#kaminiotis

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PlaymoGreek: Petros Kaminiotis Playfully Celebrates the Richness of Greek Folk Costumes

Classical Greece looms large in the country’s cultural heritage but when it comes to modern Greece, it’s the country’s customs and traditions that inform to a large extent its popular culture and that shape everyday life. Alas, modernity has been steadily sidelining folk culture, diminishing its relevance and obscuring its richness, not however if twenty-four-year-old Petros Kaminiotis has anything to do with it. Kaminiotis is the designer behind PlaymoGreek, a project that combines his favourite childhood toy with his passion for Greek folk culture. An adept folk dancer, he has been crafting elaborately detailed, miniature outfits for his Playmobils since he was five, both as a personal hobby and later as a way to showcase the fascinating complexity and astonishing variety of traditional Greek costumes to a much wider and younger audience.

Invented by Horst Brandstätter in 1974 as a toy that had “the maximum amount of play value for the minimum amount of plastic” – a push for sustainability spurred by the contemporaneous oil crisis – the 7.5 cm tall figure is one of the most recognizable in the world thereby rendering it the perfect model for Kaminiotis’ mission of cultural awareness. With several exhibitions under his belt, including at the National Historical Museum in Athens and the Hellenic Lyceum in Sydney, and a growing social media following, Kaminiotis has definitely been making an impact although, as he says, he still has a long way to go if he’s to depict the entirety of Greek folk costumes. Yatzer recently caught up with the young designer to ask him about his project, his passion for folk dancing, and his interest in photography.

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Artist and Photographer Petros Kaminiotis Captures Details of Greece

What is the beauty of Greece? When Petros Kaminiotis is the beholder, it is the small and traditional, everyday details of Greek island life. It is the lines of Cycladic architecture, the purpose of a simple chair, and costumes made with love.

You might have heard of Petros, who is 24 and studies marketing and communication at the Athens University of Economics and Business, thanks to “PlaymoGreek,” his art project featuring Playmobil figurines dressed in traditional Greek costume, which you can peek at through the Instagram handle @playmogreek. Meanwhile, on his personal account, @petros_kamin, he shares images from his travels around Greece that show his love for details.

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Playmogreek, little figurines dressed in traditional Greek national costumes

Many of us may be familiar with Playmobil, little figurine toys loved by kids worldwide and 21-year-old Petros Kaminiotis from Athens has created an entire collection of these figurines by dressing them in traditional Greek costumes from all over the country and naming them Playmogreek.

For the last few years Petros has become known for his wonderful handmade creations, which take him at least 5 days each to make. Petros does not use any machinery, instead he uses paper, napkins, materials, ribbons and other ornaments he can find around the house, as well as drawing and colouring parts of the costumes himself.

Petros, who has always been involved in traditional Greek dancing, has a passion for Greek costumes, which represent different regions of Greece.

He has spent hours upon hours, studying each national costume and makes sure he gets every little detail correct.

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‘PlaymoGreek’ – Petros Kaminiotis presents Greek traditional costumes in a contemporary way

PlaymoGreek, are Playmobil figures dressed in handmade copies of traditional Greek costumes.

PlaymoGreek, are Playmobil figures dressed in handmade copies of traditional Greek costumes.

“The idea suddenly came to me when I was 5 years old. As a child, Playmobil was my favorite toy and I had a variety of kings, pirates and soldiers but after a while I wanted to expand my collection with “traditional dancers”.

So, one day I put the Playmobil figures in a circle, like they’re dancing, and dressed them with pieces of paper and napkin to look like traditional clothes. The stimulus was my experience from my traditional dance group but also my great grandmother, who was wearing her traditional costume in her daily life. As the years went by, I gained more and more knowledge and my passion for traditional costumes got bigger. I started searching information, visiting museums, travelling to villages and making contacts. So, I made a second effort to dress these figures with exact replicas of traditional costumes, but this time with a more advanced technique and better materials. I posted them at my Facebook profile and one day a reporter saw my work and recommended to write an article about PlaymoGreek.”