Ilya & Resha
- Words Stevie Mackenzie-Smith
- Photography Iringó Demeter
Love, trust and erotic leatherwear:
Stevie Mackenzie-Smith meets the married couple behind Fleet Ilya.
- Words Stevie Mackenzie-Smith
- Photography Iringó Demeter
- Hair Hirokazu Endo
- Makeup Helena Kastensson
- Photo Assistant Jessica Ellis
It is late summer in London, which is to say that hot buses are full of wet necks and upper lips, corner shop ice-cream freezers are low on the good stuff, and the intermittent rain showers still call for the carrying of an umbrella. It’s the perfect time to get away. Resha Sharma and Ilya Fleet are just back from France, and have the laid-back, contemplative air of two people who’ve been spared negotiating a hot city in the summer. They hitchhiked through parts of Normandy, landing at a quiet farmhouse in Aquitaine. It’s quite a change from Dalston—home to the atelier from which they’ve run their luxury subversive leatherwear label, Fleet Ilya, for over 15 years.
They visited a nudist colony, where naked families biked together and mundane business transactions took place i...
