The unstoppable force of Shadrinsky
We go behind the scenes with the creative duo that are bringing humour, absurdity and death-defying stunts into luxury fashion
Despite audience fatigue, and in many cases outright disillusionment, brands and agencies continue to scramble for our attention by co-opting social trends or lurking in the shadows of Gen Z’s latest niche interlocutor in an attempt to gain and retain relevance. Combined with risk-averse leadership and metric-driven concepts, these tired tactics have left marketing in desperate need of reinvention.
Enter Yulya Shadrinsky and Marita Gurcciani, the Paris-based creative duo behind Shadrinsky. Blending gonzo energy with daredevil stunts, absurd storytelling and playful humour, Shadrinsky is the trojan horse the luxury market has long needed. The duo – who’ve worked with Marc Jacobs, Jean Paul Gaultier and Mugler, to name a few – don’t make campaigns; they create entertainment. Their work is fierce, fast and hilarious. Most importantly, it’s for everyone.
“The fashion world is very pretentious and creates this purposeful distance,” Marita says when I ask the duo how they think about audience. “We measure the success of our ideas if our families understand them. We want to appeal to normal people with normal lives.” Yulya adds: “I’m making this work for the young girls from my hometown in Russia. She doesn’t have a Zara in her local town, let alone a Marc Jacobs, and she may never buy designer clothes, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have access to the dreams fashion can conjure.”
View this post on Instagram
Shadrinsky’s work has done more than inspire. It has become a masterclass in social storytelling, with each reel capturing the attention of millions of viewers. Much of their success can be attributed to their disarming concepts, each meticulously constructed to evoke the surreal in the everyday. Take their Marc Jacobs campaign for the XL Sack Bag, which features stuntwoman Tereza Kubova tumbling down a flight of stairs before picking herself up and nonchalantly walking away as if nothing happened. It’s disarming, satirical, yet weirdly relatable – essentially a glamorous and highly dramatised version of an ordinary incident.
The duo film everything on CCTV cameras, cultivating a lo-fi vibe that gives the viewer the sense of stumbling upon something real and candid. This voyeuristic point of view requires perseverance because CCTV cameras are notoriously difficult to work with. They freeze and glitch, which can be stressful in high-pressure environments, but the look and feel are intrinsic to the world they are building. “Clients often try to sell us on shooting 4K, adding a filter in post-production, but we are not interested in faking it,” explains Yulya. “That pixelation is part of the art.”
We measure the success of our ideas if our families understand them. We want to appeal to normal people with normal lives
You won’t find any tropes in Shadrinsky’s work; instead of models and actresses fawning over perfume bottles and whispering to the camera, the duo’s protagonists (often stunt people who resemble real women) rob jewellery stores, lean out of drifting cars and hang off excavators. They filmed a model doing 360s on a motorbike in a little black dress and walking through the desert with a pack of Afghan Hounds. The duo admit they like pushing an idea as far as possible, often egging each other on. “It’s never enough for Yulya,” laughs Marita. “She will ask for the biggest explosion on set and then say, ‘That’s it?’ She’s always pushing for bigger and bolder things.”
Taking risks is at the heart of their work, and while at times their ideas might appear extreme or far-fetched, everything is rooted in an element of their lived experience. “Making films is a kind of therapy for us,” says Marita. “It helps us work through the reality of contemporary life. In many ways, we transform difficult things from our personal lives through humour. It’s about offering ourselves and our audience a moment to forget their day-to-day problems and escape.” Yulya adds: “I want the work to be filled with real emotions, even if it’s in an abstract way. Sometimes I create drama in my own relationship just to spark ideas.” Both laugh at this.
View this post on Instagram
Prior to forming Shadrinsky – named after Yulya’s mother’s birth town, Shadrinsk in southern Russia – Yulya was building a name for herself as a photographer, documenting raves and fashion parties around the world, while Marita was completing her degree in the Czech Republic. Their initial meeting was serendipitous, when Marita rented a room from Yulya after landing an internship in Paris.
“We didn’t become friends right away because she was my landlord,” Marita remembers. “Over time, we got to know each other, and I would assist Yulya on shoots, but we eventually became jaded by industry politics. At that time, Paris had the same small group of people getting all the jobs. It was very hard to move forward. The industry had categorised Yulya as a party photographer and refused to consider her for other opportunities, so we decided to build a new portfolio, scraping together the money to make three short videos. When we posted them online, we got a huge response and that landed us our first client.”
Connecting with the right client at the right time is fundamental to breaking into the industry, and Alexander Wang offered Shadrinsky something more precious than a paycheque – trust. “I was looking for new ways to present the luxury sector on social platforms, with a focus on creating community through entertainment,” explains Maisie Willoughby, chief marketing officer at Timberland, who was first to recognise Shadrinsky’s potential during her tenure at Alexander Wang.
“They would come back with the most impossible creative. At first, the team struggled to understand how they could pull off these obscure storyboards and locations, yet they delivered incredible, high-end videos every single time. They offer brands immediate, stark content creation, often so unique that you can’t help but watch it over and over. In short, it hits.”
Grounding their concepts in everyday life is something Shadrinsky takes very seriously. “In a world increasingly dominated by AI, CGI and SFX, we prefer working the old-school way,” explains Marita. “We work closely with our stunt team to capture real scenes. In the jewellery store robbery, it’s real glass they are smashing, not fake. Of course, there are limitations; stunt people can only fall or set themselves alight a certain amount of times safely, but these boundaries have actually helped us learn how to shoot faster and more efficiently.”
Yulya continues: “I’ve been in several reality TV shows – when I was younger – and it taught me that audiences are always curious to recognise themselves in various situations. They love to find similarities with the characters they are watching. My experiences on shows like Dom 2 [translates to House 2, Russia’s longest-running reality show which first aired in 2003] also taught me a lot about attention spans. Creating thrilling and intriguing narratives is not just about great ideas but also about conviction and great editing.”
While the duo have achieved a lot quickly, building trust and retaining autonomy over their ideas hasn’t been easy in a risk-averse market. “Initially, there were so many situations when clients would try to make concepts safer, or ask us to change stuff,” Marita explains. “We had to fight to protect our ideas, really explaining the granular specifics behind every decision. There is a lot of ego and fear in advertising because they are used to doing things in a certain way. It’s hard for them to change.”
In 2024, Shadrinsky turned their hand to music videos. Bitch You Could Never by Yseult is a hilarious and subversive spin on dreary office politics. The cinematic short is a testament to their vision as creators. Their secret is refreshingly simple. Equal partnership with no egos, just ambition. Marita and Yulya work on everything together, splitting the creative process, planning and business 50/50 – and it works.
In November they released their second music video – for Jack Harlow’s track Hello Miss Johnson – offering a glimpse of a softer, more romantic side to their oeuvre. In order to impress his new girlfriend, Harlow showers her with endless flowers, gifts and even an ice sculpture while also doting on her mother, all set against a backdrop of chaotic neighbourhood antics. “This was a very personal shoot for us,” says Marita. “We’ve both lost our mothers and will never experience our partners bonding with them. Exploring it on screen allowed us to realise an unattainable experience.”
Shadrinsky’s outlook and approach are uniquely in opposition to the hierarchical ways in which advertising currently operates. They demand trust and respect from their collaborators, with a proven track record to back it up. They prioritise autonomy and fiercely protect their creative integrity. Someone more cynical might underestimate their current hold on culture, writing them off as just the latest industry rebels, but their true defiance is an unflinching commitment to a creativity-first approach.
