Earlier today, screenshots of a conversation between Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy and a 16-year-old fan surfaced on several outlets within the social media sphere. These screenshots show the designer asking the boy for images and telling him to take pictures in the bathroom to avoid his parents finding out. The conversation shows Rubchinskiy making contact via Instagram’s Direct Messages, which then led to the conversation being taken to Whatsapp as well as FaceTime. We reached out to Rubchinskiy’s team for comment on the validity of the information and received the following statement.

“This was a street casting for a look book shoot. The person sent a direct mail to us asking to be considered for the casting. This happens all the time. We have been doing street casting for shows and look books for many years now. We will be going to London to cast the look book next week. Gosha did a face time with him and then he asked for a photo to have on file with all the others. The person said he wasn’t alone and couldn’t take photo so Gosha suggested he just quickly goes to the bathroom and take a quick photo on the mirror, so he could show the rest of the team and have it on file. This exchange as depicted on the Instagram post of Supreme leaks news has been altered and taken out of context. It is clear there has been modifications and deletions to make it look bad where in fact it was a simple request for a photo to facilitate the street casting. The person started contacting us very often demanding an answer about the casting and became a bit weird. So Gosha blocked him and we think this is why the person is trying to make Gosha look bad, and turn what was a totally innocent street casting look something that it was not. We have been doing such direct street casting for ten years and we have never had such a problem, therefore this is invalid.”

The screenshots initially appeared on @hftgroup and were then subsequently posted across other fashion-focused accounts such as Diet Prada (who most recently shed light to Dolce & Gabbana’s China mishap) and Supreme Leaks News. The exchange between Rubchinskiy and the boy can be seen below.

The Russian designer took the fashion world by storm with his portrayal of Russian youth culture and has featured Russian teens in several of his shows, as well as photo documentaries. He went on to create several high-profile collaborations with the likes of adidas and Burberry but has since ceased production of his eponymous label stating that he was “a bit tired of doing season to season collections.” Stay tuned for further updates.