Russian Fashion Week takes over Moscow’s runways this week as Russian and foreign designers show off next year’s spring and summer collections.
The Congress Hall of the World Trade Center will transform into the biggest catwalk in Eastern Europe for the event. Leading Russian designers such as Sabina Gorelik, Dasha Gauser and Masha Kravtsova will be among the 58 shows.
“When we first started our work, Russian designers were not popular. Now they are celebrities. Today, many people are eager to buy clothes made in Russia,” said Alexander Shumsky, director of Russian Fashion Week. “Take Kira Plastinina, for instance. This young designer now has 80 stores all around Russia. Ten years ago, one couldn’t even dream about such success.”
Foreign designers from the United States, Malaysia and Italy will also be on show, as will a collection by Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
“The main international project at this season’s Fashion Week will be ‘Italian Day,’” Shumsky said. Krizia, Ermanno Scervino, Costume National and La Perla — all from Milan — will show off their newest collections.
As is tradition, veteran fashion designer Slava Zaitsev opened the festival by showing his latest collection Friday.
Zaitsev said the fashion world had been affected by the global financial crisis.
“The crisis is not a time to surrender but a time to move to Russian material of a good quality and at a reasonable price. True, this means we have had to correct, simplify, lighten and, for a time, move away from luxury,” Zaitsev said before the opening Friday, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
The new, as well as the old, will be on show.
“We have to pay special attention to new designers such as Yulia Sarkisova, Alexander Abramov and St. Bessarion. They are the future,” Shumsky said.
The event opened with a preview of the new Russian Fashion Museum, set to open in 2010, which has put on an exhibit of 19th-century city clothes.
The most bizarre collection will undoubtedly be one from “Nasha Russia,” the Russian version of the British series “Little Britain,” which has among its characters two homeless men who pick luxury goods out of garbage bins in Rublyovka, the neighborhood of Moscow’s rich.
If you can’t make it to the shows, Respublika bookshops will sell books, notebooks, even pens that have been recommended by fashion designers.
The restaurants Oblomov, Pavillion and Nabi will each have special fashion menus, featuring dishes that have been redesigned by local designers.
Russian Fashion Week runs to Oct. 23. Congress Hall, World Trade Center, Entrance 4, 12 Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya. Tel. 232-1475, Rfw.ru. Invitations can be won at Fashion.ru or Nosorog.ru
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