The Ukrainian week of pret-a-porter fashions for the spring-summer 2007 season ended with Viktoria Hres’s collection. During the week, some famous and not-so-famous couturiers showed more than 30 collections, many of which looked very similar. Since the same design motifs ran through every other collection, we can single out certain trends. So what’s hot for next spring and summer?
THE ETERNAL CLASSICS
This season designers have been creating not practical but romantic and feminine clothing, more suitable for high-society soirees than everyday living. In their view, a woman should remain feminine in spite of everything. This idea was embodied in a plethora of the most diverse cuts of dresses made predominantly of silk and linen. Hres’s collection is designed for those who like elegance and light silhouettes. The couturiere emphasizes dresses with hems that fly about when the wearer strides, low-cut necks, and lace sleeves. There were matching raincoats shaped like an 8 and decorated with jabots and frills. The colors ranged from beige, pink, and brown to gold.
But clothing that is too “sweet” does not appeal much to the modern woman.
Fashion designers know this and complement these light silhouettes with big corset-like belts. You can spot this not only in Hres, who featured them in her second collection in a row, but in the collections of every third designer.
Yurii Varyvoda’s collection repeated a lot of these motifs. He combined wide belts with short, square-cut jackets and hip-hugging skirts.
Interestingly, in this case the designer drew inspiration from the ballerina Isadora Duncan, who was the first to dance barefoot. His collection is called “Dedicated to the Great Barefoot Dancer.” Varyvoda was the third designer during Ukrainian Fashion Week to show his fascination with ballet.
Jackets occupied a special place in the collections. They were plentiful and of various designs: from severe businesswomen’s jackets to playful ones with droll embroidery for the older schoolgirl. Most, however, were tapered and short.
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO HANG OUT
Olena Holets offered a more youthful style of femininity and elegance combined with boldness. Her models wore striped dresses with matching loose, white low-riding trousers. The designer showed a large variety of luxurious skirts that, by all accounts, will remain popular in the spring and summer of 2007, and bell-shaped skirts and shorts of different lengths will be all the rage.
Holets used accessories, like anchors on crude chains, very wide-brimmed hats; T shirts were printed with pictures of yachts,and jeans-with pictures of busty girls. It was an evening for blondes in Saint Tropez: only
fair-haired girls were chosen as models, and the collection’s theme was the sea and the discotheque.
Jeans can also be called classical clothing because they are so universal. Jeans can be worn with anything, even dresses or rococo-style powdered wigs, as Hres’s show demonstrated. For real life, the designer suggested that jeans can be worn with loose chiffon bow-trimmed blouses, sporty jackets with kangaroo pockets and silk lining, and narrow-waisted coats and kimonos. Hres even designed jeans into bridal attire. The designer says there is nothing surprising about this because many of her customers have had the same idea.
Young people can find something good in Viktor Anisimov’s second collection, which he created together with the soccer player Vladyslav Vashchuk. This rather unusual duo came up with clothing mostly in subdued gray and olive colors and generously adorned with patch pockets, zippers, and gold trademark logos. Also interesting were transformer blouses. Pursuing the soccer theme, the designer created a reversible jersey graced with a big letter D (Dynamo Club), but if you turn the jersey inside out, you see the words “Shakhtar Champion.” You can boldly set out on your travels throughout the country in this kind of clothing.
If you choose to play bowling, you can wear a comfortable buttoned skirt and a striped blouse, or at least Khrystyna Husina thinks so. Her 2007 spring-summer collection was simply called “Bowling.” The designer used accessories, like little knitted scarves, bandannas, knee-high socks, and big bags bearing her logo. Even though this collection was designed as recreational wear, it had a low profile. Husina used only three colors: red, beige, and black.
WHAT YEAR ARE WE LIVING IN?
Most designers claim that fashion is returning to the 80s. Others say that the auteur style and contemporized old styles have become so blended that it is very difficult to identify the year. For example, Viktoria Krasnova mixed the Ukrainian national costume, minimalism, and inspiration drawn from Trypillian Culture to create quite wearable dresses in black-and-white and terra-cotta with a Trypillian pot on the bust and broad black suspenders.
Anna Bublyk blended retro with the 1920s and the jazz era. The result was below- the-knee dropped waist dresses with bell-shaped sleeves, decoratively embroidered flowers, and the sponsor’s trademark.
Tetiana Zemskova and Alena Vorozhbyt created a safari-themed collection. Their knits were imprinted with pictures of rhinoceroses as well as the names of the designers and the sculptor Oleh Pinchuk, who inspired this pair of designers. Metal trimming, straps, and buckles in colors ranging from white and all shades of sand to gold turned the theme of the collection to advantage.
Black and white colors will be popular in spring and summer 2007. Sometimes the abundance of these colors in the most diverse combinations on the catwalk made you blink your eyes. Olive and pastel shades of beige and pink are still popular.
Experts predict that gold will give way to silver. Small-and large-checked fabrics will also be in demand. But almost all the designers agree that the main thing is not to follow fashion blindly but to develop your style and learn how to combine different details properly.
