MOSCOW- Tsarist empress gowns, rich silks and
embroidered flower patterns featured heavily in the Russian
capital this week as fashionistas paraded designs of the
motherland from a pre-Soviet age.
Old world luxury reminiscent of the tsars
opened the city’s first fashion week of the year, held in
Gostiny Dvor, a revamped 19th century exhibit hall near the
Kremlin.
Pale-faced models displayed flowing cream and
black dresses from the turn of the century under high-collared
fur coats to an audience of hundreds of people.
"Russian fashion has been given back to us,
it’s arrived," said designer Valentin Yudashkin after his show.
Other designers went beyond tsarist fashion
to evoke the feeling of pre-Bolshevik Russia.Deep blue flowers
on black backgrounds similar to traditional Russian lacquered
boxes dominated at Slava Zaitsev’s show, a 69-year old designer
who used to dress the Soviet elite.
Male models had their faces covered by
flowing fox stretching from large Russian winter hats and wore
embroidered gold overcoats with green fur collars.
Ballerinas, an idyllic Russian winter setting
and an ode to French queen Marie-Antoinette also featured at the
week.
"We were isolated from the world (during
Soviet times)," said Tatyana Mikhalkova, the wife of
Oscar-winning film director Nikita Mikhalkov and president of
Russian Silhouette, a charity she set up to give funding to
young Russian designers.
"People now like to dress from another time, like the time of
(Empress) Catherine the Great," said Mikhalkova, who counts
future first lady and public Russian fashion supporter Svetlana
Medvedeva in her close circle of friends. —Reuters
