Results are essential for MMC – they don't follow trends, but try to work in the realm of their own style, developing and reinterpreting it. Małgorzata Czudak doesn't work for the brand anymore, but on her own. Rafał Michalak and Ilona Mayer have continued collaborating until the present day. They have a showroom on Warsaw's Żurawia street and an online store, and they organise fashion shows twice a year. As Michalak says, their clients are women who can pull off their designs, which don't necessarily flatter their figure in an obvious way and cover up rather than flaunt.
Fashion is supposed to be discrete and constructivistic, but not supposed to search for easy effects. We don't like track suits and showing off. One can easily do something catchy, but we care about things that last.
– says the designer.
They like to connect sports inspirations with conceptual craft. They really like monochrome – their collections are often created in just one colour. In 1999, for Krajowa Izba Mody (National Fashion Chamber), where they received an award for designer of the year, they prepared an all-white collection. They presented it on younger and older non-models, and at the time such a fashion show was a sensation. When they talk about the 1990s, they underline that trends were of key importance at the time. Now trends can be ignored.
At first they thought about the studio being contracted to design for fashion brands, as this was a natural path for graduates of the Fine Arts Academy in Łódź at the time. They also took part in contests, with projects that gained such recognition that they naturally had to be turned into an original brand. But still, as at the beginning, their artistic work is funded in part by working for the industry.
They divide their tasks equally, and they always start with the materials. They say that they don't like to force a story, a philosophy or even a title on the collection. Clothes are supposed to stand up for themselves.
Karolina Sulej, October 2015, translated by N. Mętrak-Ruda.