New York Runway Show with Giselle and Monjia

My first time meeting Giselle Lebedenko and Chris Mejia was to get a Kingdom Hearts tattoo on their couch in Brooklyn; a silly yet fitting first impression on the artist-designer duo.

Giselle, a mixed media visual artist and costume designer, was adorned by a silky wraparound robe dress when she greeted me at the door and was immediately warm and inviting. As I stepped into their world, I was greeted by Adrik sculpting masks at the kitchen table, Chris working on a blur of lacey garments in the living room and Giselle’s iconic portraits lining the walls. And I can’t forget their kitty, Katinka, roaming the common area and scoping me out.

She was jokingly embarrassed about the state of the apartment, which was, in truth, a mess, but in the best way. Fabrics, trims, and paints infiltrated every crevice and surface. Pins were placed into the arm of the couch; a (maybe slightly dangerous) sign of a work in progress. It didn’t feel cluttered or dirty, but like a space where anyone and everyone can be courageously creative without judgement and with the world of materials at their fingertips––literally.

Giselle’s work largely consists of strong, unconventional portraiture work. Faces and personalities that speak for themselves are accompanied by handmade textile garments, put directly onto the canvas and hanging off the bottom edge to create the effect of characters waiting to come to life (via a pair of human legs).

Giselle’s first textile portrait paintings.

Chris, the designer behind clothing brand Monjia, was an anomaly for the past year in my mind. His work is what I imagine a princess-fairy fusion would wear if she moved from the royal kingdom and began living inside of a willow tree. A fuzzy bolero garment by Chris was actually pulled for an Obscura editorial, styled by our dear friend Courtney, back in February 2025.

Long story short, Monjia’s been on our radar, but I had never met the man, the myth, the fantastical legend prior to my tattoo.

On May 31, the pair hosted a fashion and art runway show, best described by Giselle as, “separate collections that exist in the same world.” The event was hosted at Rubulad, a maximalist explosion of a community space, located in none other than…big, bad Bushwick.

The shared world in question where both Giselle and Chris’ work lives can be described as a jester in a vintage candy store, putting on a performance for his friends –– it is colorful, fun, feathery, and theatrical. More importantly, it feels like the essence of chaotic creation stemming from pure joy.

“Our styles are so different but we’re very confident in what we do…I think just being around each other motivates us a lot to just always be locked in, and for me, holy fuck, it changed my life because [in California] I was working all day long, alone all day, and that shit was so depressing sometimes. It got so lonely,” Giselle said.

Giselle is originally from the Bay area and has built her name up in New York City over the course of her one short year living in the Big Apple. She taught herself how to sew and paint, and initially began mixing the two by creating natural landscape paintings out of fabrics.

Chris’ origin story is an admirable one of putting himself first above all else. All throughout high school, he wanted to be a veterinarian, taking science classes and prepping for a medical future. But, after taking a home sciences class that taught him how to sew and hem, he became unstoppable. From his roots of making emoji fabric pillows, he then attended FIT and found that fashion was his passion, but the institution and curriculum definitely was not.

“I literally only had like, four weeks left before I had to graduate, but I dropped out, I was so unhappy there,” Chris said. “I was going to these sewing classes, and then I wouldn't even be working on my school projects. I'd be working on my own shit, taking shit probably, just using the resources. I would get really bad grades and they would be like, ‘This is not the assignment’ and I’d be like, ‘Okay, this is what I wanted to make.’”

There were pressures to stay as his father’s first born son to immigrant parents, but ultimately Chris trusted in himself. Since leaving FIT, Chris has also quit his full-time job and doing his brand full-time for the last two months, completely sustaining himself off of his art.

Giselle is also rebellious in nature, previously attempting to attend a fashion school in Paris, and ultimately also dropping out, due to subjective critiques from professors and feeling it wasn’t worth it. She also works full-time as a self-sustaining artist, with a growing social media following for her work of over 110 thousand followers on Instagram alone.

“I think you can make it all as complicated as you want it to be. That's what's cool about social media is like, you're not competing for a spot. You are your own spot. Like I'm not competing for a gallery show. I’m literally my own gallery,” Giselle said. “I don't want to be in a space where I have to be accepted, when I can just accept myself. People are waiting for approval all the time, it's like, why would I ever wait for someone else to tell me that this is, like, good or okay?”

The two met by fate through Tik Tok, with Chris borrowing one of Giselle’s headpieces for an editorial shoot. And over time, it all shook out as it was supposed to; Giselle texted Chris trying to find an apartment in New York at the same time that he was moving and looking for roommates. Including their other roommates, Adrik and Bella, it couldn’t be a more perfect quartet.

“We thrive in messiness. We thrive having our work everywhere because we're just intuitive, I think,” Chris said. “I personally make bullshit up, like, if I see a fabric, I just grab it and I just fucking start working. I don’t do sketches or at least I try not to do sketches.”

Home truly is a sanctuary for these two. The club? Nightlife? Why bother? Staying in and working alongside each other is the most fun to be had. The duo often shares fabrics and still ends up creating completely different works of art.

The throughline between their works, however, is something that reverberated through the entire night of their runway show –– the creative act of happiness in their process.

“We have a similar message with art and our motivation behind it, I think. We just care about it, like so fucking much, more than anything and want people to feel good at the end of the day,” Giselle and Chris explained. “We take our inspiration from a good place, not a sad place. We always run into people telling us we’re too young to do what we do because a lot of people think that making art means you have to be sad or depressed, but we try to live our lives being happy, and like, just young and turnt. We find pleasure and beauty in everything.”

Upon entering the venue, I was immediately drawn into blacklight-glowing fixtures, fairy lights, a Barbie shrine, and a….tongue slide? Beyond the light-hearted confusion I felt, I was also greeted by familiar faces; from Ruby of Orchard NYC and hairstylist Emmett Palmer, to the iconic Anna Siciliano, Jordan and Jess of Venus in Tokyo, and more. Their energy brought together a crowd of all the greats.

The show switched back and forth between dramatic models strutting in and out of the venue, and over-the-top dancers posing with Giselle’s paintings as their ensemble. Chris’ looks were made from deadstock and sustainably sourced materials and paired with head pieces made by iconic millinery artist, Sideara St. Claire. Garments were adorned with feathers, lacey ruffles, burnt detailing, and raw edges, all in pastels, earth tones, and varying prints. A personal favorite look was the duo that walked the runway. In yellow and lavender wigs, one model wore a striped two-piece set with a bustle on the shorts, and the other wore a muted green and black mini dress with black tulle at the bottom hem and purple fur on the bust. The best part? The two walked arm in arm holding uncanny masks made by Adrik Duran.

Giselle’s pieces were brought to life by the dancers during the show, each bursting with personality. One was a wooden doll, more child-like and fun, while another had a raunchy, mischievous laugh across her face, prosthetic bust and nipple tassels out and all. Again, a favorite was the woman in denim; a painting of a girl looking back at the audience as if we are the work of art, sizing us up with her paint brush and a paint palette on her head.

Music varied from Lady Gaga to the Gummy bear song, and models mogged through it all. Models like Kitty Umina, Fiona Bradley and Vega Harlan all graced us with their alter egos in Monjia couture. As friend and photographer Aniston Eastes put it, “This was the most I’ve laughed, ooo’ed, and ah’ed at a runway show.”

As the show came to a close, the music played on and everyone stayed, mixed, mingled and danced with the models and powerhouses behind it all. This was not just a debut duo show, but a validation of “making it” as full-time artists in the hardest, most expensive place to do so. It also served as an unintentional goodbye to this chapter of their lives, as they gear up to move cross-country to Los Angeles together and continue pursuing their dreams.

“We're very strong on labor back to manifestation.”

“A show is just more of a way to solidify that. This is the early stage of our fucking empire, and the fact that we're able to share it with people and people love seeing our work is such a beautiful thing,” Chris and Giselle said. “I feel like everyone has this made-up mindset that in order for you to succeed, you have to go the traditional routes and I think it'll be nice that we'll get to show people that we're thriving doing things untraditionally. No one said yes to us being here, we just made it happen. Anyone can do that. I just want people to feel like they can do anything.”

All photos by Noah Shaub.

Runway Show Credits

Fashion Designer: @monjia___

Artist: @Gisellebedenko

Headpieces: @shopsideara @sideara

Photo: @noahshaub

Production Assist: @nova.zo @laurenn_eh

Makeup + Hair Lead: @lilhellish

Hair: @majorartistry @ryn.m4jor

Makeup: @miraxmua @lilhellish

Head stylist: @quitethenotion

Stylist Assist: @sammmystrawberry @josienolann @leah.x0x