Local fashion goes global (4,613)

Moscow is fast becoming the new Milan, according to Mario Boselli, president of the prestigious Milan Fashion Week.

He believes the Russian capital is fast joining New York, London, Paris and his home town as a major international fashion centre, and mimics the Italian couture capital with its marriage of business and fashion, a home of high-class prêt a porter.

"In some ways, Moscow is closer to Milan," he said. "Like Milan, Moscow has a strong base of Russian designers. It's still a new sphere, still in its growing stages, but very dynamic. I haven't had much time to follow all the collections, but I saw Vassa, and it was fantastic.

"Also, last time, two young Russian designers participated in Milan Fashion Week, Lena Karnaukhova and Maria Kravtsova. Karnaukhova has a younger, easy style, while Kravtsova is more French-minded, more like haute couture. It shows that Moscow has many designers going in different directions, which is a good thing - it creates a wealth of fashion."

Boselli admitted that it was almost impossible to pinpoint the birth of a new trend. "While it is the textile industry which first offers and promotes their new products to designers, the designers also ask the textile industry to make changes, the designers also choose what they want," he said. "But in the end, it's the young people, the consumers, who decide. Whatever the designers or industry promotes, if the people don't like it, they don't buy it. So it's the consumers who have the final deciding power."

In his role as the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana president, Boselli has worked closely with Russian Fashion Week and plays a key role in the "Italian Day", which brings top Italian designers to the catwalks of the World Trade Centre.

This year's star turn was Ennio Capasa, designer and founder of C'N'C Costume National. Beyond dressing movie stars, he also designed the latest Alfa Romeo 149 model and a Ducati motorcycle.

In an interview with The Moscow News, Capasa said he had been a creative rebel since his schooldays. On his first day of elementary school, he put on his mandatory school uniform, a boring affair in black, and promptly wriggled out of the aesthetically barren garment. No, this was not for him. Every day for a week he took off his uniform, until his schoolteacher called his mother in for a talk.

The upshot of it was that his mother took the boy to a psychologist who, after a month-long observation, wrote a paper saying that this child cannot be made to wear a uniform, lest it have adverse effects on his psychological development. Capasa alone went to school in his own clothes, while the hundreds of other children wore their uniforms. "I felt absolutely great - with my clothes!" he says.

Asked what the key to success in the fashion industry is, Capasa said "Work very hard".

"It's also important to have a unique style. There's so much fashion out there in the world, it's not enough to make a beautiful jacket. You must make a beautiful jacket which can be recognized as yours. It must make people say, ‘Wow, this is Ennio Capasa', otherwise I don't think a designer would have a long life."

Big girls and crisis-busting couture

Even as the crisis is nibbling into your budget, Slava Zaitsev kicked off Russian Fashion Week with a bid to prove that it's still possible to dress well.

Russia's best-known designer traditionally opens the festival with a flamboyant display, but his "Despite" collection featured less elaborate and extravagant creations than usual. They were still gorgeous and supremely elegant, but embroidery had been replaced with print fabrics, lines had become simpler and straighter and cheaper materials like knits and jerseys were seen in abundance. The designer himself wore a simple long white jacket instead of the red brocaded, embroidered and embellished jacket he wore the last time around.

Although the majority of the collection was in simple black and white and red, there was a smattering of more colourful ethnic influences - warm stripes, chunky bead accessories and cheerful light hats inspired by conical straw hats, the kind worn by rice farmers in southeast Asia. Although much more subdued than his previous luxurious collections, Zaitsev still impressed with a strong inimitable accent.

A notable element of this show was "Daina by Chistova & Endourova", which presented a collection dedicated entirely to plus-size women. Designers Chistova and Endourova designed the collection for mail-order service Daina, which has a wide range of sizes up to 5XL. Featuring singer Eva Polna (whose last name means "stout" in Russian) in the end, the models ranged from moderate to large. Unlike some of the stick-insect like aliens modeling other collections, many of these models looked much healthier - but they were undeniably much less used to the catwalk. Although they were not wearing stiletto heels, they still walked with some slight discomfort and did not have the polished strut of catwalk models and most looked at least mildly unsure of themselves.

Sadly the clothes were equally uninspiring, some seeming slightly drab and not innovative in any way. While the designers' intentions were good, concentrating on more practical and conservative designs, the clothes, in shades of brown, dull pink, muted navy, beige and grey, were not attractive enough to catch the eye. Hair and makeup were definitely unflattering, with the hair looking like a pudding basin cut with a permanent wave, and strong red lipstick.