Today is the closing day of Ukrainian Fashion Week. This year it combines two spectacular fashion events: Fashion Seasons and the international festival Kyiv Podium. True to a time-honored tradition, Fashion Seasons opened with a collection by Lilia Pustovit. The Day’s correspondent recently met with Lilia and recorded her monologue on internal freedom, constraints, street fashion, and more.
I have recently traveled to Lo ndon and Paris. The two trips made me think about how our sense of identity and internal freedom is very superficial compared to how it is felt in genuine democracies of Europe. I consider myself a free person. But then I came across a collection by a London-based designer. It resembled what I am creating now and plan to show at the upcoming Fashion Week. Yet I caught myself thinking about how confined I am compared to him. I always tell my design personnel: “Keep it less flamboyant, and fewer folds here, etc.” Meanwhile, his dresses, folds, and volumes are really something. I want to let my emotions spill out, yet what is quite adequate there looks like complete overkill here. Perhaps this is all because of the very high level of their “high street fashion,” or fashionable street clothing of the highest class. But then I thought that perhaps we too have a certain degree of freedom if only because we can see the difference between us and them and face it, take stock of ourselves, and realize that we are no longer within an enclosed space. I like London very much because everything is truly democratic there. I lived and worked in Paris, and I have always seen Paris as a city full of contrasts, because Frenchmen are quite reserved, especially Parisians. On the one hand, their is a very bourgeois society. On the other hand, all their problems stem from their colonial, aggressive history.
While some streets in Paris are lined with luxurious stores, there can be a real ghetto just around the corner. Meanwhile, in London all of this is combined very softly. There is a new popular movement among the children of aristocrats. They wear Hip Hop clothing, listen to RNB and Hip Hop, while an absolutely democratic look is all the rage for them. Clearly, they do not hide their aristocratic background, but neither do they flaunt it. It is a very interesting phenomenon. I know such people in Ukraine. While they really can afford a great deal, their interest lies with selecting amusing and very cheap clothing.
London is famous for its theatrical traditions. In the vicinity of Covent Garden alone there are close to 15 grand theaters that can accommodate several thousands of viewers each. And each one of them draws a full house on any weekday or weekend night. London has a very strong theater tradition. The audience is very empathic and responds as if it were a single person. As soon as the last bell rings, all conversations cease at once. Everybody is prepared to absorb what they will be offered now. I was impressed by everything: the vocals, the appearance of actors, their dramatic capabilities, the stage director’s work, and set designs. All costumes are made of expensive cloths, there are no cheap props. I had a similar experience in the best theaters of Moscow. Unfortunately, I rarely see this in Kyiv.
Speaking of analogies, people often ask me how different people in Kyiv’s streets look from those in Paris. Let me tell you right off that young people here and there are dressed almost identically. As for the older generation, only in London can you see a respectable, conservatively dressed man, with beige and brown colors predominating in his clothing. At the same time he can be wearing bright red socks. It really shows that London is the home city of the punk. Just picture a neat and dainty old lady with a nice hairdo topped off with a violet lock of hair. You won’t see this in Paris. The English are more eccentric. Unfortunately, after the perestroika our streets were flooded with low-grade culture, with gang leaders and sexually aggressive blondes becoming our “role models.” These trends are still being felt today. What Europeans unmistakably associate with an image of women in red-light districts, some of us still see as an ideal of beauty. Respectable women do not realize that their appearance is vulgar, they wear too many ornaments and makeup that looks too artificial. This is also something by which to tell a difference among cities.
For the future Ukrainian Fashion Week I created two collections. For me personally, I divided them into a “quarter of the Sun” and a “quarter of the Moon.” Obviously, this is a result of present-day contradictions. The “quarter of the Sun” uses ethnic Ukrainian motifs with a more positive, youthful mood. The other collection is dominated by lilac and violet colors, which are absolutely untypical of me. I decided to separate these two lines because they cannot be combined in a single collection. The other collection has more to do with urban culture, a striving to liberate emotions and absorb them at the same time, for the human being is like a pendulum. Perhaps this is because there is too much work and information. A person wants to swing sharply one way to spill out energy and exchange it at the same time. We are torn apart by passions, including political ones. Meanwhile, all we want is to read books, go to see a play, and enjoy music.
