Rassvet drifts into new territory with its latest capsule — a collaboration with Barcelona-based photographer and longtime friend of the brand, Cristian Bravo, under his evocative moniker La Melancolía. Bravo, who’s already lensed two of Rassvet’s previous lookbooks, steps in this time not just behind the camera, but inside the collection itself. The result is a capsule rooted in lived moments and imperfect timing — a visual diary where realness overrides polish, and observation becomes the act of creation.
Titled “It’s a Rassvet world, we’re just living in it,” the collection feels like fragments of a dream you woke up too early from. Bravo’s signature style — documentary realism shot through with a quiet tenderness — reframes skate culture as something softer, more internal. Faces blur, gestures linger, and the city breathes around them. “Wrong place and time, let me take you on a trip to life today,” reads the unofficial motto. It’s less a tagline than a portal — an invitation into a reality where the margins matter more than the main event.
We talk with the artist about this capsule collection, which is now available at rassvetskateboards.com, Dover Street Market Paris, London, Ginza, Singapore, Comme des Garçons Berlin & selected retailers worldwide.
Let’s start at the beginning — how did this collaboration with Rassvet come to life? What drew you to it this time around?
I guess “organically” is the most accurate word to describe how this collection was born. Tolya and I have already been friends for some time and I feel there’s always been a mutual feeling of appreciation for each others projects and the way each other sees the world. Skateboarding is the undeniable connection to both of our worlds.
You’ve already shot two lookbooks for Rassvet. How did this project shift the tone or take your relationship with the brand deeper?
When years back Tolya first offered me to shoot Rassvet lookbooks his words were “I’d like for this project to feel like your vision of the brand, not just some job. So that’s exactly what we’ve been trynna accomplish since we started working together and until this day.
Our collaboration came across as some sort of opposite creative process since the photographs used for the pieces already existed before the clothing itself, so we had to create a collection that reinforced the visual strength of the images to elevate both clothing and photographs at the same level.
La Melancolia feels like more than a creative alias — it’s a lens, a worldview. What does it represent to you today?
“La Melancolia”… even saying it feels weird to me. It has become some sort of a brand that has no products to sell. Am I even selling something? Ideas? I’m in the search for that answer myself as well.
That alias (la melancolia) came to mind one day while reading one of childhood books “The Ugly Duckling”, one of my childhood books. The melancholy feeling is described but not mentioned.
One day, during a visit to my parents about 7 years ago I found it in a box and while re-reading it as an adult feeling like I had found a treasure. La melancolia is an alias and a feeling that describes my imagery and plays a big role in my visual identity.
This capsule is described as a new phase in your collaboration with Tolya and the Rassvet team. What defines this evolution for you?
After more than 10 years in my back of being directly involved in the skateboarding industry, this collaboration feels like a real reward to me.
My personal message through it would be that it’s possible to be yourself in a world that pretends to sell the idea of freedom, but the truth is that you get laughed at when you actually try to look or act differently. Who cares if you are or not “legit”.
I hope these pieces serve as inspiration for others to give the unknown a chance to give yourself the luxury of showing the middle finger to the preestablished or “cool” if you don’t really believe in it.
To be able to welcome a new kind of beauty that’s never been seen before, and remember that skateboarding is a way of experiencing the world and can be interpreted in infinite different ways.
Just like each of the Rassvet team members offers independently through their skating and personality.
“It’s a Rassvet world, we’re just living in it.” That’s the line they’re running with. What does that sentence unlock in your imagination?
For me is the perfect way of saying: we are doing what we do for ourselves.
I consider Rassvet as one of the pioneer brands that takes a step further on every collection and so the lead on setting up new ways of working. Rassvet imagines and brings to life pieces and quality standards that are rarely seen out in the skateboarding industry.
Rassvet is not afraid to take risks, that’s why beyond a skateboarding and fashion brand operates as an art project.
Your work often puts narrative in motion — more about energy and timing than clear subjects. Why is that your focus?
Life can only happen in motion, that’s really is the ultimate truth of the world.
It’s all about constant research and perfection is never the goal.
I could not imagine myself being interested in perfection because reaching it would mean that there’s nowhere left to go.
I like images that have energy. I prefer photographs that have been taken instead of made there’s a big difference between those two. Images that talk about real life and people who actually live is my my main interest. Not the ones that pretend to do it. Real life is never perfect, that’s why it’s always interesting.
Is there a particular image from this collection that sticks with you? What’s the story behind it?
There is actually one yeah.. the blurry image of the couple kissing that was used for the jersey.
I took it in Paris with my point and shoot about 3 years ago on my way to the supermarket right by Republique. I remember looking at it weeks after and thinking.. “oh well” another blurry image.. I never thought it would be used for something until, while working on our rassvet selection, Tolya saw it by chance and asked me to send him the file.
Funny how perspective works and how this serves as an example of how something that wasn’t supposed to be anything can become something special.
Barcelona’s got this gritty warmth — part romantic, part chaotic. How does the city seep into your creative process?
Barcelona has it all. Even tho doesn’t stethically look like the Big Apple, it does feel like a reduced, slowed and reverb version of it. It’s lively and constant and whatever you look for in it you’ll find.
The only difference between Barcelona and New York is.. that it isn’t it. That’s the beauty of it and how magical it is to always return.
Barcelona has allowed me to find some kind of mental peace between the nonstopness. It’s a city where if you know what you want and what not, it will only give back great things.
Do you see this project as a reflection of Barcelona, or more as a response to it?
All the pictures used for our collaboration have been shot around the world, including Paris, New York, San Francisco, Milan, Barcelona, Las Vegas, Greece, Los Angeles over the last 10 years.
Barcelona is where I’m from, but it wasn’t until recently that it started to feel like home. Over the last years, I’ve had many homes and still do. Starting from my apartment where my cats are, through airport lounges, or the airtrain to Jamaica Station from JFK.
This project reflects a selection of images that talk about the life we all live.
There’s a poetic tension in your images — they feel real but slightly surreal. How do you balance rawness with intention?
Every time I take a photograph, it’s an intentional act. I’m very selective with the images that catch my eye, and I say no to so many photographs that could’ve been if i decided to take em but i hate repeating myself. I’m interested in the new. How far can we push the limits of the photographic process in order to achieve images we haven’t seen before?
That’s my intention every time I take a photograph.
Are your shoots mapped out ahead of time, or do you follow instinct and improvisation?
I don’t really plan my pictures. I try to let photographs be whatever they have to be. Everything and everyone is something and someone already, there’s no need to become anything else or pretend it. There are enough lies in this world.
I’m hopeful thinking that the people of the future and with the ever-growing power of AI, will understand the importance that real life has and how documenting the world is our only chance to proof that you and I lived.
You’ve worked with a wide range of artists and collectives. What makes Rassvet feel different or more personal?
Rassvet is more than a skateboarding brand. It’s Tolya’s art project and a small group of people who work hard everyday to create something that other big corporations could only dream about.
Rassvet lives between fashion and skateboarding and serves as inspiration in an industry where taking a risk and being different is often criticized.
Rassvet stands up for creativity and lives out of the comfort zone.
This capsule captures something both grounded and dreamlike. What emotion or idea were you hoping to leave people with?
My hope with this collection is that for the first time the viewer not only will be able to look at my pictures but to touch them and feel them around you take our shorts for a walk and let yourself be seen in them. Bring our skate decks out in the street, do a board slide and see the paint disappear. Let the pieces become even more unique over usage. They were made for you. The photographs used here have been given a second chance and the opportunity of being transformed into a physical experience deeper than what printed paper and frames can offer.
Tell us a bit about the installation at Rufus Macba — how did you approach translating your visuals into a physical experience?
My intention with our Rufus installation was to transform the store into an immersive experience where the pieces and artwork could be displayed without interfering in the skate store dynamic too much. Being the only Skateshop in the world located in one of the most Iconic Barcelona spots (Macba) my idea with the window display was for the visitors to be able to experience both inside and outside of the store without visual interruptions.
Having worked with them in the past and being close friends of mine made it so easy and fully trusted me from the very beginning. I’m happy to say it was a total success for everyone involved.
And finally, what’s next for you — for La Melancolia — after this capsule drops into the world?
Oh good question, I ask myself that every day.
The photographers work is to make pictures for people to see, and sometimes solve what i call commercial problems, usually involving models and others. But the artist responsibility is the constant research of whats next and finding new ways to show something we’ve seen a million times, differently. I like to consider that my job and thats what i want my job to be.
Recently I’ve been wondering about previous creative formats of mine and tools like painting and music, which i haven’t done in a long time. Even tho photography is still gonna be my main thing (thats how I pay for my life) I find myself wondering about how my art outside photography would look today. A different tool must offer a different outcome. I’m excited to answer those questions.
Photography by Waylon Bone
