Prague, two decades ago. Our protagonist, Victoria Lysenko, facing a hat with a stuffed owl. A hat, yes. And an owl. A combination that, even by fashion standards, is hard to explain. But Victoria could not tear her eyes away. Or perhaps, she now says, it was the hat that was looking at her.
“There was something magical about it. I believed I was observing a relic from the past and, suddenly, I understood that, in some way, it continued to exist in my present.”
The accessory was more than a hundred years old. The woman who one day decided to wear it had disappeared long ago and it stood there, before Lysenko. Until then, for her, the world of those who preceded her had existed through books, paintings, and architecture.
Thus began, even though Victoria did not yet know it, a collection that today gathers more than a thousand pieces, including dresses, accessories and everyday items, dating from 1860 to 1920. In 2017 Lysenko founded the first Victoria Museum in Kiev, after training in cultural institution management in the United Kingdom and interning at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
From Kiev to Barcelona
To understand why she ended up creating two museums, you have to go back to her memories. She was born in a small city of the Soviet Union, where knowing other countries seemed almost a fantasy. It was to be expected that, when the borders opened, she would begin to chart her own map. “When I travel, I have never been satisfied with simply visiting a destination and admiring something beautiful. I am fascinated by how people live, what they consider “normal,” how they relate to their heritage, to beauty, to comfort…”. That journey took her through Paris, London, Vienna, Kiev, Prague, Barcelona.
Clothing became a way to read history. “When you pay attention to historical clothing, photographs, and portraits, you realize how quickly ideas crossed between cities.” Clothes evolve. Silhouettes too. Aesthetic ideals transform, and with them, the lives of women. But her own story took an unexpected turn. The war altered her own framework.
“I arrived in Barcelona in October 2022. I had no plan to open a second museum. I simply needed a place to sleep and rest, without sirens, alarms or explosions.” The Catalan capital first became a refuge and then a project.
