The first apparel collection of Svitlana Bevza didn’t qualify for the main program of Ukrainian Fashion Week in 2006.
A no-name designer at the time, her elegant yet sensible pieces for women were alien to the Kyiv runways, where clothing was largely approached as art rather than pret-a-porter garments.
The team of Ukrainian Fashion Week was so impressed by Bevza’s “Upstairs” collection debut, however, that they apologized after the show.
In the years to come, the collection name would prove prophetic of Bevza’s career growth: She would be awarded as the country’s best women’s clothing designer twice, setting trends for chicness and consciousness in the local scene.
Later, she would spread her influence across the border, becoming the first Ukrainian resident of New York Fashion Week and having her apparel worn by the world’s top tastemakers — Dakota Johnson and Bella and Gigi Hadid, to name a few.
The designer believes her professional success is no coincidence, but a good old-fashioned story of talent, hard work and persistence.
“I love creating senses. I’m ambitious. I work a lot — all the time,” Bevza, 38, told the Kyiv Post.
Bottle of champagne
Bevza discovered her attraction to design at a very early age. When she was 5, there was nothing that had more of her attention in the house than a set of 36 colorful pencils. She says she was drawing dresses and blouses all the time.
“It was a childhood dream,” she says.
But when it was time to make a choice about education, Bevza was pushed by her parents to pursue “a decent” degree, so she picked economics. It was years later, while she was already working on her third collection, that Bevza studied design in one of the universities in her native Kyiv.
By 2006, Bevza had been cherishing the idea of starting her own brand for years. The final push came from her close friend, who dared her to create a collection from scratch just two months before the upcoming Ukrainian Fashion Week. If Bevza accomplished it, her friend would owe her a bottle of champagne. The designer took a small loan from a bank, rented a basement, bought equipment, hired several seamstresses and, in two months, she was sipping the sparkling drink.
Her debut collection under the Bevza brand name, just like all future apparel, was a reflection of her long-established personal style — a mixture of simple silhouettes, clean strict cut, fine fabrics and a perfect fit — which she calls “minimalist neoclassicism.”
“There’s a lot of me in this style,” says Bevza, as she wears a classy brown suit, combined with a red turtleneck and a stork brooch attached to the jacket lapel.
From day one as a designer, Bevza opposed the widespread at the time idea of producing artsy but impossible-to-wear in everyday life clothing. Instead, she put effort into making her pieces sensible and timeless. And she continues to do so to this day.
“A high-quality garment should be a good investment,” she says.
Little white dress
Bevza’s third collection was quite an unusual set, consisting almost entirely of white dresses.
Since white color repels sunlight, the designer used it for her environmental statement about global warming.
But it wasn’t just symbolism. Bevza is a long-time fan of white dresses, as opposed to the never-ceasing global love for a classic little black dress. The designer wears white often herself and believes that it suits every woman. Besides, she wanted to ruin the stereotype that white should be worn only on special occasions and for celebrations.
But one collection wasn’t enough for Bevza to express her love for white, so a little white dress became an essential item of every collection that followed.
“It’s one of our trademarks,” she says.
The spring-summer 2021 collection of women’s apparel designer Svitlana Bevza, “Tryp,” was inspired by the Trypillia archaeological culture, which was discovered on Ukrainian territory. Bevza is one of the country’s most acclaimed designers, whose garments have been spotted on a number of international fashion idols and celebrities. (Stepan Lisovskyi)
Having established herself as an influential player in the local fashion scene, in 2013, Bevza was named Ukraine’s best women’s clothing designer by the local Best Fashion Awards.
Just a year later, however, Bevza received recognition of a whole new level. Among thousands of designers from all over the world, she was picked as one of 11 finalists of Vogue Talents, a project by Vogue Italia that spotlights young stars in fashion. Through the years of its activity, the project identified many talented designers who grew to become big industry names, including Jacquemus and Glenn Martens.
Bevza became the first Ukrainian to be spotlighted by Vogue Talents, drawing international attention to the country’s growing fashion industry. In the years to come, many more Ukrainian designers would make headlines in global fashion-focused media.
At the ceremony in Milan, the designer also met the icon of modern fashion, Chief Editor of American Vogue Anna Wintour, who, Bevza says, served as a mentor for her future career.
According to Bevza, Wintour said that she was waiting on her brand to enter the U.S. market.
“I realized that I needed to move ahead,” she says.
Having started to sell her garments through international concept stores and exhibitions, Bevza, however, felt she wasn’t ready to start conquering the U.S. just yet. So instead, she accepted an invitation to become a resident at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was nonetheless a step up, as Tbilisi is widely considered the fashion capital of Eastern Europe for nurturing many runway ground-breakers, such as Demna Gvasalia, the creative director of Balenciaga and the founder of the world-renowned brand Vetements.
After several seasons on Tbilisi runways, in 2017, Bevza finally followed Wintour’s advice by applying for New York Fashion Week. And yet again she was a groundbreaker, becoming the first Ukrainian resident of one of the world’s most influential fashion weeks.
Models walk the runway during the fall-winter 2020 collection presentation by Ukrainian designer Svitlana Bevza during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9, 2020. (Mariya Nicole)
New York gave Bevza exposure like never before, especially when fashion influencers and celebrities started favoring her apparel. First, U.K. actress Sophie Turner, the star of the hit TV series “Game of Thrones,” picked Bevza’s silky white jumpsuit for her wedding.
“She didn’t just wear it, it was a wedding, it’s very significant,” Bevza says. “The whole world was talking about it.”
Later on, U.S. model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, actress Johnson, models the Hadid sisters and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley joined the list.
The designer says that publicity through celebrities promotes the brand and, ultimately, boosts its sales. But Bevza never seeks attention on purpose, saying that her brand doesn’t send its garments to stars asking for advertising. Instead, they focus on the craft itself.
“We just do our job,” Bevza says.
Social impact
Recognized for a standout style, Bevza’s influence reaches way beyond fashion. Both through her career in fashion and outside of it, she has raised social issues, launched charity initiatives and advocated for sustainability.
Her debut collection presented in New York was not only a bold experiment of combining elegance with rough fabrics and cuts, but also a political statement. Through bulletproof vests and bandages used for the “Realitics” pieces, Bevza aimed to draw international attention to Russia’s ongoing war in the Ukrainian Donbas, which has killed more than 13,000 people since its start in 2014.
Bevza says she’s always had an active civic position. Part of the reason is the political career of her husband Volodymyr Omelyan, who served as Ukraine’s infrastructure minister in 2016–2019.
Not afraid of controversy that the collection could have brought, Bevza used her industry’s often-overlooked ability to raise important issues on the runway.
“Fashion is underestimated,” Bevza says. “We can tell a story without words.”
On the environmental front, the designer promotes sustainability by using recycled fabrics and recyclable packaging, as well as producing digitally-printed coats instead of their fur analogs. She believes that all brands should be campaigners for conscious production and consumption.
“Our children will grow up soon. How are they going to live?” she says.
Ukrainian designers Svitlana Bevza and Ivan Frolov along with his team take selfies, as they pose in protective suits that they manufacture for local medical employees amid the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Courtesy)
During the COVID‑19 pandemic, Bevza stepped up to protect medical workers. The designer developed a pattern for a protective suit made of spunbond. Having launched the initiative herself in March, when Ukraine implemented a strict quarantine, she later teamed up with other Ukrainian designers. Together, they eventually produced 10,000 suits for doctors.
As Bevza contributed to the fight with the virus, the designer continued to work on her own craft and presented “Tryp,” a spring-summer 2021 collection inspired by Trypillia, an archaeological culture found in Ukraine. Since New York Fashion Week has gone online this season, Bevza shot a film presenting her recent garments.
The designer admits that she, in a way, enjoyed the online shift. When she’s in the limelight during fashion shows, as an introvert, Bevza often feels slightly stressed. She says that her circle often jokes that, though she’s been making progress, she always seems to run away from the stage as soon as possible.
But while she modestly bows on the runway after every show, Bevza continues to dream big of becoming an international-level brand.
“Famous all over the world and wanted by the whole world.”
