---
title: "Reinforced-concrete Kharkiv and the soft «ХА»: how Vika Adamska turned the city into a fashion brand with the code 1654"
description: "On City Day, Kharkiv designer Vika Adamska unveiled the Kharkiv Essentials brand and the printed edition Kharkiv Essentially — a visual calling card of the metropolis with the code of the year 1654."
date: 2026-08-23T12:34:06.000Z
lang: en
url: https://xab.info/en/posts/kharkiv-essentials-brand-vika-adamska
tags: [kharkiv, fashion, design, vika-adamska, city-day, brand]
publisher: "XAB.info"
---

# Reinforced-concrete Kharkiv and the soft «ХА»: how Vika Adamska turned the city into a fashion brand with the code 1654

![Stylish graphic design by Vika Adamska: Kharkiv city symbols, code 1654, and the HA abbreviation in a modern fashion brand](https://xab.info/media/2026/08/23/kharkiv-essentials-brand-vika-adamska/kharkiv-essentials-brand-vika-adamska-1.webp)

## 🎯 Key Points

- On August 23, on City Day, Vika Adamska unveiled the Kharkiv Essentials brand and the printed edition Kharkiv Essentially.
- The brand's aesthetics is built on architecture, Constructivism, concrete, graphic quality, and the code of the year 1654.
- The project is positioned not as souvenir merch, but as a “love letter” to the city and a brand-series about a living Kharkiv.

On August 23, Kharkiv City Day, Kharkiv fashion designer Vika Adamska officially unveiled the Kharkiv Essentials project — a new brand and visual calling card of the metropolis, along with a collectible printed edition of the city's fashion newspaper, Kharkiv Essentially. In an interview with Wave RBC.UA, the creator spoke about the idea, aesthetics, and media format of the project. Each collection of the brand is conceived as the next “episode” of a beloved city, and every element of the cut and print — as a reflection of its unique identity.

### Not souvenir merch, but a “love letter” to the city

According to Adamska, the idea has been living inside her “for a very long time”: she wanted to create not classic city merch, but a separate, modern brand that tells the story of Kharkiv in the language of design and fashion. The designer links the urgency of this need to the war, which changed the feeling of home: people live in different cities and countries, but the connection to Kharkiv has grown stronger, and she wanted to “materialize it in objects.” For Adamska herself, the project is deeply personal — she was born and raised in Kharkiv, her brand emerged here, her children were born here, her team is here, and “a huge part of her life” is here. At the same time, she emphasizes that this is not nostalgia, but a conversation about Kharkiv as it is today and as it will be in the future.

### Reinforced concrete, character, and the code 1654

In the brand's aesthetics, Kharkiv is shown as contrasting: “reinforced-concrete and at the same time incredibly warm,” intellectual but with character, “a bit daring, very ironic, fast, bold,” and free of unnecessary pomposity. The visual language is built on urban architecture, Constructivism, concrete, graphic quality, the code of the year 1654, and familiar symbols and places. Adamska stresses that it is important not simply to transfer landmarks onto T-shirts, but to reinterpret them in a contemporary design: a “souvenir Kharkiv” is not needed — what is needed is a city you want to wear — in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Paris, or New York. The project's visual range, including the poster with the numbers 1654, the inscriptions KHARKIV and “ХА,” the “Nika” Ferris wheel, and the city silhouettes, works precisely as a set of such readable codes.

### What are Kharkiv essentials

Outside the collection, “Kharkiv essentials” for the designer are simple things from which the feeling of the city is built: walking past the Gosprom, agreeing to meet “by the Nika,” grabbing a coffee and heading to Shevchenko Park, going down to the Strelka and crossing the suspension bridge, seeing the city from above. But the people are no less important: humor, speed, and the famous “we'll do it right now” — according to Adamska, in Kharkiv sometimes only about three hours pass between the appearance of an idea and its realization, and that is “a real story.” Thus, the brand is not a list of landmarks, but a set of small codes that a Kharkivian reads without explanation, and the city's character is made up of a mix of intellect, enterprise, self-irony, and inner stubbornness.

### A living city, not just a city-hero

The designer notes that today it is impossible to talk about Kharkiv's character without its resilience, but it is important not to reduce the image of the city to war and invincibility alone. “Kharkiv is not only a city that stood firm. It is a city that lived, lives, and will live”: here people fall in love, have children, start businesses, create art, sit in cafés, quarrel, make up, and make plans. It is precisely this living Kharkiv that Adamska strives to show through Kharkiv Essentials.

### Kharkiv Essentially: the brand's media format

Alongside the brand, the printed edition Kharkiv Essentially is launched. Adamska explains that she “was initially cramped within the limits of just a clothing collection”: if Kharkiv Essentials is a brand-series about the city, then for its development a separate media format is needed, one that expands the idea beyond a single collection and turns the project into a continuing visual story of the metropolis.

## 🔍 Fact-Check Verification

- [Kharkiv Essentials: for Kharkiv City Day, designer Vika Adamska created a mono-brand of the city](https://wave.rbc.ua/ukr/style/kharkiv-essentials-dnya-harkova-dizaynerka-1787488378.html) - Интервью с Викой Адамской: подтверждены название бренда Kharkiv Essentials, печатное издание Kharkiv Essentially, дата презентации 23 августа (День города), эстетика (архитектура, конструктивизм, бетон, код 1654), описание «харьковских essentials» и позиционирование проекта как бренд-сериала. Независимых количественных данных нет.

## ❓ FAQ

### Q: What is Kharkiv Essentials?
**A:** It is a new fashion brand by Kharkiv designer Vika Adamska, unveiled on August 23 for City Day. As the creator intends, it is not classic city merch, but a brand-series and a visual calling card of Kharkiv, where each collection is a new “episode” about the city.

### Q: Which city symbols and codes are reflected in the brand's aesthetics?
**A:** The foundation of the aesthetics is urban architecture, Constructivism, concrete, graphic quality, the code of the year 1654, and familiar Kharkiv symbols and places, which are reinterpreted in contemporary design rather than simply transferred onto objects.

### Q: What is Kharkiv Essentially?
**A:** It is a printed edition (a city fashion newspaper) launched alongside the brand as a separate media format. The designer explains that a single collection is too cramped for the “brand-series” idea about the city, hence the need for an additional print format.