TAKING ON THE WORLD Russian designer makes U.S. debut

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 25

TAKING ON THE WORLD Russian designer makes U.S. debut

BARBARA BRIGHT

of Reuters (through NZPA) New York The American debut of a top Soviet designer provided the first headline event of New York’s spring fashion collections. Viyacheslav Zaitsev anchored hemlines firmly below the knee, against a rising trend. About 300 buyers, diplomats, and journalists turned out at the luxury WaldorfAstoria hotel for a show of clothes created by the exuberant Soviet, aged 49, who is considered his country’s leading designer. Zaitsev’s collection, which will be manufactured in the United States using American fabrics, focused on a soft, flowing, layered look with an elegant retro quality. He showed only one pair of trousers. His clothes are clearly intended for conservative women who find current designers too brassy and provocative. “We don’t make clothes as fancy as these anymore,” said Jimmy Tanner, whose North Carolina firm will take Zaitsev’s patterns to produce

the garments. “He’s got five or six yards to a garment, we’re accustomed to three and a half.” The manufacturer said he had asked Zaitsev why none of his skirts were at the midthigh length favoured by European and American designers. “He said he didn’t believe in them,” said Tanner. Zaitsev’s creations have already been seen by millions, according to a press spokeswoman from the newly-estab-lished United States firm, the House of Zaitsev. She said Raisa Gorbachev wore his designs for her first visit to the West when her husband, the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, met the United States President, Ronald Reagan, at the 1985 Geneva summit. “It is simply a delight that a woman has appeared who is the wife of the country’s leader and also nice to look at,” he said. Zaitsev, who first travelled to the West last year and has never been to Paris, Milan, London or New York, said he kept up with Western trends

through fashion magazines, although his own designs are mainly inspired by Russian traditions. “I want to break the stereotype that Russians wear only padded jackets and felt boots,” said Zaitsev in an interview at his Dom Mody fashion house on Moscow’s Prospekt Mira. “People know about Russian art and the Russian ballet, but they know nothing about Russian fashion. I want to show the world we have talented people here too. He speaks of his mission in terms of art, beauty, elegance, and the desire to prove that the world is wrong to view Soviet women as dumpy provincials with no interest in style. Zaitsev sparked a revolution in Soviet thinking about fashion when he opened Dom Mody five years ago and began presenting his designs in weekly style shows. The atmosphere is electric when Zaitsev, in black dinner jacket and burgundy bowtie, takes the stage and delivers a short course on the basics of good dress, as stunning Soviet

models parade to pulsating rock music. A woman in the audience hastily sketches an elegantly draped cocktail dress. The prices of Zaitsev’s clothes can be prohibitive. The cost of a dress in his current collection approaches 200 roubles ($500), the average Soviet monthly salary. Many of his customers are foreign. Zaitsev bristled when asked whether the average Soviet woman could afford his clothes. “Can you afford a dress by Dior?” he retorted. He blamed steep prices, and the fact that his styles are available only in Moscow and not eleswhere in the Soviet Union, on the failure of the Soviet clothing industry to mass produce quality fashion. “This is simply sad — a tragedy of our industry,” Zaitsev said. “My profession is to be a generator of ideas. Everything depends on who uses them and how. “Of course I would like to be able to produce ready-to-wear clothing — not five of each item, but 500 or 5000.

The prices would drop and the style would be more accessible. “I’m a Soviet man and a Russian artist. I want to help our women to be beautiful. They deserve it. But the officials in the clothing industry unfortunately don’t understand that this potential could be used for our country.” Zaitsev is more optimistic about his prospects in the United States. Zaitsev’s designs will retail there for SUS3OO ($495) to SUSSOO ($825) and up. The licensing arrangement was set up by Tamara Kerim, of Intertorg, a California-based private trading company that previously has handled industrial machinery, photographic, and construction equipment. “I saw a fashion show similar to this a year ago in Moscow and I thought these clothes would be beautiful for American women,” said Rus-sian-born Ms Kerim. It has taken nearly a year to set up the project; the first to promote and market Soviet fashion designs in the West.