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This Halloween, model Sasha Melnychuk came prepared with a very unlikely costume: an evil sunflower. The look is hardly sexy. It’s not celebrity-inspired. It definitely won’t win a superlative for most glamorous. But, yes, it is very, very well-made and especially spooky. (“Spooky,” coincidentally, is Melnychuk’s favorite word.) The Ukrainian-Czech, New York–based model has transformed her pretty face with sky-high cheekbones—that have starred in cool Coperni ads and appeared on Balenciaga runways—into a warped, season-appropriate flower. “I was looking at Halloween vests and knits on Etsy and eBay about a month ago, and all of them had crows, pumpkins, and sunflowers on them. I thought maybe I should be a crow. Definitely not a pumpkin, because that’s too popular,” says Melnychuk. “Then I was like, ‘Wait, I should be a sunflower.’ No one cares about them. I felt sad for them—and decided to give them more attention.”
Despite the casual backstory, Melnychuk’s concept translated into something much bigger—a complex costume with several moving parts. The fabric of the look was fully sourced from Collina Strada; Melnychuk has walked for the brand in the past and is friends with designer Hillary Taymour. For a base, she wears a charming yellow, semi-sheer embroidered bodysuit from the fall 2019 Collina Strada collectsion. (Melnychuk has opted to free the nipple and go braless.) As for accessories, she chose a full sunflower hat that she crafted herself out of dead-stock materials, shaped around her head like a sinister bonnet. The shoes—originally Hoka running sneakers—act as a stem, and are layered with velvety dark green fabric; for a more humorous touch, she sprinkled them with sunflower seeds. Her makeup is transfixing, if still a little frightening: Melnychuk attached a pointy, double-hooked, wart-dotted witch nose to her face, which she then sprinkled with sunflower seeds. “They are from Ukraine,” she says. “I can eat them later.”
Melnychuk loves Halloween, and why not? The 26-year-old blonde model with a labret piercing is one of the most versatile (and hotly in-demand) faces in the industry today. And yet, her Instagram account is hardly glossy or manicured—in fact, it’s almost as if her feed is a Halloween celebration every day. In one image, she sticks her tongue out and curls it towards her teeth, pressing on a blow torch while flipping the camera off. In another image, which was taken after a CFDA cocktail party this past October, she wears a Collina Strada dress as she sits on the toilet. In another post—one of the few shots that shows her actually, you know, modeling—the caption under reads: “My dad raised me to not give a fuck what people say, and tells me I’m beautiful all of the time. But every single damned woman I know loves to tell me how lovely I could be if I just tried makeup and lady clothes.” Frankly, we’re glad she doesn’t.
Sure, her loose-cannon-style Instagram isn’t exactly typical of the average up-and-coming model, but then again, Melnychuk holds several résumé-worthy jobs on the side. She is a stylist for Giambattista Valli, a gig that has no trace on her feed, and she also moonlights as a brand consultant. Melnychuk is also often found in the kitchen; a few times a month, she assists revered chef Danny Bowien at Mission Chinese. “I have to keep myself busy, and there’s nothing I love more than creating and making stuff and learning,” she says. “Whatever it is, whether that means making clothes or making ceramics.” Melnychuk is fine without parading her CV on her social media too. (She hates Instagram’s blue verified checkmark.) “Instagram was definitely my real life and my real personality,” says Melnychuk. “I don’t believe in Instagram being a professional thing. Like if you want to be professional, you can have a website.”
It was this diverse range of skills, after all, that helped her craft the precise, well-made costume. Though initially entering the industry as a model, Melnychuk had originally wanted to go to fashion school, specifically Parsons School of Design. “I started modeling because I always trying to make money for my fashion school, but it never happened,” she says. As she began modeling, she realized that she was learning more by working hands-on with designers than she would have by sitting in a classroom. “Working with brands and talking to a lot of smart people in fashion made me realize that school is not necessary. Being a fit model for brands and seeing every single step was a better school for me than a fashion school.” This experience in the industry shows. It took Melnychuk four days to create the costume—she dyed the sunflower headpiece herself and sewed each oversized leaf together. Her remixed Hoka shoes even have leaves fastened to their backs. Her nails have tiny sunflower seeds painted on them. Aside from her Baba Yaga nose, her makeup included something more Joker-inspired, with the corners of her mouth exaggeratedly defined upwards in a grin—it’s frighteningly chic. “I just wanted to look cute and spooky at the same time.” Mission accomplished.
Photo: Sasha Melnychuk1/3
Photo: Sasha Melnychuk2/3
Photo: Sasha Melnychuk3/3
