Sonya Twinklepop

The professional Canon came first. Modeling school had been a detour, journalism a brief experiment, but the camera was what she actually wanted. Sonya started shooting the Moscow party circuit and her friends. That’s where the focus landed at seventeen.

Moscow doesn’t feel exotic to her because she’s lived there her whole life—it’s just the city. But you can see the local fashion moving toward cleaner lines, brighter colors, pieces cut from a single shape. She’s working from the right references: Cory Kennedy’s specific ease, the Olsens’ restraint, Twiggy’s cheekbones and attitude, Edie Sedgwick’s beautiful chaos. The sixties and nineties cycle back because they still work.

Her people are the expected crew—musicians, DJs, people she met at parties who actually make things. She’s got a girlfriend named Asya; they’ve been together long enough that she got her name tattooed on her leg four months ago. There are men interested too, which is complicated. That’s what happens when you’re young and visible.

Musically she ranges everywhere—Santigold, Elvis, electroclash like Ping Pong Bitches and Peaches. Vogue and Nylon for magazines, Lookbook for fashion specifically. She watched Joy Division and it stuck. Television doesn’t register for her.

She thinks about fashion history—how classical silhouettes come back, how sheer fabrics return because they answer something we keep wanting. She wants to push harder on the modeling, see if it can become real work. Maybe enroll in journalism school. The camera keeps pulling though.

The eye was there.