GUNIA, the pope and an angelic Christmas plate
Back in 2019, Natalia Kamenska and Maria Gavryliuk, founders of Ukrainian fashion and design brand Gunia, designed Christmas tableware collection. In this, white ceramic pieces had cherubim and lambs pictorial across their surface, motifs that appear in both everyday and religious imagery the country. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the Vatican in 2020, presented one of these creations to Pope Francis – a symbol of the country’s ongoing legacy of both preserving and reinventing its cultural art.
Gunia Ceramics | all images courtesy of Gunia
IN CONVERSATION WITH Natalia Kamenska & Maria Gavryliuk
Not only does it The sack Play with Ukrainian imagery in swirling and colorful illustrations, but the very materiality of the work also derives from material traditions associated with the country. Describing the “universe of Gunia”, the brand explains that it works“combining nine craft techniques: glass blowing, weaving, embroidery, wood carving, ceramics, silver and bead jewelry, knitting and basket weaving.’ In conversation with Kamenska and Gavryliuk, designboom delves into their journey with Gunia and how they have brought their contemporary vision to historic practices.
The two founders had a traditional background in the fashion industry before starting this project. ‘Fashion has taught us a lot about design, aesthetics and production, but we are drawn to objects that carry memory, meaning and a deeper connection to culture. explains the duo. The Gunia Project started not as a business idea but as a research process. We started visiting museums, studying archives, traveling to Ukraine, meeting artisans and discovering how much knowledge, beauty and complexity there was in traditional culture. Our relationship with design has shifted from creating something new for the sake of innovation to creating something meaningful through research. Today, every object starts with a story, a symbol, a historical reference or a cultural question, not a trend prediction.’
ceramic production process
The eponymous woolen coat and the weavers behind
In one of their short films about the artisans they work with, Gunia takes us inside the loom of Natalia Kishchuk, a weaver they work with. Watching Kishchuk at work, he explains how the Gunia, the handmade woolen coat from which the brand takes its name, was a traditional work garment in the region. She talks about the amount of sheep she would need to shear to make the brand’s modern day bed, reflecting on how she was passed down from her grandmother how to spin yarn from raw wool.
a contemporary Gunia coat, a traditional Ukrainian garment made of wool, redesigned by the brand
Management of a network of craftsmen throughout Ukraine
Kishchuk is just one artisan in the network of over 150 Ukrainian artisans that Gunia works with to develop its products. “Managing such a network is both inspiring and complex because every collaboration works differently,” Kamenska and Gavryliuk explain.“We work with craftsmen, workshops and manufacturers all over Ukraine, but there is no model. Sometimes a particular crafting technique inspires the object itself. A weaving method, a ceramic process or a glassmaking tradition can become the starting point for an entirely new design. In other cases, we come with a very clear idea and work together to find the best technical way to bring it to life.’
The process of collaboration is always a dialogue, with artisans often contributing invaluable technical knowledge, suggesting adjustments or solutions that improve the final object while remaining true to the nature of the art. For the two founders, preserving these traditional crafts is just as important as finding a way to bring them into the world of contemporary design. “We are interested in reinterpretation rather than reproduction — the development of new objects rooted in culture but belonging to contemporary life. At the same time, it is very important for us that these techniques continue to live, evolve and pass on to the next generations. We hope that by bringing traditional crafts into modern design, more people will see them not just as a hobby or part of cultural heritage, but as a sustainable professional practice. For craft traditions to survive, they must remain relevant, create opportunities and attract new makers.’
