Say “No!” to fur hats and Doctor Zhivago chic! Young Moscow designers don’t care about “Russian Style”. Russia has moved brutally from Pravda to Prada

In the Russian capital, five minutes walk from Red Square there is an evening show where expensive clothes are the stars: it's Moscow Fashion Week. Gostinny Dvor, the gem of 18th century architecture, hosted over a period of many hours one fashion show after another. On average each model has about 30 seconds to turn a piece of cloth into a sensation.

At the main hall the wealthy guests of the show walk around the Russian fashion houses’ showrooms touching colourful cloths. Some of the female visitors wearing Prada outfits and high heels do indeed distract audiences from the catwalk and the professional models.

As Suzy Menkes, the British fashion critique feared by many designers, once said Russia has moved brutally from Pravda to Prada.

This week over 50 Fashion Houses present their collections, and a huge variety of boutiques on the streets of Moscow are waiting for their high society clients.

Even though Moscow still can’t compete with fashion capitals such as Paris, New-York, Milan or London, Russian designers obtained a certain status abroad a long time ago And above all we’re talking about Valentin Udashkin.

Russian style: fur and wool means “urban and European”
This fashion tsar of low stature with long black hair creates clothes for Svetlana Medvedeva, Russia’s future first lady. Thanks to Udashkin even Russian army has enjoyed some fashion. For Victory Day parade this star designer prepared new a uniform for the Russian army.

Among the top ten Russian designers we also find Igor Chapurin. He worked many times on sketches for ballet productions in Bolshoi theatre. Since 2005 models have worn his clothes on Paris catwalks. The inspiration for his new Autumn-Winter collection called “Anna Karenina” comes from Leo Tolstoy's books. Fur and wool dominate the collection.

Anastasia Sergeyeva, one of the three designers making clothes for Marmalade label believes that “Russia is searching for its identity. We have a long way to go!”.

From Der Spiegel