Back in the U.s.s.r.: Russias Fashion Resurgence

For a new generation of designers, real memories of Soviet Russia shine brighter than the fantasy of peasants and princesses.A group of whey-faced teenage models are assembled at the Regional Centre of Youth Culture in Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian territory on the Baltic Sea. They are there for a fashion show, as are around 150 editors and buyers most standing, some sitting in the 40 beaten-up velvet-upholstered chairs provided who have traveled from around the world to see the fall 2017 collection by 32-year-old mens wear designer Gosha Rubchinskiy.

The boys walk through a simple white curtain, sneakers squeaking, down a long stretch of parquet wooden floor flanked by a row of faded mirrors. The clothes are as humble as the surroundings: military-influenced shirts with epaulets, naval peacoats, boxy shirts with clipped ties and lots of sportswear pieces emblazoned with Cyrillic characters. Many in the audience had made the nine-hour flight from London, where the January 2017 mens wear shows had kicked off earlier in the week.

The next day, most left to catch Ermenegildo Zegna, the first show of the Milan mens wear calendar, dragging through a connection in Moscow from Kalingrad's small airport.Why would anyone bother making the trip especially in the dead of winter? Because Rubchinskiy is one of the most important names in fashion now; and because, at the moment, Russias influence on the industry is so wide-reaching that one could only compare it to the turn of the last century, when Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes electrified the world.

Beyond the ballets lasting impact on contemporary choreography and composition, it exerted an unprecedented influence on prewar fashion its costumes became couture. Leaf through any fashion history book, and the Ballets Russes mark is apparent: After 1909, when the corps debuted in Paris, it was out with the pastels and the sinuous Art Nouveau lines of the Edwardian era, and in with bold color and exoticism. Most notably, Paul Poirets themes and decorative motifs were inspired by the designs of Belarus-born Lon Bakst, who created sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes.

Bakst toyed with the brilliant contrasts of color in classic Russian embroideries, as well as the sarafan, a traditional folk dress whose shape he translated into tunics worn over trousers a silhouette that, in 1912, became the wire-hemmed lampshade or minaret skirt in Poirets hands. Inspiring many followers, Poirets seemingly revolutionary designs primary hues, harem pants, hobble skirts and oriental-inspired turbans alongside Cossack-style coats trimmed in fur and folkloric embroideries originated on the Ballets Russes stage.The ballets influence endured long after the end of its run in 1929, and was still felt, almost 50 years later, in Yves Saint Laurents Russian Collection of the late 70s.

His fall couture show in 1976 included tasseled boots, Slavic embroideries and the distinctive fur-trimmed hats known as papakhas. It wasnt really Russian, but rather a fantasy of Russia, just as Diaghilevs ballets idealized Russia, proposing not the reality of a country then teetering on the brink of a revolt, but the richness of a czarist past, romanticizing peasants (and serfdom), ignoring the harsh realities of the present. The Ballets Russes, incidentally, was never able to perform in Russia given the political turmoil that exploded shortly after its debut.

What Russia actually represented, as a fashion inspiration in 1909 as well as in 1976 was, simply, otherness. The romance of an exotic country and another time.Its all very different, on the surface, from the clothes Gosha Rubchinskiy showed in the city of Kaliningrad.

Theyre Russian, but resolutely based in reality, not wish fulfillment. Rubchinskiy who is pale, shaven-headed and would look like a hooligan if not for his engaging smile is frequently lumped together with Demna Gvasalia, the designer of Vetements who won the coveted creative director post at Balenciaga in 2015, and Lotta Volkova, a stylist who has worked with both and styled shows for the British brand Mulberry and the Italian label Emilio Pucci for fall. Together, they are generating a newfound fascination with Russian fashion and an updated ballet a dance between the aesthetics of the Eastern Bloc and the Western world.

Drawing primarily on the strictures and strangeness of the U.S.S.

R., which collapsed on Dec. 25, 1991, Rubchinskiys clothes look like ersatz counterfeits of Western sportswear for the fall, his brightly colored polyester T-shirts are printed with the word , which means football.

Theyre produced in collaboration with Adidas, although the combination of the brands triple stripe with the Cyrillic lettering resembles an arresting Canal Street fake. Rubchinskiy achieved a similar effect the season before, when he worked with Kappa and Fila, combing their logos with his name in the distinctive, decorative script of his native language. With an abstract appeal, it cant be read unless you know Russian, but the instantly recognizable jumble of backward lettering is understood all the same.

Demna Gvasalia doesnt use Russian characters, but theres a Soviet sense to his aesthetic: oversize and shrunken garments layered in a haphazard way, and awkward proportions in odd fabrics, like fake leather or Lurex. They recall the kind of dowdy, out-of-fashion clothes that were all you could get in the final years of the Communist regime, when, as Gvasalia recalls, a simple pair of Levis jeans was a prized possession, and the result of much haggling and smuggling.Gvasalia was born in Georgia by the Black Sea; Rubchinskiy is from Moscow.

Volkova was raised in Vladivostok, near Russias border with China. Her work elucidates the aesthetic similarities between her, Gvasalia and Rubchinskiy: a focus on the grungy streetwear, synthetic fabrics and bold primary colors the trio grew up wearing. Distinctly Eastern European, with an odd affinity for the ugly or unusual, it doesnt look like high fashion at least it didnt, until now.

This new Russian look is one of the most pervasive on current runways which is, perhaps, why Volkova is so in demand to style advertising campaigns, runway shows and magazine stories; why Rubchinskiy sells in over 140 stores across the globe; why Gvasalia bagged the creative director role at Balenciaga. The trend has inspired lookalike brands (major European fashion houses and Muscovite start-ups alike), their clothes stamped with Russian writing; oversize, brashly colored, aggressive. The aesthetic also prevails in many fashion magazines.

Theres this whole big thing now about Russian style. Its such a trend, Volkova says. For us, its just something we grew up with.

Now, it feels different and very modern. The vision the trio has generated is not a conscious, clichd version of Russia, but rather something they experienced firsthand as teenagers in the 1990s. A reflection of their own reality, no different from Tom Ford reviving the slinky 70s styles he sported at Studio 54.

Thats not to say that the romantic representation of Russia and the legacy of the Ballets Russes are gone. Rubchinskiys headquarters in Moscow, located near the Barrikadnaya metro station in the shadow of one of Stalins skyscrapers, are barely a 15-minute walk from the store of Ulyana Sergeenko, a 37-year-old Muscovite who shows her dressy, sometimes fussy clothes bustiers, gypsy skirts, ball gowns aplenty on the Parisian haute couture schedule. Wearing a scarlet knot of lipstick like a Matryoshka doll, with her hair frequently wrapped in a babushka scarf, her appearance like her clothes is a million miles from that of Rubchinskiys.

Sergeenko is the former wife of Russian insurance billionaire Danil Khachaturov, and a haute couture client herself. Her designs are mired in Russian history and a contemporary lust for craftsmanship. At her atelier, she employs 100 artisans who embroider, bead and smock in techniques seen on the folk costumes of various Eastern European countries including former U.

S.S.R.

states like Kazakhstan, where she was born. The silhouettes recall traditional Russian styles, with tiered skirts, corseted waists and strange headgear including variations on the kokoshnik, the tall, crested headpiece embroidered with pearls, which can be found in the portraits of Russian royals. If Rubchinskiy and Gvasalia are dressing us as members of the proletariat, Sergeenkos clothes are an odd conflation of peasants and princesses the garb of the former with the price tags of the latter.

She sells to a number of high-profile Russian clients.The czarina look, proposed by Sergeenko and labels like Valentino and Jean Paul Gaultier, who have relentlessly mined Russia for gold in the past, represents another strand of Russias influence that has been cycling continually through fashion since the days of Diaghilev. It consists of heavily beaded and fur-trimmed dresses, high necked and long sleeved, vaguely reminiscent of Russian peasant styles, available only to those with the deep pockets of an oligarch.

But what does the new Russian aesthetic of Vetements and Rubchinskiys sportswear suggest? Perhaps that Russias youth are just as eager to embrace their heritage even if their heritage isnt just homespun folksiness or czarist magnificence. Instead, its the romance of times recently passed.

What people call East Bloc today in the West, its not from now. Its from the 90s, Gvasalia says. Its very much a nostalgic moment, I think, even for those people from the East Bloc who come and see certain references that I use or Gosha uses.

Its not Russia today thats completely different stuff, which is less interesting. Maybe in 10 years, I dont know .Kaliningrad, which is actually an unincorporated area that was once part of Germany, is, for all intents and purposes, the real Russia.

At the airport, there are Technicolor portraits of Vladimir Putin, eerily similar to those of Stalin. The city doesnt have the glamour of Moscow, or the picturesque history of St. Petersburg.

Its architecture is mostly anonymous and a little down-at-heel, despite a few remaining 19th-century buildings and occasional Renaissance flourishes that reflect its past incarnation, prior to Soviet victory in the Second World War, as a city named Knigsberg. The way Rubchinskiy sees it, Kaliningrad represents a small piece of Russia in the middle of Europe, an idea one could easily project onto the designer himself, who wholesales his clothes in Paris, via Comme des Garons, to stores across Europe, Asia and the United States.Rubchinskiy doesnt talk about influence, or inspiration, or even Russian style, just Russia, bold and plain.

Or a word he, for the first time, printed under his namesake label, in the way old couture houses use the subtitle Paris as a totem of their fashion credentials. It suggests he sees his clothing as an actual piece of the country, unadulterated and unfiltered. The honest truth.

Perhaps thats what he and his contemporaries are striving for, in these unremarkable-seeming clothes that are nevertheless remarkable because they reflect the actuality of Russia today, yesterday and maybe tomorrow.Or maybe its just a language thing.