When it comes to merging artistry with innovation, Anastasiia Lukinskaia continues to push creative boundaries. Fresh off her celebrated Amtrak collaboration, the multifaceted designer recently joined forces with a New York fashion house to help craft a custom gown for the Emmy Awards, a project that blended red carpet elegance with meticulous craftsmanship. Known for her fearless approach and technical precision, Anastasiia brought her signature mix of structure, storytelling, and modern edge to one of television’s biggest nights.

How did your involvement come about with the NY designer for the EMMY dress?

Carlos Reyes, also known as Renacio, is a famous couture designer who is very well known within the drag queens’ world for his outstanding, extravagant work. Renacio asked me to assist him for this year’s Emmy Awards dress for Lana Ja’Rae, the singer and drag queen who was a finalist on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17. The event was taking place in Los Angeles, and we were working in the studio in New York, so the work was under a lot of time pressure to get it done in time for Lana to have enough time to fly over there.

What inspired the concept behind the Emmy Awards dress, and how did you and the New York designer collaborate to bring that vision to life?

Lana wanted to create an illusion of her skin peeling off of her body, but make it fancy, make something disgusting look beautiful. To create that, the fabric that had to be used needed to be very light, almost see-through, and have a good drape to it. French lace appeared to be a perfect choice for this. We dyed it to match Lana’s skin color, and just like that everything was ready to bring her fantasy to life.

Renacio’s design had the idea of everything “hanging off” the body to create the illusion of peeling off: separate sleeves shedding off the shoulders, the skirt hanging from under the corset, and the corset top pieces as if the skin from her neck was almost falling off. The hardest part was to make it pretty; we had to hand-cut each beautiful corner of the lace to have only the most delicate parts of the fabric appear on the final piece.

Red carpet looks often have to balance glamour and practicality. What were some of the creative or technical challenges in constructing a gown designed to be both comfortable and striking under the spotlight?

We knew that Lana would need to have a lot of freedom wearing this dress, to comfortably walk through the red carpet paparazzi, have enough amplitude to do extravagant striking poses for the glam-bot, and not worry about such delicate fabric ripping anywhere mid-event. However, she wanted the torso to be snatched, so we had to include a corset base and kind of build everything onto it.

That was a challenge, how to make sure it’s comfortable for the whole night while combining the fragility of the lace with the practical aspect of the flowy, peeling-off effect where pieces had to hang off of Lana’s body everywhere. It was like solving a whole mathematical equation, but we managed to make it both practical and fabulous.

Lana Ja’Rae

Every major event look tells a story. What message or mood were you hoping this dress would convey when it appeared on the Emmy red carpet?

I feel like Renacio was trying to combine the originality of Lana’s loud, striking, and very extra style with the elegance and chic of Renacio’s aesthetic. It had to be very feminine, but also match Lana’s modern style — that’s where a lot of revealing skin came in. Because the fabric matched Lana’s skin tone, it didn’t look vulgar but still wasn’t a traditional or conservative dress.

The fabric created a feeling as if it was draping off her body — not her just wearing something, but it was hugging every inch of her, and she just floated with it through the red carpet.

You’ve worked on projects ranging from couture collections to collaborations with Amtrak, the national rail service in the United States. How did your previous experience influence the design process for this gown?

Mainly technicality. The sportswear that I did for Amtrak and even my puffer jacket and pants couture look don’t have a lot of techniques in common with this project. However, working under pressure for Amtrak definitely helped me here as well, because as I mentioned, we also didn’t have time for second thoughts and had to be quick with the realization of the physical garment.

No stress and advanced skills definitely made the whole process more enjoyable for me and easier for Renacio to take some pressure off his shoulders. I was able to focus on the process and gain knowledge about some tricks in construction and sewing as well.

Can you describe a behind-the-scenes moment from the Emmy dress project, something that stands out as especially memorable or unexpected during production or fitting?

We ran out of the lace at some point. It doesn’t sound like a big problem until you realize that there was no such lace in stock anymore, and it was also hand- dyed, so you couldn’t just go to the store and pick up some more. Initially, Renacio had two different laces, but the final decision was to use only one for the entire garment.

The night before Lana’s flight, just a couple of hours after the fitting with her, where she specified that she wanted long, hanging sleeves to again create the illusion of her skin peeling off, we realized there were only a couple of big scraps left to bring that idea to life. It turned into a real challenge: the two of us sitting and staring at those scraps in the middle of the night, trying to fit the patterns onto them almost like Tetris, making sure everything worked and the sleeves were long enough. In the end, we made it possible by adding a panel under the armpit area, which worked perfectly.

With each new project, your portfolio expands across fashion, performance, and innovation. How do you see this Emmy collaboration shaping your next creative chapter?

This experience definitely pushed me to expand my knowledge and skills in fashion design work. Before that, I did work in couture, but not in the elegant traditional way, more like experimental work. Here, I gained a lot of knowledge about how to technically bring couture to life.

Thank you for your time. How can people follow your journey? 

You can visit me on Instagram, and my website is http://anastasiia-lukinskaia.com/