Polina Stogni Isn’t Interested in Looking “Perfect”

Polina Stogni’s world is one built on contradiction: industrial Russia and soft Portuguese sunsets, dark humour and emotional honesty, roughness and beauty. Born in the small industrial city of Pervouralsk and now based in Lisbon, her creative identity has been shaped by movement, memory, and reinvention. Through fashion, art, music, and her evolving project Stogni Studio, Polina explores identity in a way that feels deeply personal yet culturally reflective.

In this conversation with Roe Magazine, she speaks about growing up around Gopnik culture, the emotional complexity of leaving home, creative freedom abroad, and why she’s drawn to people and projects that refuse to soften themselves for the world.

You grew up in Russia, being born in a small industrial city called Pervouralsk, but now live in Portugal. What aspects of your upbringing inspired your creativity?

POLINA STOGNI: Pervouralsk is tiny and industrial and not glamorous at all, but that's exactly what shaped me. I grew up around Gopnik culture, and back then it was just normal life, not “culture” or anything like that. Garages, rooftops, graffiti, running around at night. That world gave me an aesthetic I still carry: roughness, dark humour, and this stubborn beauty in just surviving.

People weren't trying to make art, they were just living, and honestly that's the most inspiring thing I know. Russia has never felt emotionally easy, and it's even heavier now. But those cold streets and that harsh energy still feel like home to me in some weird, complicated way.

What are your favorite aspects of Russian/Slavic culture?

POLINA STOGNI: Honestly, my favorite thing is Russian literature. And yes, everyone knows Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, that's a given. But what I find really interesting is that Russian literature never really stopped; it just kept evolving and showing up in unexpected places.

For me, you can trace that same tradition directly into Russian rap, especially music coming from the Ural region. Groups like TGK, АК-47, ОУ74, Птицу ЕМЪ. Dark humor, brutal honesty, saying something really painful in just a few simple words. That's a very Russian literary thing to do. A lot of it is heavily censored now, which honestly says everything about how powerful that tradition still is.

How has living abroad and traveling changed your perspective on life and art?

POLINA STOGNI: Making art in Russia is complicated in ways that are hard to explain. There's censorship, but also this invisible internal pressure where you start self-censoring without even noticing. Fear just becomes normal background noise.

Moving abroad was the first time that noise went quiet. I didn't suddenly feel free, I just slowly realized I was less scared and more connected to my own instincts. And weirdly, being far away made me feel closer to where I come from. Distance gave me a perspective I couldn't have had while living there. I stopped seeing my past as something limiting and started seeing the humor and beauty in it. I think I understood myself better from Portugal than I ever did in Russia.

Have you built a strong community of friends abroad?

POLINA STOGNI: Yes, and I feel really lucky. I have a solid circle of close friends in Lisbon. Some of them have been in my life for a long time, so moving abroad didn't mean losing that. That continuity means a lot. The creative community here also genuinely surprised me. People encourage each other to try weird things and experiment and grow. There's not much of that competitive, anxious energy I'd felt before. It feels safe to take risks. Being around that kind of openness made me more confident. Not in a loud way, just more settled in myself, which for me is actually huge.

Where are your favorite places to go in Lisbon?

POLINA STOGNI: Lisbon gives you a different mood depending on what you need, and I love that about it. My favorite viewpoint is Monte Agudo. Sitting there at sunset just resets everything. And there's this Jardim Braancamp Freire where chickens and roosters literally walk around and sleep in the trees. It sounds absurd, but it's real, and it's very Lisbon to me.

For breakfast, I'm obsessed with Tim’s. It became part of my daily routine. For Nepali food, I always go to Sabor do Nepal or RD, I eat there embarrassingly often. And for Portuguese food, O Arego and Galeto are my spots. I also spend a lot of time at my pole studio, and I love slow café mornings that turn into three-hour conversations. That pace became my life here. And the ocean. Praia Grande feels wild and untamed, which is exactly what I need sometimes. In summer, long dinners at Marqi after sunset, time just slows down near the water. The ocean genuinely changed something in me.

What brands or people inspire you the most?

POLINA STOGNI: Matières Fécales for sure. They built something completely uncompromising, basically an art project that refused to play by fashion’s rules and ended up at Paris Fashion Week with Dover Street Market. They never softened their vision to get there. The name alone says everything.

Hanne Zaruma is a Ukrainian artist whose work makes you laugh and then feel slightly uncomfortable, which is exactly the reaction I find most interesting. She takes ordinary objects and makes them feel almost biological or alien. Funny and unsettling at the same time.

And Katya Braithwaite, she’s not even a stylist, she just dresses herself, but the way she puts things together is completely her own. Real confidence and wit. In general, I’m drawn to people who are creative and funny and don’t take themselves too seriously. Snobbery kills creativity. The most interesting people I know are brilliant and totally unpretentious at the same time.

What music do you currently love?

POLINA STOGNI: Honestly, my taste is all over the place. Right now I’m obsessed with My Heart Goes Boom by French Affair. It’s this early-2000s dance-pop track that’s euphoric and a little cheesy in the best way. I can’t even properly describe the genre, but it just makes me feel things. At the same time, I’m a huge Black Sabbath fan, so I go from that to heavy metal without any guilt. And sometimes I end up in full dad-rock mode with zero regrets. Completely mood-driven. Whatever I need at that moment, that’s what goes on.

Tell me a bit more about Stogni Studio and your vision for it. Where did the name Stogni come from?

POLINA STOGNI: It started as a vintage store, or at least that's what I told myself. I can spend full days in flea markets and second-hand shops, it's genuinely one of my favorite ways to exist. Vintage has history and emotion in a way fast fashion never will. But the project started pulling in a different direction on its own. Now I see it becoming something more experimental, part fashion, part art, part things I can’t fully name yet. I want it to feel rough and emotional and a little provocative.

One thing I keep coming back to are truck drivers and cargo trucks. I know that sounds random, but there’s something cinematic and almost romantic about that world to me. The scale, the solitude, the road. I’d love to build a whole project around that someday. The name is just my surname. I wanted something that already belonged to me. I’m very much at the beginning still, and I’m totally fine with that. I’d rather let it evolve honestly than force it into a shape too early.

What do you want your future to look like?

POLINA STOGNI: Honestly, this question is harder for me than it sounds. A few years ago, we had to leave home because of the war and rebuild everything from scratch in a new country. When that happens, your relationship with the future just changes. You stop assuming things stay the way they are. So I think less about specific plans now and more about feelings. I just want to keep making things: art, funny stuff, strange stuff, things that make someone feel something, even for a moment. If something I make makes one person laugh or feel a little less alone, that already means a lot.

When did you start expressing yourself through fashion, and what does fashion mean to you?

POLINA STOGNI: It’s always been there since I was a kid, honestly. Fashion was never a separate thing for me, just part of how I existed. What I love most is experimenting with different archetypes, completely reinventing how I show up and trying on different versions of myself. I find it fascinating because each archetype teaches you something about what you actually like, what feels true to you, and what you want to say to the world. It’s a way of exploring your own identity, and I never get bored of it. For me, that’s also art.

And I really don’t believe in bad style or bad taste. When someone expresses themselves through the way they dress, whatever that looks like, that’s already cool to me. The most exciting thing is when someone finds their own thing that’s genuinely theirs. That’s when style gets really interesting. And honestly, I’ve only recently felt ready to actually put my style and vision out into the world. So it means a lot that you reached out, and I’m really glad to be part of this interview.