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01 / Cut A Dash

Cut A Dash is a designer brand from Kyrgyzstan that grew out of our love of fashion and art.

Fashion through the prism of artKyrgyz identityA sustainable approach

Cut a dash — to be bold in style.

English idiom

Literally, “to make a dash”. Said of someone who stands out by the way they look, makes an impression and appears vivid and confident.

For us, clothing has always been more than just a thing. The way you look is one way of speaking about yourself without words: being different, changing, experimenting, sometimes drawing attention, sometimes simply feeling more confident.

That is also the meaning of our name. Cut a dash is an English expression for someone who stands out by the way they look, makes an impression and appears vivid and confident.

Perhaps that is why, from the very start, we were interested not just in making clothes but in finding their own character.

02 / Founders

Two sisters

Cut A Dash was founded by us — two sisters, Aizhan and Saikal Seitalieva.

We’ve always had a lot in common: a love of clothes, an eye for detail, an interest in art and a desire to express ourselves through the way we look. Creating our own brand became the natural continuation of all of this.

But the Cut A Dash story has never been the story of just two people.

We grew up in a family of artists. At home, art was part of everyday life — there were always drawings, materials, conversations about work, new ideas and the process of making something with your own hands.

Over time, our family became part of Cut A Dash itself. Our father helps us make sculptures and art objects for shoots, shows and projects. Our family history includes a grandfather, an uncle and other artists whose attitude to art shaped the environment we grew up in.

That is why Cut A Dash’s connection with art has never been an invented brand concept.

It existed before the brand itself.

03 / Three foundations

What it’s built on
Cut A Dash

01

Fashion through the prism of art

It all begins with clothing.

We are interested in form, silhouette, fabric and the way a piece moves on the body. But art almost always appears alongside fashion.

We collaborate with artists, work with their pieces and create our own prints, sculptures and visual projects. Sometimes a painting becomes the starting point for a collection. Sometimes clothing becomes part of an artistic statement.

For us, the boundary between these two worlds has never mattered much.

What interests us more is
what emerges between them.

02

Kyrgyz identity

How Kyrgyz identity
can look today?

We didn’t come to the theme of our own culture straight away.

The longer Cut A Dash existed, the more we wanted to look at what was right beside us: ornaments, craft techniques, history, mythology, national games, the forms and images familiar since childhood.

But we’re not interested in simply transferring the past onto clothing.

We try to understand what Kyrgyz identity can look like today — without having to become folklore or explain itself through familiar symbols.

Sometimes the cultural code appears in a print, sometimes in a garment’s construction, material or handwork. And sometimes it becomes the basis of an entire project.

03

Sustainable
approach

We make our pieces in Kyrgyzstan and want to be mindful not only of what we produce, but of how we do it.

For us, sustainability is not a separate collection or a label on a tag. It’s a set of decisions that are gradually becoming part of the brand’s everyday work: local production, handcraft, care for materials and finding ways to use what usually becomes offcuts.

We’d rather make less, but make pieces you want to give a long life.

04 / More than clothing

The brand lets us do more

Over time we realised that Cut A Dash could be more than a place where clothing is made.

Through the brand we can invite artists to work with us, create cultural projects, experiment with new formats and give space to young creators.

It matters to us that new names emerge around Cut A Dash. That’s why we work with emerging artists and designers and create opportunities for those who sometimes lack a first platform, a first collaboration or a first big project.

And here another important meaning emerges for us.

Cut A Dash
born in Kyrgyzstan

And we want the world, through the brand, to learn more about the place we come from. Not only through traditional images.

Through contemporary fashion.Through artists.Through design.Through new ideas.And through the people creating them here and now.
05 / What’s next

From Kyrgyzstan —
next

We want Cut A Dash to keep growing without losing what it all began for.

So that there is always room for art alongside clothing. So that Kyrgyz culture can become material for new ideas, not just a memory of the past. So that young creators have more opportunities to make work here. And so that pieces and projects made in Kyrgyzstan naturally become part of the international conversation about contemporary fashion and culture.

We’re not interested in simply presenting Kyrgyzstan to the world.

We want to take part in shaping
how the world will see Kyrgyzstan.