Handbag Designer 101: The Stories Behind Handbag Designers, Brands, and Industry Icons

Navigating Global Fashion: Oleg Chebotarev’s Creative Journey from Russia to China | Oleg Chebotarev & Emily Blumenthal

• Emily Blumenthal • Season 1

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Join us as we sit down with Oleg Chebotarev, the visionary Creative Director of Jump From Paper, who shares his unconventional journey through the fashion world. From post-communist Russia to the bustling creative hubs of China, Oleg’s path is a masterclass in adaptability, resilience, and the intersection of culture and design.

Oleg’s career began with dual passions—international relations and fashion—leading to a bold move to China during the 2008 financial crisis. He opens up about the challenges of navigating language and cultural barriers, drawing surprising parallels between Russia and China, and the lessons he learned in shaping a truly global creative vision.

Takeaway Points
Fashion Without Borders: Explore how Oleg’s global perspective shapes his work in fashion and creative direction.
Creativity & Commerce: Learn the balance between artistic vision and market demand in the ever-changing fashion industry.
The Value of Reinvention: Hear how Oleg’s pivot from photography to creative direction redefined his career.

Our Guest, Oleg Chebotarev, is the Creative Director of Jump From Paper, a brand known for its bold, cartoon-like handbags. With a career spanning continents and industries, his insights into fashion, branding, and cross-cultural creativity offer valuable lessons for designers looking to stand out in the global market. 🎧 Don’t miss this inspiring conversation with Oleg Chepiktyov.

Host Emily Blumenthal is a handbag industry expert, author of Handbag Designer 101, and founder of The Handbag Awards. Known as the “Handbag Fairy Godmother,” Emily also teaches entrepreneurship at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is dedicated to celebrating creativity, craftsmanship, and the art of building iconic handbag brands.

Find Handbag Designer 101 Merch, HBD101 Masterclass, one-on-one sessions, and opportunities to book Emily Blumenthal as a speaker at emilyblumenthal.com. 

Buy Emily’s Books: “Handbag Designer 101” & “Savvy Suzanna’s Amazing Adventures in Handbags”

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Speaker 1:

And if this medium requires learning body proportions, I don't know garment construction et cetera, right right right. Perhaps you need like maybe not a BA, but you need like strong academic base.

Speaker 2:

Hi and welcome to Handbag Designer 101, the podcast, with your host, Emily Blumenthal, handbag industry expert and the handbag fairy godmother. Each week, we uncover the stories behind the handbags we love, from the iconic brands and top designers to the creativity, craftsmanship and culture that define the handbag world. Whether you're a designer, collector or simply passionate about handbags, this is your front row seat to it all. Seat to it all. Welcome. Welcome, Oleg Chepiktyov from Jump From Paper. Creative Director of Jump From Paper. Welcome to Handbag Designer 101, the podcast. Lovely to have a friendly Russian in China, so thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1:

Hi Emily, Thank you for having me here.

Speaker 2:

So that's quite the journey. China, russia, russia, china, you've boppity-bopped all over the place, haven't you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there was also Spain for a year in between, so I'm just curious how far back can I go?

Speaker 2:

We're going all the way back Because, honestly, especially at the time where you were born and we'd spoken about this before post-wall falling, post-communism, the post-Ruble going up and down, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, your experience would be very different than someone who would have been born even 10 years before you in Russia.

Speaker 1:

Right. Yeah, it's interesting that you touched the subject of the economy in general. Okay, so we're going way, way back. When I graduated, first of all, I worked in the fashion industry for a very long time More or less I think almost 15 years, less than 15 years and my major at the university was international relations, isn't?

Speaker 2:

that funny.

Speaker 1:

But you know, it was funny when I was delivering my thesis upon graduation because I decided back then I was already very interested in fashion, and international relations is a very vast area. I mean, there is, apart from politics and diplomacy, there is such thing as cultural diplomacy, soft power, something which is your country very good at. Yes, and I thought that if I was already interested in the subject, why won't I write my thesis about it? And I was exploring the subject of how role of China was changing in the midst of 2008 economic financial crisis, because it hit the United States first and then slowly it started affecting other countries, and in China I think it was particularly challenging, probably the year 2009, the following year, because the overseas market probably at that point wasn't so stable and they started redirecting production for the domestic market.

Speaker 1:

What I did? I pretty much studied the market and the country where I relocated after graduation and maybe we could roll back a little bit a little more why I was interested in fashion. It's very interesting because I never lost my interest to politics and just overall this. I don't know global, global affairs, both cultural and political and financial, economic, but I just really like this bohemian allure of fashion, art and basically all my friends were. The majority of my friends back in uni were either studying architecture or fashion or graphic design, so I was just hanging out with them and I thought that I wanted to work in fashion just because I liked being around these people, and my first step was studying how China was coping with the challenges which brought by the 2008 crisis. So I did my first research and after I graduated, I went to China and I started looking for a job in fashion industry.

Speaker 2:

That must have been tough, not knowing how to speak the language, because there's certain countries that are really prohibitive. If you don't know the language. In Europe you can get away with it Almost in most places you could. But once you hit China, once you hit Russia, if you don't speak the language, you are very, very limited with what you can do, other than being some sort of sad translator for people who want to come in to teach them. So to jump on in, especially in China, and then to have to learn the language pretty much overnight, and then insert yourself into the people and the culture and then say, by the way, hire me because I'm interested in your economic situation and, by the way, fashion too. It's kind of a tough sell.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, well, you know it's easier for Chinese people to learn English than for foreigners to learn Chinese. It's a very, very complex language. I mean, the grammar is not super hard, but you need to learn a lot of characters. Yes, and you need to say things the way they say it Because, for instance, if you make literal translation from Russian into English, people will probably understand you, but if you do the same with Chinese, there is a very big chance that they will not understand you. So, yeah, but actually when I was at the uni, I was studying Chinese.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you had some basic fundamentals.

Speaker 1:

Very, very basic. It's not the kind of language which you can learn at a decent level.

Speaker 2:

Unless you're there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And when I came to China and people were like my foreign friends were saying simple phrases like telling the taxi driver don't left here, I was really impressed. I was like, wow, you really speak it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, when I was living in Russia, the taxis that we had there were just random people, that you would just stick your arm out and you know as they roll down their window. And then you'd have this whole discussion of Skolkostoyt, how much, how much, and you stay where you are.

Speaker 2:

And because there's no left turns. Going up and down the street you would see everything twice because you'd have to go to the very, very end and then go all the way around. So you know like and this even predated having phones so if you were in the car with someone shady, you should hope like that at least they had drank enough that you could get out at the stoplight that they wouldn't notice.

Speaker 2:

So it was oh my god, it's always an adventure when you're in a different country. So you get to china, you're in this situation. How did you start inserting yourself into the fashion scene there to? Say like okay, I can contribute.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a lot of people who work in, let's say, experts who made their career in fashion in China. Many of them actually don't have education in fashion and they have some education which allows them to I don't know be able to do some office work and grow Right, right, right. But areas like supply chain, retail yeah, at least these two. This is areas where you can get an entry-level job and start growing. The most impressive case of a person without education and fashion who made it big was a friend of mine. I think he worked as a sales assistant for Prada first and then he moved to Marc.

Speaker 1:

Jacobs, and one of the top positions that he got to was like global retail director for Marc Jacobs. The options which I had were mostly in supply chain. And since I spoke some Mandarin and over the time was over the first year living in China I got, I improved my vocabulary. I wouldn't say I was fluent, but I was able to I don't know do basic communication and as a result, I got my first job as sort of interpreter, slash manager. And there you go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I was learning the supply chain basics, how we communicate with the factory. Construction details, technical details. So you need to learn how to explain technical part to the factory. And if the factory tries to negotiate something that they don't want to burden themselves with because they also want to make the batch of the goods faster, they also tell you technical perspective on their side and you need to translate it to the management. So this way you learn the technology. It's very funny a lot of terms in garment construction I know in chinese or english, but not in russian yeah, well, you know, everything you're saying is how I teach, how truly the path should be that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, true experience.

Speaker 2:

You have to. You have to know how things are made, you have to know how the players are, and a woman told me 100 years ago when I was working in media you would never open up a clothing store if you didn't know how to shop. So you have to understand how things are made, how they're bought, how the budgets are, what they're looking for, how to design into something that your customer will actually buy. And even going back to the construction of how the factory makes it, what their constraints are, knowing that, okay, if I want this, but the factory, I know that it's going to be so, so hard for the factory to do it. Then I know that my cost, my labor costs, will go up.

Speaker 2:

So I need to be creative, to come up with a different way to have something unique about the product without having to have them jump through hoops of doing an inside seam or this kind of hardware or this kind of mold, because I think a lot of designers on the other side who are so so far from the production line have no idea even going back to the people who are making it and how to deal with the people in charge of the people who are making it how they need to translate what's been sent to them and it's, by the time it gets to the person making it, it's like the fifth translation of the actual directions, the actual directions. So I think, knowing what you do, I think it became probably a superpower of okay. After my one year here, I'm like a million miles ahead of everybody else who'd ever want to get into fashion.

Speaker 1:

I didn't really think that way, but at that time, when I was working in supply chain, I realized that the experience that I'm getting it's very valuable and it will be valuable in my career, because it is really funny being always sort of unsatisfied by what I'm doing creatively.

Speaker 1:

I was jumping from company to company in supply chain and when I finally realized that I need to do something really creative, I started doing styling and photography fashion photography and at the very beginning the gig flow wasn't very stable. So I found a daytime job at a boutique. So I ended up working in retail. So I pretty much witnessed the whole cycle from design because at some point I was also working at a factory a small factory which worked with designer brands and I saw the whole design process. I was helping them find the right fabric, the right trims, accessories, then I supervised the production process, something that I already learned by them and eventually I ended up working in a boutique where I did visual merchandising, styling, photo shoots and creating direction for the boutique itself. So, yeah, I went through pretty much all the areas. Oh, I couldn't say the entire supply chain, because it ends in the store, right? Yeah?

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

Join me, emily Blumenthal, in the Handbag Designer 101 Masterclass. So be sure to sign up at emilyblumenthalcom slash masterclass and type in the code PINECAST to get 10% off your masterclass today. How did you take all that at that point of recognizing all of that and then end up on the design side because and then have people trust that you're capable of doing the design side Because currently well, currently working for a brand like Jump From Paper is so wildly creative and wildly out sustain the same DNA that you probably have a lot of creative freedom but a ton of constraints, because you know and I think a lot of people don't even know that Jump From Paper happens to be a Chinese brand.

Speaker 1:

I think they don't. Yeah, I'm a creative director. I am managing the design team, I'm responsible for the bigger picture and making sure that whatever products we are doing, or a photo shoot or a campaign, it all follows the main direction of the brand. That the brand evolves, yet it keeps its DNA. Okay, so how I got to this position? That the brand evolves, yet it keeps its DNA. So how I got to this position? Let's roll back to when I became the photographer.

Speaker 1:

Actually, photography was my teenage years hobby and it was the first thing that I decided to try turn into a job when I was done with the supply chain, and for a while I really enjoyed it because you are able to create something new and you are able to give a brand which comes to you maybe a different touch, your interpretation, and sometimes you even or at least I noticed that I started giving them an advice not only about how to present themselves, but also about their creative direction.

Speaker 1:

At some point I felt that I can actually, with my experience at supply chain and product development, I can potentially help this brand at the stage of the collection development, but they come to me only to as a photographer, even though I was doing production for photo shoots and creative direction for fashion image. You know there is also that direction. Yeah, it's already too late because the merchandise is already done, produced and sometimes we would shoot not just samples, it could be the, the bulk products already. So I got this idea that I could potentially work with brands at the earlier stage of product development, not only when when they need to do a photo shooting and also, to be honest, at some point I felt that photography as a creative medium also stopped satisfying. Yes, because in commercial photography it's very easy to get burned out because it's about the product.

Speaker 2:

Because at the end of the day, as a creative, once you realize that if your product isn't selling, it's not so sexy, and then the whole process becomes really, then it no longer becomes a creative process, then it becomes something arduous and then you start thinking, okay, where is this going to go? Is anyone going to buy it? And you learn very quickly that it's more about business than about the process of being creative absolutely, absolutely yeah, and because I understood what the final point of each customer's journey was.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's kind of when you break down the process and there is no mystery anymore and it's all super clear to you. So, okay, then you start looking for something new and I was thinking about working with Brent and his creative director for the product for a while. The final point, the tipping point of this, the lifetime significance and sort of a decision was the Shanghai lockdown 2022, I think it was the first time they actually enforced the lockdown, because the entire world went through lockdowns during the first year of the pandemic, but in China they managed to keep it under control more or less, and in 2022 probably they felt like it was the time to get a better grip over this, and maybe for them, they thought it was the thing that they were supposed to at the time, and so I was initially hired at my house and you start thinking a lot in confinement.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Like what would you like to do when you like is going? Obviously, at that point it wasn't going much further. I mean, you're literally in one place and I found this school. It's called European Institute of Design. Yeah, it's called european institute of design. Yeah, it's like eid eid. Originally it's an italian school and with time they expanded through italy and to spain and even brazil, and I really liked their approach. I was following them for quite some time and I really liked their approach to education, to their curriculum. It was quite creative in my opinion. So I found creative direction master's program, which I thought. I mean I looked at my finances, I looked at the cost which would entail and, yeah, I thought it could work.

Speaker 2:

You said, why not, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that when you had moved to Spain and took the class and then you decided to go back to China after you got that degree?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it wasn't that fast because the application takes quite some time and then I need to apply for visa and when I arrive, like there is a one year residence permit etc. But yeah, eventually, early 2023, I moved to spain and I got my degree in creative direction and by the end of my studies I found this job here in Shanghai.

Speaker 2:

And what do you think they would have hired you without that creative degree, the degree that you got?

Speaker 1:

They absolutely wouldn't.

Speaker 2:

Isn't that interesting. But it's so fascinating that, depending what country like in the US, in my opinion you need to have a first degree, you need to have a BA, but in terms of anything else, people aren't so concerned about the degree you have, because your work experience will speak for itself. But I know for a fact in China you need to be certified in whatever you're going to be doing in order to prove that they're hiring someone who knows how to do it, and you and I both know that to be a creative director, yes, it's important to have a degree, but it's on the go. Just like you said before, it's on the go. Training is really how you end up becoming really good at it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. However, I agree this like okay. First of all, they didn't really look into the degree. They looked at the school. I'm sure they Googled the school when they looked at my CV. They checked out the school and it's a good school. It has quite a good ranking internationally. But I'm also happy that I had a lot of good experience, education.

Speaker 1:

I think it's possible in the areas where the technical side of the field you're working in is not that important, or you can actually learn it on the go how you can do with photography, with lighting, with fashion image, with styling. However, when you talk about product development, let's say garment construction, it takes time. It takes time, actual physical practice. So if we talk about fashion design, I mean you have to do sewing to become a fashion designer. Okay, you can draw, but okay, then you need to practice drawing, you have to master a medium, and if this medium requires learning body proportions, I don't know garment construction, et cetera, Right right right.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps you need like maybe not a BA, but you need like strong academic base, Right, yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 2:

I mean I think the way you handled it was pretty thoughtful and like it made sense to throw yourself into China, learn how the back end and get that degree and then go back because now you have the benefits of both. What has the experience been working for a brand like this? Because it's a fabulous brand. It really, really is, and I'm so excited I mean obviously excited that we have you, but the fact that you're also here representing that brand, because it's a really when Jump From Paper came out, I think a lot of people were kind of blown away that the design is almost a cool concept of, you know, having the black outline and having the product with 3D, with the pastel colors and the bright pops of color. How has that been working for a brand that has such strong DNA?

Speaker 1:

Well, when I was thinking of working for them, of going back to China and starting to work for the brand, I kind of mapped out a direction in which I would be interested to lead this brand and I made, let's say, a simple PPT and I showed it to the bosses and I asked are you interested in this way? Would you like to go this? I also created in Photoshop created, it's a big word. I did some like visualization of the product which looks, let's say, a little more fashionable, a little more modern, a little.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people think that we are a gift brand yep, and that was one one of the challenges, uh, which I took very personally, is making the brand look as a fashion brand, like access to this, fashion brands, rather than a gift brand.

Speaker 1:

So I tried to create some product which would look as a fashion brand, like too deep, but a fashion brand, and they liked it. So to me it was like a you know, green flag, green light, that I can experiment, I can try to implement my vision and since, as a photographer, I was a commercial photographer, there is nothing wrong with that. I mean, there are, like photography artists and there are commercial photographers, and to me it was a good experience, a good way to learn how to work with different customers. What is their product, what is their market, what is their target audience and how do I adjust the photo shoots, their fashion image, to fit that category? So I am used to understanding different perspectives. How do I adjust the photo shoots, their fashion image, to fit that category? So I am used to understanding different perspectives and playing along.

Speaker 1:

So for me it was more like okay, I just got my degree and I have a wonderful opportunity and brand with some history where I can apply it, and they are even open to change. Wasn't it wonderful? I mean, it was a great opportunity, right, wow?

Speaker 2:

I think that's I mean. Fortunately, jump from paper is a semi-young brand, it's not like it's a fashion house per se, and I think they were really fortunate to have someone like you come in to take the aesthetic that, yes, it totally skews young, it skews kid because of how it is designed and I apologize, I said 3D before, I meant 2D and I think that's a really interesting take and a huge opportunity to expand the brand's customer base and saying like hold on, we've got everybody's attention. We can actually expand our market share and it's not just for cutesy girls per se. We can make this look a lot more I don't want to say elegant, but make it look a lot more commercialized. So it's not just meant for someone who is perceived looking for a product that is for a younger audience. So I think that was a really clever on your part and I think they're really fortunate to have you.

Speaker 2:

Truly, oleg, I want to thank you for being here today. I am so grateful for sharing your story and explaining your incredible journey from Russia to China, to Spain, back to China. I can't believe you even wanted to go back to China after all that, but I think once you get that bug, once you get that bug of like. Okay, I might fit in more in another country than I do in my own country, which is which is a whole other conversation but I can't wait to see the collections that you put out and see the evolution of the brand, because, again, they they're so super lucky to have you. Oleg, how can we find you and follow you and learn more about Jump From Paper, the brand?

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, first of all, the new collection is already out, so the new creative direction under my guidance has already been put into force and you can go to jump from papercom to shop for our new pieces, also jump from paper. That's our instagram and my personal instagram, if anyone is interested. It's chabataryov photo, I will make sure that it's there.

Speaker 2:

You should, you should change it to cool Russian photographer.

Speaker 1:

I know, I know, but my Instagram is pretty dormant because it was mostly dedicated to photography before and I haven't really found a new I don't know a new angle to it, right, because I work as a creative director for a brand.

Speaker 2:

And that's where all your creative juices are going.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my gosh, oleg, thank you, thank you. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Emily, so much.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review, and follow us on every single platform at Handbag Designer. Thanks so much. See you next time.

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