Ukrainian Designers Presses On in Wartime

Even in the shadow of war, the fashion show goes on. As Ukraine remained in crisis this week, with a cease-fire weakening, Ukrainians in Kiev were doing their best to proceed with business.

Kiev’s fashion week—three days of shows sponsored by Mercedes-Benz—hit the runways over the weekend. The event showcased a group of designers determined to carry on despite sewing machines that might run only two hours a day amid electricity shortages, difficulty importing fabric and fears among business contacts outside the country.

Most of the fighting, between pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine government forces, has been east of Kiev, nearer the Russian border. But the disruption affects Kiev as well.

“Buyers are not coming to Ukraine,” says Aleksandra Knyr, a Ukrainian fashion blogger who also helps to promote the nation’s fashion industry. “People are afraid to come.”

 

(Photo:MarieProm)Though Kiev fashion week doesn’t attract the likes of Anna Wintour, Ukraine was once an apparel-making center in the Soviet Union and later for neighboring Russia. Some factories remain, and labor is cheaper than in much of Western Europe.

What’s more, retailers and stylists from the U.S. and western Europe, eager to discover new fashion brands, have been scouring fashion weeks from Istanbul to Moscow.

Anna K, a label by 18-year-old Anna Kolomoets that is known for T-shirts emblazoned with lines such as “I am not a blogger,” is sold in as many as 30 stores, including Italy’s LuisaViaRoma and Colette in Paris.

Ukrainian designers attracted attention with their own Paris showroom during fashion week earlier this fall. Some of them could have bright futures, says Julie Gilhart, a fashion retail consultant and former fashion director for Barneys New York. Ms. Gilhart notes that designer Anna October, who creates romantic styles with fabrics from Turkey and France, was nominated this year for the prestigious LVMH Prize. Another Ukrainian designer, Anton Belinskiy, has traveled to London to show his collections—in denim, cotton and nylon. (More-expensive French and Italian fabrics are hard to attain.) A recent collection, inspired by a Russian movie about the deaf, shows hands that are signing.

 

(Photo:MarieProm cocktail dresses)Several years ago, Mercedes-Benz, which sponsors fashion weeks including New York’s famous tents, approached a group of Kiev fashion-week organizers, hoping to revive the industry in Kiev, says Daria Shapovalova, one of the organizers. “They approached us,” she says, and “then the war exploded.”

Last winter, in the thick of the conflict in Ukraine, Mercedes-Benz declined to back the week.

A Mercedes-Benz spokesman referred questions to company representatives in Kiev. Nina Vasadze, an executive with Kiev’s Mercedes-Benz distributor, says so many people had been killed in January and February that it didn’t seem appropriate to be sponsoring fashion shows. “It was just three or four weeks after all these people died,” she says.

Ms. Gilhart and Sarah Mower, ambassador for emerging talent at the British Fashion Council, invited European and U.S. fashion editors to see Ukrainian fashion and meet the designers during Paris fashion week in February. The designers crowded into a showroom in the Marais neighborhood along with non-Ukrainian labels.

Weeks later, Ms. Shapovalova and a few other supporters held Kiev fashion week, financing it as best they could. “The catwalks were almost empty,” says Ms. Knyr, the blogger. They invited designers from other countries to show, hoping to create excitement, but had little luck.

At Paris’s recent fashion week in September, many of the Ukrainian designers returned with a new showroom of their own and a fresh slogan: “Fashion for Peace.” A Ukrainian label called Omelya displayed T-shirts printed in English with the word “Relax” in hopes of selling them to European retailers. Designer Ksenia Schnaider digitized and expanded a Ukrainian symbol until it was abstract and embroidered it on clothes such as a sweatshirt. Designer Lera Leshchova showed apparel inspired by the Ukrainian national costume in the western parts of the country, with painted florals.

With fighting calming down in the east, Mercedes-Benz agreed to sponsor the shows in Kiev. Over the three days, 33 collections were shown, and about 6,500 people attended.

Fashion has complex logistics under the best of circumstances. Designers learn to be masters of global delivery engines as they buy fabric, thread and buttons, and deliver finished clothing. They need stores to buy their products and magazines to publicize them.

Add war, revolt and economic sanctions to the mix, and things get really tricky. “We order fabric from Turkey,” says Olga Demidova, a designer and clothing-factory operator in Kiev. “Delivery is not very good.”

In Paris, many of the Ukrainian designers or their representatives—who are often relatives, sometimes speaking through an interpreter—shared details about the difficulties of pursuing their work in a war.

It is often difficult to get supplies past volumes of red tape at the country’s borders, they said. Ms. Demidova’s factory produced collections while working only two hours a day when electricity was available. It has been taking about one month to produce a collection, she said, and two months to deliver the clothes.

The group backing Kiev’s fashion week had planned to sponsor five Ukrainian designers at Paris’s Tranoï show in September—a go-to marketplace for many retailers. Last summer when Ukraine’s currency dove just as it was time to pay fees, they had to cut down to two designers.

Yet some things work well. UPS and TNT have been reliable delivery vehicles throughout the conflict, says Ms. Shapovalova.

Ms. Gilhart, the fashion retail consultant, says while she was in Paris, she was moved to see that the designers were producing collections “at a time when their whole country was in total chaos.”