Between Warsaw and Paris, Katarzyna Janicz, founder and creative director of MODOPOL, is building a contemporary curated vintage concept rooted in uniqueness, quality, and the stories held within clothing.
We caught up with her for 10 questions about fashion, personal style, the freedom of wearing something truly unique, and why opening MODOPOL in Paris felt like closing one circle and opening another. The interview is accompanied by an editorial photographed by Malik Al-Asmi on the streets of Paris, with Katarzyna herself stepping in front of the lens wearing pieces from the collection. It also features black-and-white analogue photographs captured by Katarzyna during the opening in Paris.
10 Questions for Katarzyna Janicz
01 — MODOPOL was founded in Warsaw in 2013, and its pieces are now worn by women in over 30 countries. What kind of fashion curator are you today?
I am not looking for pieces that will look good for only one season. I look for clothes that are impossible to forget – because of an unusual construction, a remarkable fabric, a particular detail or simply their energy. I am not interested in recreating trends. I am interested in finding pieces from the past that still feel contemporary.
02 — What is the most exciting thing about wearing vintage today?
The possibility of surprise. With new fashion, we often know what we are going to see before we enter the shop. Vintage offers something less predictable.
You may discover a silhouette you would never have searched for, a colour you did not think you could wear or a piece that completely changes the way you see your own wardrobe. The most exciting clothes are often the ones we could not have imagined in advance.
03 — What draws you to a particular vintage piece?
My first reaction is instinctive. If a piece immediately creates a character, a silhouette or an entire scene in my mind, I begin to examine it more closely. Then I look at the fabric, construction, proportions, condition and whether it has the potential to become part of a contemporary wardrobe. Age alone is not enough. Neither is a desirable label. I am not interested in archiving mediocrity or in clothes whose only value lies in a recognisable logo.
“True quality has no expiry date.”
04 — What is your relationship with vintage clothing?
Vintage is not about nostalgia. It is often the only way to experience extraordinary materials, intelligent construction and a level of craftsmanship that has become increasingly difficult to find.
For the opening in Paris this summer, I wore a skirt that belonged to my grandmother in 1954. More than seventy years later, it became part of my own life and still looked entirely relevant. Three moments came together in a single piece: her past, the thirteen-year history of the brand and the future I was opening in Paris. The skirt was never designed to become a keepsake. It was designed to be worn – and it still can be. To me, that is the clearest proof that true quality has no expiry date.
05 — How do you define luxury in the age of the algorithm?
Luxury is access to something rare, beautifully made and impossible to replicate instantly. It is also the freedom not to look like everyone else.
The algorithm was supposed to help us discover new things, but increasingly it shows us different versions of the same thing. Inspiration becomes instruction, while personal style turns into a set of endlessly repeated references. In a world of unlimited production, true luxury can be a single piece that exists only once.
06 — What can vintage teach us about personal style?
It teaches us to trust our own reactions. When there is no current campaign, trend report or group of influencers telling us how to understand a piece, we have to decide for ourselves whether it feels right. Vintage also encourages creativity. You cannot always recreate an entire look exactly as you saw it somewhere else. You have to work with what you find and make it your own. Personal style often begins with that freedom.
07 — How have Poland and Eastern Europe shaped the identity of MODOPOL?
Warsaw taught me to recognise beauty in contrasts. It is raw and elegant, historical and brutally contemporary, sentimental and pragmatic at the same time. I like combining luxury with the everyday, femininity with strength, and something highly refined with something that initially appears not to belong.
My connection to fashion also has family roots. Shortly after the war, my great-grandparents ran one of Łódź’s first post-war spinning mills and, according to our family history, they were the first to design and begin the mass production of batwing sweaters. They were made in colours that were daring for their time – from intense cardinal pink to sunny orange – bringing life to the grey streets of post-war Poland.
Today, that family legacy meets my own education in economics and photography, experience in modelling and many years in marketing management. Even the name MODOPOL deliberately references the distinctive Polish company names of the 1990s, many of which ended in “-pol”. It contains fashion, Poland, nostalgia and a certain directness.
“Warsaw taught me to recognise beauty in contrasts. It is raw and elegant, historical and brutally contemporary, sentimental and pragmatic at the same time.”
08 — Who is the MODOPOL woman?
I do not define her by age, profession or where she lives. What connects her to other women is a certain kind of independence.
She does not need confirmation that something is currently desirable. She can see a piece, trust her own reaction and give it a personal identity. She does not want to look eccentric at any cost – she wants to look like herself. The best clothes do not disguise a person. They make her presence more distinct.
09 — Why was Paris such an important step for you?
Paris mattered to me long before it mattered to the brand. I first saw the city in 1999, as a seven-year-old girl from Poland. At that age, it felt almost imaginary – like a place belonging to films, magazines and other people’s lives. I could never have imagined that one day I would return to open my own brand here.
Coming back years later, no longer simply as a visitor but as a founder, made the distance I had travelled suddenly visible. It was not merely an international expansion or another address for the brand. It was a meeting between the child I had been, the family history that shaped my relationship with clothing, and the woman I had become. Paris closed one circle and opened another.
10 — What are your ambitions for MODOPOL, and what would you like people to remember about the brand?
I want to build one of Europe’s most distinctive premium vintage brands – recognised not through mass visibility, but through its own unmistakable language.
But above all, I want people to remember that MODOPOL does not sell the past. It finds clothes that still have a future ahead of them. We do not need to own more. We can own something no one else ever will.
