FASHION

From Ukraine with Love

Three up-and-coming designers to watch from Pitti Uomo in Florence.


Anna K
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Daria Shapovalova of The Swans The ring leader of this group is Shapovalova, who hosted her own fashion TV program before helming the launch of Mercedes-Benz fashion week Almaty (one of Ukraine’s two annual fashion weeks) and launching her own label, The Swans. When she’s not being photographed dressed in Ukrainian designs or penning street style reports for her blog Daria’s Diaries, Shapovalova is organizing a travelling showroom called More Dash.

Shapovalova wears a dress by The Swans.

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Shapovalova’s latest project is her women’s label The Swans, which gets its name from Truman Capote. The first collection featured cartoon prints by fellow designer Anna K on simple twill sheaths.

A look from The Swans’s Spring 2015 collection.

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Kostya Omelya of Omelya The 26-year-old designer’s line Omelya, which launched in Kiev for Spring 2014, is deliberately simple. The androgynous, ample shapes mean that men can wear them too.

A look from Omelya’s Spring 2015 collection.

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“I like minimalism and special accents,” says Omelya, who cites Bauhaus geometry as an inspiration for his Fall 2015 collection.

A look from Omelya’s Pre-Fall 2015 collection.

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Anna K Anna K, 19, launched her first collection three years ago with a snarky series called Fashion Circus (named after a column penned by Suzy Menkes in the New York Times), featuring statements like “I Don’t Give Interviews,” “Follow the Buyers,” and “I Am On The List.” Next, she incorporated some of the words she heard as a teenage model “without really understanding the meanings” – “It Girl,” “Sold Out,” “Must Have”—into a collection of Fashion Dictionary tees. And most recently, K launched the Dream Team collection, a T-shirt collaboration with Les(Art)Ists with the last names and birth years of her favorite models : Cara Delevingne, Coco Rocha, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Natalia Vodianova.

Anna K x Les(Art)Ists T-shirt.

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This spring, K added ready-to-wear, drawing inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl” in her bow-filled, embroidered, flirty collection.

A look from Anna K’s Spring 2015 collection.