While Ukrainian designers uphold the “Ukrainian fashion” brand in front of the Milan public, Ukraine is getting ready for its own Fashion Week. In less than a month, October 13 through 17, the 29th Ukrainian Fashion Week (UFW) will be taking place at the National culture and art museum complex Mystetsky Arsenal. Forty-two Ukrainian designers, ten out of whom will present their collections on special stages “New Names” and “Fresh Fashion,” will open the new fashion season of Spring-Summer 2012 in Kyiv. It is noteworthy that this is second Fashion Week that will be held at Mystetsky Arsenal.
According to the organizing committee, the main Ukrainian fashion runway has been gathering about 25,000 guests for 14 years in a row with a convincing stability, twice a year. During the last years the UFW masterminds have been elaborating an eventful out-of-the-catwalk program which brings up not only fashion issues, but burning social issues as well. This year the UFW is going to present a new vision of their key slogan: “Fashion is apolitical, but not asocial” by carrying out a new communication program for the Ukrainian National Assembly of the Disabled. The plan is to get people with limited abilities emloyed as hostesses and models for designers’ shows during the Fashion Week as a part of this project. According to Volodymyr Nechyporuk, UFW general producer, with the help of this program the UFW is determined to convince society that fashion is a wider concept than just clothes, shoes, or accessories. The disabled are fully fledged members of our society and UFW fall shows will prove that the Ukrainian fashion world is ready to explicitly demonstrate its position concerning these people’s intergation into active social life, Iryna Danylevska said. “The availability of beauty and fa-shion has to be absolute,” emphasized Danylevska.
Traditionally the UFW will invite leading foreign buyers to let them familiarize with the latest achievements of domestic fashion designers. The organizing committee hopes that this time the event will be attended by eight foreign guests. One of them is Li Edelkoort, a world-famous trendsetter and trend predictor, and one of the 25 most influential fashion experts according to Time.
The 29th UFW will be special also because an exposition dedicated to the 20th anniversary of independent Ukraine’s fashion history will be open within its framework. This will not be just like any museum exhibit, and it will not be chronologically organized. Instead, it will reflect one of the most vital themes of modern art: the interaction between the artist and the human body, noted the UFW press service. The exposition will be called “Body Limits.” The exhibit is supposed to include nearly 40 works by designers who have been active 1991 through 2011. The admission will be free, emphasized the UFW press service.
