January 30, 2023 - Atlanta Wire

Olga Nikoza – Designing Dreams

Atlanta Wire Staff on January 30, 2023

Image commercially licensed from: Unsplash

Fashion design is a form of art in which we apply visual principles and aesthetics to create clothing, accessories, and footwear. It is an expression of who we are socially and individually and is a way to communicate our beliefs, tastes, ideas, values, thoughts, and culture. Through fashion, we can externalize our personality and mold ourselves into what we want the world to see. It shows our morals, intelligence, creativity, and way of life. Designing clothing and becoming a fashion designer is not easy and requires great garment fabrication and designing skills.

Fashion designers create concepts and designs which are translated into garments through manufacturing and production. They analyze the current fashion trends and produce inspired ranges of accessories and clothing accordingly. A fashion designer not only designs a product but also performs various other duties such as choosing materials, creating prototypes and sketches, marketing products, working and supervising design team members, performing business administration tasks, creating mood boards for illustration of themes, and researching different styles and trends. One of the most prominent names in the fashion design industry is Olga Nikoza, who is known for designing resort wear which includes dresses, swimwear, jewelry, coverups, and other accessories.

Nikoza is a Miami-based fashion designer who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. She attended the Parsons School of Design, Fashion Institute of South Florida, and Miami International University of Art and Design to learn more about fashion design and enhance her skills and knowledge in the field of fashion. She observes the natural environment very carefully and pays a lot of attention to little details of nature such as the changing colors of the oceans, flourishing flowers of the tropics, and the sunsets, which are also the source of her creativity and ideas. She uses and utilizes the vivid and dramatic colors of the natural world in her designs.

According to Nikoza, observing people from different cultural backgrounds residing in Miami and its natural surrounding adds to her creativity. Because of her passion for fashion designing, Nikoza laid the foundation of her fashion designing brand and named it “Nikoza.” She selected a butterfly as her brand’s logo as it has great significance and deep meaning for her; according to her, a butterfly represents elegance, freedom, and feminine characteristics. Her Phalaenopsis collection which she designed and displayed at the Jungle Island and the SLS Hotel by DCSW was inspired by butterflies, orchids, and vivid colors of South Florida. The collection was also named after a type of orchid. Her clothes and accessories in the Phalaenopsis collection featured orchids as an accessory as well as a print on the clothing material. Her bathing suits have a very unique 3D embroidery that resembles orchids in appearance. Nikoza, because of her contributions and efforts in the fashion industry, was featured on the front page of Éclair magazine. Fashion designers like Olga Nikoza have contributed to the success and growth of the fashion industry, which is a prominent and booming industry nowadays, providing us with an opportunity to change, improve and grow. After all, fashion not only allows us to express ourselves but is also a reflection of who we are.

Yves Plantin – Preserver of Art and Passion

Atlanta Wire Staff on January 30, 2023

An individual’s passion often becomes the catalyst for their development in life as it stimulates them to commit to their own growth as well as deliver products and services that customers need. Demonstrating passion, therefore, means acting upon it. When individuals understand their own strengths and vulnerabilities, they are empowered with the wisdom required to better themselves. Passion is a powerful driver when applied to purpose. It becomes more of a personal commitment while making a positive difference to achieve sustainable results. Similar is the case with jobs and careers. An individual who shows passion for his trade is better motivated to achieve goals than a person who pursues a field only for the sake of livelihood.

Born on July 21, 1938, Yves Plantin was a true advocate of art. He was an art dealer, film director, and horse breeder. He studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1959, this is where his curiosity for a dissident art history awakened.

It was Plantin’s passion that played a key role in bringing Hector Guimard’s art back to light. He also wrote and co-directed two films, Hectorologie (1965) and Les Bugatti (1966). Starting his career as an art dealer, he served in Paris for twenty years, specializing in the period 1890-1930. His exceptional artwork was sold to Musee d’ Orsay, the Mesnil Houston Foundation, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the New York Metropolitan Museum, and many French and European museums.

Plantin’s continuous efforts enabled him to find Art Nouveau, which at that time was completely unknown to him. Around the turn of the sixties, many of Guimard’s contemporaries were still alive; it was around this time that the collection of objects, documents, and information related to Guimard first began. After discovering that Guimard’s office was part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in 1960, Plantin and, his friend, Alain Blondel tried linking to the museum, which eventually resulted in an exhibition that served as the first retrospective of Guimard’s work.

In 1968, Plantin’s merchant-discoverer activities led him to open Galerie du Luxembourg, which was relocated to 98, rue Saint-Denis, a former banana ripening plant in 1970 or 1971. The gallery featured many retrospective artists of the 1920s and 1930s, many of whom were newly discovered by the public like Tamara de Lempicka in 1972, Burne-Jones and the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites in 1972, Bernard Boutet de Monvel in 1974, sculptor Rupert Carabin in 1975, and lacquer artist Jean Dunand in 1976. Plantin’s work on the 1970 Guimard exhibition at MoMA was later shown at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.

Plantin continued his passion for discovering new activities after the end of the Luxembourg gallery in 1979. Approaching the age of fifty, he embarked on a racially different activity, with the same independent and innovative spirit: the breeding of purebred Arabian (PA) horses. His passion for breeding horses began in the early 1980s. Plantin’s founding broodmares were Polish, Russian, and French mares. He owned and bred several horses that went on to win a number of prestigious races.

He contributed to the PA horse racing industry by serving as the chairman of the ECAHO (European Conference of Arab Horse Organization) Race Commission from 1994 to 1998, founder and first chairman of IFAHR (International Federation of Arabian Horse Racing) from 1999 to 2002, member of the Executive Committee of IFAHR from 2002 to 2007, and also during his presidency of AFAC (Association Francaise du Cheval Arabe de Course) between 2011 to 2018. Plantin once said, “I would like to thank the Abu Dhabi Sports Council for its support, which has once more allowed an important Purebred Arabian race to feature on the card of a prestigious Flat race meeting. I am a staunch supporter of this type of synergy, which in my opinion has brought many breeders and owners who had started their careers in the world of Purebred Arabian racing to the thoroughbred industry and vice-versa.”

Plantin’s life is the best example of dedication and passion. He departed from the world on July 11, 2022, and left a significant mark on the world of art.

Meet Amit Kochavi Digitizing Traditional Industries as A Passionate Entrepreneur And 4th Generation in Business

Atlanta Wire Staff on January 30, 2023

Image commercially licensed from: Unsplash

Passion is like gasoline in a car, allowing it to move at the proper speed without hitches. It motivates and inspires the individual to pursue their specific goal, no matter how unlikely or difficult it may be. Passion fuels a person’s enthusiasm and broad thinking, allowing them to keep moving toward their goal and removing the monotony from their work. Entrepreneurial passion is essential for the success of startups and such passion is also necessary to persuade teams to give their best in the upcoming ventures of a business.

The entire entrepreneurship process is based on the generation and investigation of new ideas. When entrepreneurs create new ideas, just as efficient as the old ones, they can gain a competitive advantage in the market. Today, many youngsters have entered the fold of entrepreneurship and are using the same tactics to achieve success. Similarly, an individual named Amit Kochavi became an entrepreneur at the age of just sixteen years and gained success.

Born on 10 December 1997, Amit Kochavi is an Israeli entrepreneur, and founder of Cormi.com, formerly known as Circles. In June 2015, Kochavi graduated from Gymnasia Herzliya High School, where he majored in Physics, Computer Science, and Computational Science. Later, he joined the Israeli Air Force in January 2016 and started serving in a special unit in the Israeli Air Force.

Kochavi expressed his desire of becoming a successful entrepreneur at a young age. Following his passion, he began working in the startup business at the age of 13. His first venture started from Shmoogle-It. The initial motivation behind his venture was to help his grandmother perform basic computer tasks, so he created a search engine that teaches elderly people how to use computers. The platform reached 3 million users in four months. During this time, he was also accepted into the LEAD leadership program, a two-year program in Israel for young leaders. LEAD is a youth leadership development program that specializes in the leadership development training process. Kochavi performed various services in this program from 2013 to 2015. There, he founded Tech-Lounge, an incubator network for high school students. The program’s objective was to teach students about the entrepreneurial world through mentors and to promote entrepreneurship among young people. It allowed participants with the opportunity to meet industry leaders and make valuable connections. The program’s goal was to provide students with an experience of launching a startup. Tech Lounge has expanded to Ironi Tet High School in Tel Aviv, the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, and a high school in Los Angeles. Two years later, he was drafted into the Israeli Air Force, and the project was taken over by the “8200 Alumni Association,” which transformed it into Tech Lift.

Kochavi originally intended to take Tech-Lounge on a global scale. He wanted to set up tech accelerators for high school students all over the world. So, he came up with the idea of starting a social network where students could learn about entrepreneurship. They can sign up for the platform and gain access to a virtual library as well as schedule meetings with mentors. Many organizations approached him and asked for his ideas as he began to build partnerships around this initiative, which led to the creation of Cormi.com.

Cormi.com is an all-in-one communication platform for businesses with remote employees. The company assists traditional businesses in becoming more efficient by collaborating with employees on their ideas, defining challenges they face, and working together to solve them. It provides businesses with a digital space to easily share knowledge and feedback; the platform also enables a bottom-up approach to internal communications.

Kochavi’s vision is to establish a significant holding company with businesses across industries that can build and develop products to empower and benefit people’s lives. His entrepreneurial instincts have proved to the world that age is just a number and success only requires passion.