The idea and inspiration came to me at the same time as I was watching Marilyn Manson's music video which had just come out – As Sick As the Secrets Within. There were some frames with octopuses, and I caught myself wanting to make a fashion story with octopuses. At first I had only one shot in my head – a girl standing in front of the camera with two octopuses on her shoulders as epaulettes. But the longer I was working on this idea, the more I discovered new senses of this idea and found out why exactly this idea blew my mind.

The first thing I realized was that I wanted to use an octopus in the same way fur is traditionally used. The skins of slaughtered animals are elevated to the status of luxury still up to nowadays. They're used to wearing furs because it's beautiful. They say wearing an octopus instead of fur is weird and disgusting. Yes, it is. But who said there's no beauty in darkness?

Deepening into my consciousness, I discovered that octopus tentacles truly are very interesting and beautiful, both as elements of clothing and simply on the naked skin. This must be a kind of perversion, but it's hard to tear your eyes away, feeling both admiration and disgust. It takes a lot of courage to put a slimy "monster" on a naked body.

And the second thought came a bit after. Initially, I wanted to find a fake octopus for the shoot, but I failed, and I had to stoop to the same level: using a slaughtered animal for the sake of fashion and art. I have already made myself guilty of this. And at that moment, I thought a lot about how heartless consumers humans really are. We kill animals for food (yes, we're just a link in the food chain, but!), we kill animals for clothing, we kill animals for luxury, and worst of all, we kill animals for pleasure. And these octopus epaulettes are a symbol of the doomed indifference of modern humanity.

Behind the disgust you might feel looking at these photos is much more than just "ugh, how disgusting." People are afraid to look within themselves and turn a blind eye to what's happening around.