I’m so happy to see it has been translated into an incredibly beautiful editorial.”
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We don’t have rights to these photos but check the entire story, made with so much passion by an all-star team of photographer Josh Colins; model is Bibi Breslin, Fashion by Anastasia Barbieri, hair by Cim Mahony, Make-up by Satoko Watanabe, and of course our Rina as creative producer and Anima Pictures and Amantia Peza as local production house.
Mrrekulli!