Polyhedron is the label for fashion’s theatre kids and band geeks

Vera Petryaeva started designing clothes when she was 19 because of a bet: 100 dollars if she could design a piece of clothing better than the “horrible green poncho” her friend jokingly wore in college. She was studying journalism in Moscow at the time, but started watching sewing and patternmaking tutorials online to set about making her first dress. “It turned out to be very complicated, but the process of doing it was so satisfying,” she says. It was in that moment that she pivoted her focus from writing to starting her own brand, Polyhedron – although Petryaeva laughs when you call it a brand. “That’s so serious,” she says. “Maybe it’s more of a lifetime project.” The project blends historical patterns with unusual cuts, incorporating found objects like one-of-a-kind antique French hunting horns and tambourines, turning them into bags that twist into a circle (or jingle when you walk). 

Petryaeva has a characteristically blasé approach to the name ‘Polyhedron’. She swears she must have come across it on the internet as a teenager and simply thought it was cool. “I don’t think it’s a perfect name, to be honest, I just printed too many labels with this brand name,” she says. “Now, I have to use it for life.” Her recent collections have been driven by personal narratives – she uses clothes to poke fun at herself. Take her latest collection, Opera, for example. Opera was inspired by Petryaeva’s obsession with The Phantom of the Opera as a child, only to grow older, revisit it and find it slightly “silly”. Regardless, she says she still finds it entertaining. Petryaeva isn’t the first to design a musical instrument-inspired accessory – bizarrely, we’ve started to see more of those from the likes of Vaquera – but Polyhedron does bring you into Petryaeva’s unique world. It’s a place filled with dark humour, feathered hats and plenty of repurposed instruments.

Ahead, Petryaeva sits down with Dazed to speak about hunting for hunting horns, Renaissance-era nostalgia, music as pure magic and fashion as a tool for self-reflection.

Hey Vera! First of all, Polyhedron is based in Paris – when did you relocate from Russia? 

Vera Petryaeva: I was living in Saint Petersburg and doing some shows there. I had a community, and everything was going quite smoothly. Then the war started with Ukraine. There was no future there then, no question of staying. But I was quite unprepared for Paris. When I arrived, I came with a little suitcase and knew I could be immigrating for life, thinking maybe there’s no way back, and the borders might close. It was a panic situation, and I was already scheduled to have a show during Paris Fashion Week. It was two months away. I was living in a tiny hotel room and had to produce a collection here without speaking French. I had no friends, a production team or even a tailor. It was the toughest experience ever. But we had opera singers, and the show was quite cute. 

That first show was back in 2022, and you’ve shown at Paris Fashion Week a few times since then. Did it ever get better? 

Vera Petryaeva: Yes, in 2023 we made a show, Prestige, with a man sawed in half like a magic trick. We hired an actual magician through a very weird Facebook group who came with a huge box. We had almost no time because we only had the space for a few hours and had no time to prepare. Everything was an improvisation. That was also quite stressful, so after that, I realised it was probably too much to do shows every few months. Now, I try to just do one collection per year. 

Your last collection, Opera, came out in September last year. Why did you build it around The Phantom of the Opera? 

Vera Petryaeva: I was stuck in the process of making collections inspired by elements for a few years. My life felt determined by that concept I created, and I wanted to make something totally different and narrative-inspired. I was thinking about the cheesy things you loved as a child. You realise maybe they aren’t the best piece of art, but you are still charmed by them. For me, this was The Phantom of the Opera musical. I took some time to revisit all the silly memories and wanted to make something theatrical, although now people somehow use that word for anything bad. The first name idea, ‘Angel of Music’, felt like too much, so I changed it to something simpler. 

Are you musical yourself? Where does your fascination with antique instruments come from? 

Vera Petryaeva: I don’t have any real background in music. I was never doing anything connected to it. But I think music is pure magic. If I could choose any talent, I would choose to be a genius musician. I think it’s the coolest among them all.

Everything now is a little bit nostalgic… Everyone is like, ‘let’s get even further away from where we are right now’ – Vera Petryaeva

When did you first make a bag from a musical instrument? 

Vera Petryaeva: It was for the Opera collection. I was about to finish, but I desperately needed to add more bags to the collection. I was walking around the city obsessively because I needed to finish soon. I stopped by this antique store and I saw this trumpet in there. It was actually a French hunting horn, and it looked so cute. I thought, ‘OK, this is round-shaped and could easily be a bag, so why not?’ All my friends found it funny but elegant in some way. So I made more of them in different sizes and started taking in more instruments like a tambourine. 

Does the tambourine make a noise when you walk? 

Vera Petryaeva: Yes, it makes the noise. But to make a noise out of the horns, you need another thing to add. I don’t know what it’s called, but it makes it actually usable. 

The bags could easily steal the spotlight, but your hats with feathers and other found objects are fascinating, too. Do you have a thing for making hats? 

Vera Petryaeva: I actually want to design more hats. I find them really exciting, so I might do an exclusive collection that’s just hats. For this collection, the main hat was made of a vintage mask and other objects, like roses. Some of my previous collections were entirely made of found objects, but now I’m trying to make them from 50 per cent found objects because it’s not very easy to reproduce commercially, or financially sustainable. 

Where do you usually find the objects? 

Vera Petryaeva: Vintage stores, flea markets and some private archives. Wherever I can.

Your approach to building a brand feels fun and light-hearted. Do you have an overall fashion philosophy?  

Vera Petryaeva: Oh, God. As you said, I’m just having lots of fun. I think my collections are humorous. There’s some self-reflection and self-criticism at some points, but I wouldn’t say I know my passion or philosophy. What I’m doing is very personal.

I’m curious, why do you think people are so interested in musical instruments as bags at the moment? 

Vera Petryaeva: Maybe life is so tough and stressful that people want to add more music to it. I don’t know. Everything now is a little bit nostalgic. 

Fashion right now is deeply nostalgic. And not even just for the 80s or 90s, but even for Renaissance times. 

Vera Petryaeva: Very far back. Everyone is like, ‘let’s get even further away from where we are right now’. 

So, what are you inspired by? Aside from The Phantom of the Opera, of course.

Vera Petryaeva: Lots of things, actually. Art, especially now that I live in Paris. But, to be honest, whenever I see something beautiful or well done in fashion or art, I don’t know if it inspires me. It kind of scared me because it makes me feel like the things I’m doing aren’t good enough. The good work of somebody pushes you into doing better for yourself, and I’m not sure that’s pure inspiration. The process of creating comes to me when I’m relaxed. When I’m not scared or pushed into competing with the world. I’m mostly inspired when I’m very comfortably lying in my bed watching some stupid TV series, and then, at the end of the day, I see an object on the street that could be turned into something else. 

What are you working on at the moment? Will you show at Paris Fashion Week again in September?

Vera Petryaeva: I hope so. I’ve started working on the new collection. I’m doing it less narratively, going from objects to the story, not from the story to the pieces. Let’s see what will happen. I do really want to keep making musical instrument bags. I’m kind of obsessed with them myself. I still find it funny when I look at them, so I think there’s going to be more music.

Scroll through the gallery at the top of the page for Polyhedron’s entire Opera collection.