Maria Hitcher: Ukrainian constructivism with quotes from Zemfira

IN THE WEEKLY RUBRIC "NEW MARK" Wonderzine presents young designers and tells where and how you can buy their things. Our heroine this week is a young designer from Kiev, whose debut collection just a month after the show began to order buyers from Hong Kong and Japan.

Maria Khitcher is a 19-year-old student at the Kiev College of Technology and Design, who showed her first high-grade collection last season. Masha began to sew herself at the age of seven, and already at school her parents sent the girl to cut and sew courses. Khitcher did not train and did not work in the studio of Ukrainian designers, because she does not see any authority among them. The girl started immediately with a victory in the competition "Design It", which helped her to debut on Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days. Not slowing down the pace, Masha showed a mature and at the same time touching collection, things from which street-style photographers and foreign guests of fashion week were very fond of.

During the creation of the collection, the designer did not think about commercial success and did not even expect that things would be bought up so quickly and so well. Khitcher says that among her clients there are 35-year-old women who order clothes for themselves and their daughters at the same time. Already, most of the brand’s sales come from Russia, Japan, Israel, and very soon Maria Hitcher’s items can be bought at one of the world's largest KniQ stores in Hong Kong, where they will be sold along with COMME des GARÇONS. Maria says that the most difficult thing for her is to negotiate with buyers, because this is not taught in any of the universities. While the team of Maria Hitcher includes designer's friends, who help her with shooting of books and promoting the brand.

Quotes from Zemfira's songs, embroidered on dresses and coats from the latest Hitcher collection, have become a very successful piece. On the one hand, they cause an attack of sentimentality among clients from the CIS, and on the other hand, Europeans and Asians are now just going crazy about everything “post-Soviet” and “Cyrillic”. But Masha claims that the inscriptions and patch pockets are not at all a tribute to trends. In the near future, the designer plans to take a course at Saint Martins College in London. Very soon, she will present her second collection as part of the Fashion Scout platform and promises that there will be a lot of faux fur, latex and silhouettes in the spirit of the 70s. Now Masha is negotiating with the British online store Not Just a Label, and later dreams of being sold at Opening Ceremony and Luisa Via Roma.

My brand's DNA is concise and clean lines. It is still difficult for me to give a clearer definition of the brand's style, as it is still in the process of formation. I am inspired by people in whom there is some kind of image that is changing the world around them. If we talk about the latest collection, the singer Zemfira became the source of inspiration for her. Somehow last year they gave me a record, I listened to her and found many cool quotes. As a teenager I didn’t listen to Zemfira, I’m only 19 years old.