State of emergency: Kiev Fashion Days in a snowstorm

Kiev Fashion Days is an alternative fashion week, mined by a team of Ukrainian enthusiasts led by Darya Shapovalova.

Text: Margarita ZubatovaPhoto: Julia Weber

The fashion editor of Look At Me Margarita Zubatova went to Kiev and learned how to arrange the most fashionable event of the city, when everything is against.

On the very first day of my stay in Kiev, I realized that fashion professionals and lovers are divided into two camps here: conventionally, Ukranian Fashion Week and Kiev Fashion Days. Some are sure that the official fashion week cannot be broken, and they urge young designers to surrender into the hands of professionals with experience. Others put this experience into question and, despite the prejudice of the state, the distrust of the wealthy Kievans and the weather contrary to all the weather, they make an alternative event, in whose potential they believe. It just so happened that our editor, Liza Kologreeva, went to the first week, and we automatically ended up on two sides of the barricades. Liza is informed about every slip of the organization, whether it is the transfer of impressions or the pit between the first row and the podium, I am in the epicenter of events and checking everything on myself. I tell about the order where the pit came from, why the shows were transferred and where the blizzard was.

The first day, marked by the show of Marios Schwab, turns out to be the most relaxed and, what I still do not know, sunny in a week. The snow that started falling the next morning doesn’t scare me at first: I’m not Shaye Marie, who came from Los Angeles, or Ivan Rodich from Panama. By the evening show Natasha Zinko situation is aggravated. We can not catch a taxi for 40 minutes, drive for half an hour through traffic jams. Seeing the next accident, the taxi driver turns into the oncoming lane, where we make our way through the pits, swinging to the right and left and risking the next second to crash into a car flying at us. Our steward Nastya comments: "This is Kiev." Stuck completely, we change to the subway, after running through the wet snow flying in the face. Finally, having reached the huge salon of Mercedez-Benz - the main platform of the fashion week - we dry our hair in the toilet, which turned into icicles that run down on your face, under a hand dryer. Not so glamorous.

The next four hours that we spend on the site, the snow does not cease to go. Impressions are delayed: none of the guests can reach the center. We entertain ourselves by viewing the exhibition of Kiev designers. In addition to those familiar to MBKFD, the guys participating in Ukranian Fashion Week show their collections here. The strongest of them - Litkovskaya and Bevza, who this season decided to try their hand at new territory. Designer Yasya Minochkina says that the UFW organizers ask her: “What are you doing at Kiev Fashion Days when you are so strong a beginner? You need to be with an experienced team of the first week of fashion.” But then the question is - is it the first, that is, the foremost week that was created earlier?

Kiev Fashion Days were created by a team of enthusiasts led by the host of “Fashion Week” program, Daria Shapovalova. Now Daria makes a reportage for the most operational site on fashion NowFashion, travels to shows around the world, is friends with editors and critics of leading publications and at the same time constantly thinks about the industry in her native country. She calls on her platform the creative director of London College of Fashion Tony Glenville, Italian Vogue stylist Alessandro Buzi, and among others, the founder of the largest platform for young designers that exists in Paris and London, Fashion Scout. By the way, thanks to Daria, Kiev became the next city for Fashion Scout shows. For the young Ukrainian designer sounds encouraging.

The organizers manage to gather around themselves a real community, the strength of which manifests itself in the next two days. By the morning after the shows of Natasha Zinko and the presentation of Anton Belinsky in Kiev declare a state of emergency. Those who did not have time for the last subway train at 12 at night stayed overnight on the podium in the center of Mercedez-Benz or, even worse, in the middle of a traffic jam in the car. Of course, all the shows the next day were canceled. Roads so skidded that it was impossible to drive, and the snow continued to go, and snow machines did not come (they were also stuck in accidents). At the dinner, it was decided to hold all the remaining events (ten shows and as many presentations) in one day. Fashion Scout director Martin Roberts promises to help with the organization, stylist Alessandro Buzi - with styling. Designers are trying to keep calm and have time to move everything, mobilize forces, ring up guests. From the guys sitting next to me, I hear: "This blizzard is right the Orange Revolution - it’s necessary to unite everyone so much!"

In the evening, there is a party at which the pioneer of Ukrainian independent fashion, Sasha Kanevsky, presents his collection. After a slight lull, the designer makes a big leap forward, showing a truly adult collection. We especially like ethnic prints in combination with foolish cats. By the way, the party itself resembles dancing before the apocalypse. In the large abandoned room of the Little Opera, the track TNGHT plays, the hero of the occasion Kanevsky pours cola on people, and the sewing master Charlie le Mindou dances without pants. Do you think fashion parties are more decent? No, imagine the afterparty of some Vivienne Westwood in Paris or KTZ in London, you definitely won't see decent girls with champagne.

After the energy outburst, everyone finds strength to get up at eight in the morning and go to the fashion week site - the day will be long, but intense. We start with the Fashion Scout show of young guys: 17-year-old Anna Kolomoyets, showing a velvet and leather coat to the songs of Tomny Prince, and Yasi Khomenko, who made a presentation in a wooden box. Everything happens so fast that the models do not have time to change their hairstyles or make-up. Running from backstage into the hall, I meet a graphic designer and half of Ksenia Shnaider's duet Anton - he shows me a 3D installation, which they will present to the public tomorrow. I regret ten times that by this moment I will be in Moscow.

In the general schedule there is no designer, whose presence is difficult to explain (see Moscow Fashion Week schedule, where you can find, for example, the Roma Acorn & Stars team), but we are surprised by Anton Belinsky, who skillfully combines prints, who took Yasya Minochkina , as well as girls, whose things we have already seen at Fashion Scout in London - Paskal and Anna October.

Among the guests, it seems, too, no extra people. The first row is occupied by editors, buyers, stylists, invited guests, the rest are bloggers, brand customers, and just nice people. At the same time, from time to time it still comes from someone: "Well, the organization, how much can you transfer everything." People are not happy, people did not get enough sleep, people "fell into a hole" (?!). At the same time, it is still snowing, Daria Shapovalova remains calm, Martin Roberts collects models for the exit to the podium, Alessandro Buzzi straightens dresses on them, designers, whose shows will be next, bite your elbows, whispering: "And surely everyone will get there? traffic jam? Do we really succeed? "