Simple Forms Shirts, Tops & Coats: Russian Minimalism

IN WEEKLY RUBRIC Wonderzine presents young designers and tells where and how you can buy their things. Our heroine this week is Daria Chernysheva, the founder of the young brand Simple Forms, which produces minimalist and beautiful things for life in a big city.

Attitude towards young Russian brands in recent years has changed dramatically. It became clear that even without an infusion of huge investments it is possible to develop your brand. Especially small businesses concentrated on one thing: Oh, my basic clothes, Asya Malbershtein leather bags and accessories, knitted cardigans and sweaters from MIR Stores, Corporelle underwear. The niche of quality items for each day of the average price category remained unfilled. It was such a brand that the young Muscovite Daria Chernysheva launched.

Chernysheva inherited her interest in sewing from her mother, who sewed and knitted clothes for Dasha and her brother because of the meager assortment in stores and partly because of a lack of money. In school, Daria herself began to sew clothes, but she did not tell anyone about her hobby, "then it was considered a sign of poverty." In her youth, Chernysheva was seriously involved in figure skating and worked in a ballet on ice, but when she had to make a choice where to go to study - to a sports institute or develop her passion for sewing, she realized that she wanted to try herself as a fashion designer. After working as a costume designer at the Malaya Bronnaya Theater, Daria started her own business. Since 2011, she has been creating basic clothes - the young designer's items have attracted the buyers of Trends Brands and have been sold there since the founding of the store under the Dar'ya Chernysheva brand. Daria founded the brand with the concept of Simple Forms in 2015 and has already released two full-fledged collections.

The most important thing Darya managed to do was to regulate production: "We have our own workshop where we prepare the collection, sew product samples, develop the design and make a gradation of products by size, prepare them for production. Then we place orders for various proven third-party sewing productions in Moscow and the Moscow region ". According to Chernysheva, “in large productions everything is too formalized,” but it is possible that in the future Simple Forms will have to work with large factories. Brand items are made mainly from natural fabrics, which are purchased both in Russia and in Europe from wholesale suppliers and directly from manufacturers.

Minimalism, practicality, simplicity - a tag cloud that can be characterized by Simple Forms. The brand's team is inspired by the ideas of constructivism and the work of Bauhaus architects. The concept of clothing as a kind of uniform, but emphasizing individuality, is what Daria and her team are guided by. Dress-shirts, complexly sundresses, flared skirts, jackets with patch pockets and sweatshirts with a geometric pattern - all things brand are comfortable to wear and easily combined with each other and with any other basic things. As for colors, the spring-summer collection is made in pastel shades, and the autumn-winter collection is in warm and dark colors. Simple Forms cannot find bright, screaming things, like clothes with prints. On average, the dress of the brand will cost 8 thousand rubles, and 20 thousand will be asked for a coat. “Of course, I want to make things more affordable, but we cannot ignore the established business rules and not take into account the interest of stores,” explains Chernysheva You can buy brand items in stores and showrooms in Moscow and St. Petersburg, for example, in Luk, 8-store and gate 31.

We created Simple Forms as a kind of platform, where in the future we are planning to launch a men's clothing line, make collections of accessories and product design objects, possibly collaborations with other Russian designers. We do not strive to quickly increase the number of partners and carefully approach their choice. Organic growth is much closer to us. I really want our things to be presented in major cities of Russia.