Milla Nova is a boutique of the Ukrainian wedding and evening dresses brand in Warsaw, Poland. The brand has been successfully representing Ukrainian design in more than 50 countries for 20 years. The founders of Milla Nova, Zoryana and Iryna Senyshyn, entrusted the bureau with the work on their first foreign mono-boutique. The clients wanted to move away from the standard aesthetics of bridal salons and gave the project team complete creative freedom.

The location for the Milla Nova showroom in Warsaw was Lipinski Passage, a historic building dating back to 1899 located on Jerusalem Avenue, one of the city's key streets.    The main entrance to the future salon is located inside the building, and some of the windows also overlook the interior of the passage, which required appropriate solutions for lighting and privacy. The active phase of the project coincided with Polish farmers blocking the Ukrainian border, further complicating the already difficult logistics: most of the custom elements were made in Ukraine and had to be delivered to the location by truck.

For the flagship in the Polish capital, Balbek Bureau found inspiration in the starry depths of space and offered an interior inspired by the stellar minimalism of Stanley Kubrick's “2001: A Space Odyssey”. We wanted to play on the contrast between the bride's delicate image and the brutal extraterrestrial landscapes.

The first floor, which serves as a showroom for evening dresses, resembles the desert surface of distant planets. The local landscape is stark – the visits can see rock fragments, large stone panels, and massive podiums all around. The shapes and shine of the screens refer to Kubrick's monoliths. Balbek Bureau presents wedding dresses in the interior of the second floor, inspired by the interior spaces of intergalactic ships – unearthly and at the same time humanized and cozy. The colors and textures are smoother and more delicate, based on nuances.

While working on Milla Nova, the design team managed to perfectly realize our ambitious ideas – one to one, just like in the visualizations. Behind the deceptively minimalist space, there was a lot of meticulous work on textures and details. This project strengthened our expertise in retail and opened up a new world of wedding business for us – they were happy to create a space for special moments in the lives of the brand's clients.