HE STORY
Some ideas are carefully planned. Others simply happen.
AWA ATELIER began with a friendship, a shared love of beauty, and an idea that very quickly became something real. When Olga McNamara and Mila Bond met, they came from different creative worlds, but quickly discovered the same love of art, colour, style and beautiful things.
Olga is an internationally exhibited abstract artist, known for her expressive use of colour, texture and movement.
She was born in Uzbekistan, where colour was everywhere: in the bright, crowded bazaars, in piles of beautiful fabrics, in the silk worn by women, and in the magic of traditional ikat. These are not influences Olga discovered later. They are part of her childhood. The sunlight, the colour, the silk and the feeling of those places have stayed with her as a warm, vivid memory of a happy time.
Years later, living and painting in Cyprus, colour is still at the heart of everything she creates. Olga knows that abstract art is never just paint and colour on a canvas. Every painting carries an emotion, a story, a memory, or sometimes something that cannot quite be put into words.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and recognised with numerous awards. But perhaps the simplest way to understand it is this: Olga paints what she feels.
Mila came from another side of the creative world.
She studied styling and image-making in Hollywood, USA, and later became a leading stylist for Russian national television, working on major productions including Dancing with the Stars and Ice.
For Mila, style has never been simply about fashion. Working with some of Russia’s best-known television personalities taught her how much a single detail can change an entire image.
She has always loved silk scarves for exactly that reason. One beautiful scarf can transform the simplest outfit, bring in colour, or make something familiar suddenly feel different.
And Mila’s eye never really switches off. Before an exhibition, a concert or a dinner, she and Olga would put a look together. Mila would add something, take something away, change a detail. Quite often, the final touch was a scarf.
Over time, Mila also became Olga’s curator, bringing that same eye to her paintings: selecting, combining and sometimes seeing possibilities that Olga herself had not noticed.
And somewhere between Olga’s paintings and Mila’s eye, AWA ATELIER appeared. There was no grand plan to create a fashion brand. There was simply a thought: Wouldn’t this be beautiful on silk?
Mila began looking through Olga’s paintings, choosing the works that she felt could become something special on silk. And then everything happened surprisingly quickly.
The first collection appeared. Soon after came the second. What surprised them both was how easy and joyful the whole process felt.
A painting changed when it moved onto silk. A small detail could suddenly become the most beautiful part of a scarf. Colours met differently when the fabric was folded. The artwork moved with the woman wearing it.
Nothing felt forced. The idea simply kept moving forward. Sometimes it felt as though the scarves wanted to exist.
And perhaps that is the story of AWA ATELIER.
Olga brought the art. Mila brought the eye of a stylist and curator. And silk brought their two worlds together.
Every AWA scarf begins with an original Olga McNamara painting. On silk, it takes on another life, changing with every fold and eventually becoming part of the story of the woman who wears it.
Art doesn’t always have to stay on the wall. Sometimes, you can wear it.
AWA ATELIER
ART YOU CAN WEAR.