Runway
Shaping Your True Self: An Inner Journey Through Fashion
Anima's collection is an inner journey, a search for authentic truths through ethnic-urban design
Updated 07:17 pm EDT, June 9, 2025
Published 07:15 pm EDT, June 9, 2025
Photography: Timur Epov
Special Thanks: Francesca Venturi (Elevate PR)
From External Conformity to the True Self
During Visa Fashion Week Almaty Pre-Fall 2025, Anima unveiled its new collection, inviting audiences to embark on an intimate inner journey. Through clothing, movement, and light, Anima narrated the story of a profound transformation: the collection journeyed from superficial outward appearances to genuine self-discovery, shifting from empty roles to authentic truths that moved from physical shapes to essential meanings. The brand created a powerful experience through its performance, which evoked a range of emotions and prompted audiences to reflect deeply.
Anima's debut at Visa Fashion Week Almaty Pre-Fall 2025
The Kazakhstani clothing brand Anima started operations in Almaty in 2022 with the belief that fashion enables one to reconnect with one’s inner self. The brand’s organic growth has been swift due to its energetic beginnings and the positive reception from the public. Anima now features its production facility and a showroom in Almaty while serving brands, restaurants, and hotels through its B2B segment, as well as maintaining a community of people who appreciate feeling good about their appearance and clothes.
Madina Tompiev established Anima to send powerful messages through clothing that words fail to convey. Madina’s educational journey through economics and mathematics at University College London, combined with her international work experience and cultural immersion in Italy and China, greatly influenced her aspiration to express states of being through her fashion creations.
Anima's debut at Visa Fashion Week Almaty Pre-Fall 2025
Anima emerged as a brand that connects the physical and spiritual aspects, fostering unity and searching for beauty beyond appearances to encompass states of being and thoughtful worldviews. The brand defines its style as ethnic-urban unisex, featuring natural fabrics and simple, flowing shapes to create timeless clothing that transcends trends.
The Collection
About Visa Fashion Week Almaty
Between May 3 and May 5, 2025, Almaty welcomed the new season of Visa Fashion Week Almaty, which served as the international fashion week for Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The Ritz-Carlton Almaty served as the traditional location for the exhibition of 18 pre-fall 2025 collections from both local Kazakhstani designers and international creators.
The central theme for this season, selected by the organizers, was “Eternal Journey,” which mirrors the modern focus on exploration and movement, similar to fashion’s perpetual process of reinvention. The event invited emerging designers to join the ongoing journey by continually moving forward with each successive step.
The CEO and producer of Visa Fashion Week, Almaty Bauyrzhan Shadibekov, maintains that contemporary fashion holds transformative potential for social and economic systems. “For six years now, together with Visa, we have been creating the most fashionable event in the country — Visa Fashion Week Almaty. Each year, it grows in significance, not only for the fashion industry but also for Kazakhstan’s entire creative economy.”
The most fashionable event in Central Asia featured 14 designers from Kazakhstan and four from neighboring countries — Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and Uzbekistan. As always, the regular participants of VFWA included top Kazakhstani designers such as Saken Zhaksybayev (Zhsaken), Liliya Mamieva (Kirpi), Aigul Kasymova, the popular brand Malli by Manshuk Kuanisheva, and last season’s breakout stars Kimmin and Mariko. Newcomers to this season included Kazakhstani brands Anima and Van Miller, and the creative duo ToSi & Mila_R will present a unique collaborative collection. The week also featured legendary Kazakh fashion labels such as Pentatonica and Mechanical Piano.
International participants included the Uzbek brand Azukar Moreno, the well-known Turkish brand The Selfmade, and Georgian designer Tiko Nebieridze with her brand Tiko — a VFWT regular. For the first time, VFWA welcomed a guest from Armenia — MANUKALEKSANYAN.
In the era of misinformation, Ava's single objective is to celebrate fashion, emerging talents, diversity, and inclusion. Also, she attempts to open an honest dialogue around the controversial and hypocritical matters that torment groups or nations, discussing facts rather than mere ideologies or idiocracies. Ava is also an avid ice cream connoisseur.
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