This year Ukrainian Fashion Week broke with its 10-year tradition of having Ukraine’s leading designer Lilia Poustovit open the fashion show season with her clothing collection. Instead, the latest Poustovit Brand collection and a few items from the exclusive fall/winter line Poustovit for Atelier-1 were the finale of the week of Ukrainian fashions.
The Poustovit show introduced fresh, sophisticated images. There was a maximum of naturalness and harmony, and a minimum of make-up, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word. Even though Poustovit’s images are immediately “canonized” in Ukraine’s world of fashion, every new collection does not insist on its indisputable and unconditional status. Each time it is a gust of fresh air for fashion critics and specialists as well as for those who are capable of seeing and sensing fresh light faces with simple hairdos combined with refined dramatic touches in her clothing.
Poustovit’s line featured wool combined with glossy silk and knitted matte layers that had a surprising mobility. The foundation of the designer’s inspiration was a combination of nature and contemporary architecture, which played out in silhouettes in the shape of cocoons, flounces, and stair-like draping designs that keep their shape thanks to stiff materials. This detail was the accent of the show, along with pleats and construction details in the shape of folded triangles. Nature contributed both ideas and colors to the Poustovit collection. Shades of coffee, wet sand, olive, claret, muslin, emerald-green — and black, of course — reminded the designer of the Baltic coast in winter, the sea’s dark hues, light sand, and the shadows of a green pine forest.
Yurii Khustochak, the bass guitarist of Aesthetic Education, who was invited to the fashion show, admitted that he knows little about fashion but quite a few things about people:
“I rarely see Lilia, but she impresses me a lot. Both of us are roughly from the same world, so we don’t have many problems finding a common language. I don’t know much about fashion shows, just like I don’t know anything about domestic or international trends, but I think her latest collection turned out a bit medieval and rather aloof. In my amateurish opinion, it was a synthesis of haute couture and pret-a-porter approaches. I find it hard to picture people wearing this kind of clothing, but these designs would be quite appropriate for some special, unconventional events. Too bad I couldn’t talk to Lilia during the fashion show, so I am using this occasion to send her my greetings.”
Ukrainian MP Iryna Herashchenko saw this collection completely differently. She thinks it’s optimistic. “I think Poustovit’s collections are always marked by style and solid images. Her designs are invariably laconic, and she uses top-quality expensive fabrics. Whereas other fashion designers tend to radically change their style when they work on a new collection, Lilia always repeats certain details and moods. This collection features simplicity of lines, refined fabrics, and typical Poustovit details.”
During the press conference held after the fashion show, Poustovit said that the clothing she designed under her name for Atelier-1 ended up in top-level stores. “Ten years ago I had an opportunity to live and work in France. But I came back home to help develop Ukraine’s fashion industry and integrate it into the international community. It took me 10 long years, but I believe that we’ve come a long way, so there are considerably fewer efforts ahead of us.”
The designer issued an appeal to Ukrainians to stop using plastic bags, which are a big threat to the environment, and recommended a switch to cloth bags. “Aren’t we all concerned about the earth?”
Poustovit then went on to describe a project that is very important to her and her team. An exhibit dedicated to Oleksandra Ekster will open on May 18, marking the museum’s anniversary.
“This artist was one of the Amazons of the Russian avant- garde, but in reality she was very Ukrainian. Our project is aimed at telling Ukraine about her very important Ukrainian roots and the birth of the avant-garde movement in Ukraine. We’re putting together a collection that will launch the Oleksandra Ekster exhibit. This will be the first time that so many of her works will be accessible to the public, because most of her paintings are in private collections in France and Switzerland. They will be brought to Ukraine, Ekster’s native land, only for a certain period of time. For me it will be an opportunity to make certain decorative couture things for the first time,” Poustovit said.
