UNDRESS MUSES I SIMONA PETREIKĖ

How wonderfully good it is to meet a person who speaks about dresses as if they were poetry. Yes, a dress is just an object, but at the same time - not only that. It is a story or it creates a new story, it is a state of being, a game, a search, an adventure, and sometimes - even a weapon.

Simona Petreikė - a ballerina, mother of two sons, a creator living between Italy and Lithuania. She gladly accepted the invitation to take part in UNDRESS analog photography and conversations-about-dresses project.

Simona, why dresses?

A dress elevates the feeling of femininity, but with one condition: it must correspond to my inner state and inner time. There are days when I really want a pencil dress that accentuates the body’s lines and still carries a breath of sensuality (ah, that leftover of youth!), but there are days when I could never put one on. Sometimes I feel as light as a feather and I want the dress to add even more of that feeling…

“I want a new dress” - when and how does this feeling come?

For me, dresses are like fairies. I don’t search for them or hunt for them - they wait for me, as if “around the corner,” and then they emerge, gifting me with a special inner feeling and state of being. For instance, today I am wearing a long lacey satin dress and I feel as if I’ve been reborn in Georges Seurat’s paintings… It’s so surreal: you put on a dress and suddenly you’re in another era, another version of yourself - one you didn’t even know you had, but it turns out she exists! And it’s all thanks to the dress, to that something that falls on your shoulders and covers your body…
A wonderful feeling and a playfulness.
I love the unexpected, so I never plan to buy dresses - they just happen to me. I love finding them accidentally.

Beloved and “happened-upon” dresses - what are they like?

I have a wonderful dress from Humana - especially back when it wasn’t yet so popular, I loved to stop by and find gems there. That dress is by some French designer, brightly floral, with little pockets on the hips, buttons down the front, and a little collar and back tied only with ribbons… At first glance - ordinary, but all those details make it “above ordinary”.
When I wear it, my pockets full of keys clinking as I run to take out the trash, all one hundred and three of my neighbors look at me and smile. It definitely has something!
I also found there a particularly beautiful dress by Marilyn Monroe’s designer, for which I paid maybe 12 euros. Hilarious! But the silk, the Rococo-style neckline, the tailoring - it’s like a luxurious piece of art. Someday I should try wearing it again.

“Not mine.” Which ones would you never wear?

Dresses at or just above the knees - not mine. I can’t live with that length. I’d rather it be a true mini, barely covering the butt. In such a dress I feel young, like a girl again, full of that inner rock’n’roll energy, able to conquer mountains.
Too many frills, ruffles, lace and other naively romantic kitsch - also not my style. I don’t know how to live with those. On stage maybe, but not every day. I also can’t befriend vulgar, provocative, overly revealing dresses. To me, it’s more sensual when more is covered than revealed.
I am for simplicity - I find the most beauty there.

Wanted but didn’t buy. Why?

It was a Victoria Beckham dress with very unique shoulders, beautiful and falling nicely on me, but I thought: oh well, why do I need it. Expensive, but something you could allow yourself once or twice in a lifetime. Maybe I could still find it online, but… I already let go of that thought and desire. I don’t cling to whims.
Often, it’s enough for me just to try on a dress I like, hold it for myself briefly, and then the desire passes. I try it on, I experience it, and I can peacefully hang it back.
My husband likes this trait of mine, he says: “A very economical wife!” (laughs)

A dress full of memories

As a child, I had a huge dream of a puffed dress. I always felt like I didn’t belong to my own time, as if I’d appeared here by mistake - accidentally sent from the Romantic era of puffed gowns and corsets…
One day, my mother must have gotten tired of my dreaming and sewed me a puffed dress out of a luxurious deep, ripe-eggplant-colored fabric, with many petticoats, ruffled shoulders, a neat velvet ribbon in front, and an invisible zipper: haute couture of haute couture!
I remember walking home from Čiurlionis art school and already imagining myself wearing it. As I crossed Kalnai Park, I slowly stepped into the role of a sad princess, longing for something, living in a cold, candlelit castle… At home, I would light candles and sit all dressed up. That dress inspired me to do homework, to play piano… I felt like in a fairy tale.
I am blessed and endlessly grateful to my mother that I could experience that feeling not only in imagination but also in reality.
I wonder where it is now?

The fateful one.

The wedding dress. It became the beginning of a marriage journey that started in a small church in Corsica. Another remarkable dress in my life, which my mother and I envisioned and Egidijus Rainys made real. In it, I felt in my own skin, very true in that promise that became reality. I didn’t want to take it off.
It also has a story.
Three days before the wedding, I was performing in Vidas Bareikis’ play and dislocated my hip. Piercing pain, I couldn’t get out of bed. That’s how I am - I always look for deeper meanings. Lying there, I thought: “Maybe a sign? The leg - it means a step. Maybe it’s too dangerous to step into marriage, maybe I should reconsider everything again?”
I had to go try on the shoes being made for me. But the pain was unbearable, I couldn’t move. At the shoe atelier, in some basement on Mindaugo Street, I suddenly burst into tears from the pain. At that very moment - a call: my wedding dress is ready. “Final fitting – please come.”
In the basement, there was a woman who knew an osteopath: “I’ll take you to her,” she said. She did, and my hip was reset, though the inflammation had already begun.
And so, fragile as I was, I went to try on the dress. I put it on and it fell on me perfectly. Every fold was just flawless! And a miracle happened - instantly, as if by hand, the pain vanished, and I thought:
“I’m not afraid of anything. Not even my own doubts!”
I still have it and always will. I’m not attached to things, but it feels good to know it’s there. Maybe it’s my talisman, my protection for our marriage and my femininity within it?

A dress that is like a weapon, when you need to stand up for yourself or fight?

Classics have power. My weapon - a little black pencil dress. I have two of them, and both empower me to be fragile and strong at the same time. I love dynamics, it’s important to me that today’s look is different from yesterday’s, so I pair these “weapons” with different scarves, necklaces, belts - I need to season them, to add a twist.
That’s my self-defense weapon.

The most memorable stage dress.

I danced a very beautiful piece to Bach. I wore an extraordinarily beautiful dress - very structured, with a corset, edged with black trim - as if framed, but at the same time - light and flowing. It gave new flavor to the classical piece, and for me - the feeling of a knight. As soon as I put it on, that feeling came.
Stage costumes can either enhance the inner feeling or take it away, overpower it. An unsuitable costume is a loss for a stage artist. Unforgettable too is my very first stage dress. The baptism of little ballerinas - the fairy dance in “Sleeping Beauty.” The first big stage awaited, and they fastened a dress on me - already torn and yellowed, who knows how many bodies had worn it - but so special, because it had wings on the back. A fairy-tale fairy tale for a child.

The dress that betrayed me.

I know that feeling. That complete reset, when you feel too bad and unable to shine.
It happened to me at an amazingly beautiful wedding in Rome. I had just given birth, and was still under the influence of that strange hormonal chaos. I wore a neat robe-like dress, because it was convenient to unbutton it to nurse the baby.
I felt like an old granny, very unattractive even to myself. But sometimes it’s not about the dress, but about the people you’re with, and sometimes - about yourself, because you didn’t sense, didn’t listen, maybe weren’t sensitive to yourself. To shine, you have to trust.
Still, it’s unbelievable how clothing can add to or take away that sense of confidence. It is the very first information we carry about ourselves to others.
To avoid misleading, we must be very sensitive to ourselves.