Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
173
Couture a la Russe
For most of the 1980s and 1990s, Russian fashion was best characterized by a
TV ad for the Wendy's fast-food chain. At a Soviet fashion show, an emcee
shouted “Eveningwear!” and a stern, shapeless woman stomped down a run-
way in a burlap sack, carrying a flashlight. “Beachwear!” the emcee cried, and
the same woman in the same sack appeared, holding a beach ball. Wendy's, the
ad claimed, offered the dizzying choices so unavailable behind the Iron Cur-
tain. Indeed, for decades Russians wore variations on the same gray suits and
uncomfortable shoes made in Soviet-bloc textile factories, and the brave ones
offered visiting tourists money for their Levi's jeans and leather jackets.
All that changed after 1991. The birth of Russia's nouveau riche, a class of
people dripping with money made in privatizations and hungry for once-
inaccessible luxuries, affected marketing departments at fashion houses
around the world. Boutiques along the tony Rue de Faubourg St-Honore in
Paris now keep Russian-speaking staff to handle the steady stream of Russian
customers ready to drop several thousand dollars in cash at one go. Miami's
Versace boutique counts Russians as its most reliable customers. Sales at the
Prada boutique in Moscow rival those at its flagship store in Milan. Russian
models, too, are a hot commodity on runways in Paris and Milan.
Meanwhile, Russian designers have matured fast, and are increasingly col-
laborating with American, Italian, and French colleagues. Perhaps as a backlash
against years of dull uniformity, Russian fashion tends to be brightly colored,
sparkly, sexy, and daring, something you're sure to notice on the streets of
Moscow or St. Petersburg. Russians' love for showing off labels is starting to
fade, but you still may see people dressed head to toe in gear covered in the
names
CHANEL
and
DIOR
. To see work by Russian designers, try the Tretyakovsky
Proyezd shopping zone, where many are concentrated in one place (1 Tretya-
kovsky Proyezd; Metro: Lubyanka) or the following boutiques:
Valentin Yudashkin Trading House (Moscow).
19 Kutuzovsky Prospekt.
&
499/240-1189.
www.yudashkin.com. Metro: Kievskaya or Kutuzovskaya.
Igor Chapurin Boutique (Moscow).
6/3 Kuznetsky Most
&
495/660-5076.
www.chapurin.com. Metro: Kuznetsky Most.
8
souvenirs and gifts for family and friends back home. You can also try shops on the Arbat,
including:
Arbatskaya Lavitsa
This longtime staple on the Arbat still has one of the best selec-
tions of traditional Russian souvenirs. The range of
matryoshka
dolls is impressive, and
the delicate boxes of carved birch wood make for original and relatively inexpensive gifts,
as do the wooden toys featuring Russian fairy tale mainstays such as bears and forest
mushrooms. Prices are not exorbitant as they are in some of the other shops on this street.
You can always head outside and bargain with the street vendors for a better deal, though
quality is always uncertain.
27 Arbat St.
&
495/690-5689.
Metro: Arbatskaya, Smolenskaya.
