Brand New and the Little Bit Olde Ukrainian Collections
5 brand new collections were represented on the recent Ukrainian Fashion Week.
5 brand new collections were represented on the recent Ukrainian Fashion Week. Couturists impress with individuality of their designs. However there is one strong tendency for everyone: fashion artists seem to be primarily inspired by their painting colleagues. Avant-gardist art saturates the forms, the figures, the colors of this fresh as a Japanese sakura collection.
However that doesn’t mean the modelers refused so popular ethnic elements in their design decisions. Nevertheless, they are not just Ukrainian. The sakura mentioned above is not accidental. Lily Lytkovska surprised Ukrainian public with Japanese motives: kimonos are everywhere. Amazing engravings of the Japanese classical master Katsushika Hokusa were transformed into avant-garde craziness of deconstructive disproportion.
The other significant tradition demolishing was produced by Natalia Kamenska and Olesia Kononova in their Lake collection. The slogan of their conception: we ruin the monumental forms. Thus the Lake proposition tastes rather architecturally. The dresses can be characterized by the restrained tones (though contrasts are present: they seem to be the main features of the color representation). Nevertheless designers made up for the forms and sizes: don’t be surprised to see something extraordinary in dimensions.
Bevza of Svitlana Bevza also plays with the geometrical forms. However it’s never about architecture, but about the using of cubist inventions with splendid effect. The quick glance wouldn’t show you the art madness of these simple jumpers, coats, dresses etc. Nevertheless once you look more patiently you’ll find what you deserve – the supremacist icons are these clothes, nothing else.
As for Elenareva, the fashioness samely applies art, and it’s much more visual. Prints are the main element of this collection. Birds are the main performers, and they act well. The mood of their flight changes deeply and seamlessnessly: from the pastel blue doves of peace framed in tender air forms – to the strict metallic birds of prey, that remind Hitchcock’s terror not only with their look, but also with the thorny and armour-like shapes of the dresses.
But back from the far Japanese culture and sometimes inept modernism, the masterminds of the fashion show prepared something sudden. So, “Vytoky” (Ukrainian for “Origins”) called out the Power of native ethnics in the modern high couture. The first part of the show got the public familiar with the true old school dress of Ukrainian yore. It’s bright, variegated and embroidered with national ornaments to please the eyes of modern primitivists. Then, the second part opened the proper ways of using unique Ukrainian ethnics in the modern fashion design. 5 star Jana Chervinska, invited specially for the project, has striked with the brand new and a little bit old fall-winter collection. Ancient Ukrainian techniques and renewed means of dress-making were developed in it: complicated needlework, complex applications, handmade knitting, even felted outer clothing – everything of this convinced fashion-lovers ethnic elements are exactly what is needed in today garb.
Instead of conclusion we must summarize: the synthesis of old and extra-new is king. Hail for the King of Fashion!
