As fashion houses worldwide spawn next season’s collections, Ukrainian designers are preparing to catwalk their creations during Ukraine Fashion Week, starting Oct. 13.
There is one established designer, however, who won’t grace the stage in Mystetsky Arsenal this year. A former linguist, designer Fedor Vozianov, is cool enough to miss it.
Vozianov is busy conquering Italy and France, where he presented his autumn-winter 2012 collection last month.
A gracious white jacket with folded shawl lapels flowing all the way down to the knees looks almost like a sewing pattern thrown over the model’s shoulders.
Vozianov created this garment to showcase at White Milano, one of the most distinguished fashion trade shows in the world, which took place in September.
The jacket’s sharp angles merge effortlessly with a long black dress making the whole outfit look casual and smart at the same time.
“Esthetic avant-garde combined with everyday classics,” said Vozianov, defining his style.
Unwilling to pass as a gay, Vozianov kept his designer’s skills to himself. He went public when his work got successful abroad.
This silver-headed fashion guru with a boyish smile is quite avant-garde himself.
Inspired by geometrical shapes, it seems that he draws his inspiration from mathematical text books.
And yet, when it comes to numbers, he wouldn’t know how much money to charge for his wardrobe and what’s in his bank account today.
At least that’s the impression he leaves.
The 48-year-old designer strikes as a complete opposite to many of his crystal-loving, fur-obsessed colleagues. His success formula is fairly simple.
A designer can impress local audiences with precious stones, screaming colors and dazzling cuts to his heart content, but he’s no one unless experts in Milan and Paris knock on his door.
Vozianov seems to have crossed this threshold starting to work with foreign buyers some three years ago.
“In the past, I was quite comfortable with being in the shadow,” he says, smiling timidly. Now, after the show, he receives text messages from critics in Milan that tell him that he “gave a lesson in humility and style” to the Italians – the proud style gods of Europe.
He is amazed to get this kind of reviews in a country where fashion critics barely stop short of using a microscope when scrutinizing designer garments.
I was 13 then and I wanted to impress one girl. So I sewed a vest for myself just the way I wanted it. And never told anyone that I did it myself.
– Fedor Vozianov, designer
For them, knowing cuts and fabrics is basic ABCs, unlike in Ukraine, where fashion critics are infamous for their lack of knowledge and rewriting press-releases.
Impressing Milan is a long way from the humble origins of Vozianov, though. He designed his first garment in high school. “I was 13 then and I wanted to impress one girl.
So I sewed a vest for myself just the way I wanted it. And never told anyone that I did it myself,” he recalls.
The vest was a success and he kept on playing with fabrics and scissors.
Unwilling to be mistaken for a gay, he used to tell his peers that his cool clothes were from abroad.
After gaining a degree in English, Vozianov worked as a high school teacher and kept designing as a hobby. He left school in his late 20s. It happened after he designed a brown leather bag for himself.
“I knew it was time to move on. I had nothing – no assets, no clients, no name. Only pure ambition and intuitive understanding of what is beautiful and what’s not.”
Working in the comfort of his studio with a flock of reliable clients, he watched Ukrainian fashion shows on television without really thinking of joining the league of designers.
His friends and clients advised to skip seeking recognition in Ukraine and go straight to the West.
Today, you can buy Vozianov ready-to-wear collections only in his Kyiv studio. In Italy and Cyprus, however, you can get his label in a couple of stores. By spring, he said, Vozianov clothes will also be in Argentina.
“Vozianov is a great talent. He is showing to the world that this country is also about fashion and design,” says Maurizio Aschero, the Italian director for international development of the Ukrainian Fashion Week.
“He is a real ambassador of the positive Ukraine in the world.”
To many Ukrainians, however, Vozianov is almost an anti-celebrity.
You won’t see him rubbing shoulders with singers and politicians on television.
But you can see him sip coffee in one of the city’s coffee shops, dreaming about his latest trip in Milan, where stylish grannies eat salad from huge bowls in the balconies, and where fashion is as much a part of the everyday life as walking the streets.
To stay focused on his dreams, he invited an old friend – a maths teacher – to take over his accounts and business development.
He says the idea turned out to be a success: thanks to the new partner’s effort, the business is growing, and this month he will have to give up his cozy workshop by the Golden Gate and move to a bigger one further away from the center.
But he does not regret the change. He knows he’s ready to move on.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliya Raskevich can be reached at [email protected]
