Valentin Yudashkin Paris Fashion Week S/S 2013

The presentation of Valentin Yudaskin’s collection at Paris Fashion Week unfolded like a Chekhov play—the kind where the gun goes off in Act III. His show began with tailored, androgynous-yet-suggestive pantsuits, escalated in drama to hyper-feminine dresses with small waists and long slits, and climaxed in a grand finale featuring intense glimmer and serpentine embroidery. The collection has been criticized for being too cacophonic, but disorder and superfluity are what make Russian drama—and Yudaskin’s work—so great. Like a novel or play, or the “cutting-edge art of the nineties” that Yudaskin says inspired the Spring/Summer 2013 collection, each outfit is multidimensional.

Let’s analyze three very different outfits from this collection. The first piece—an all-white suit with a fitted blazer and flared pants—has a gentle nautical theme, with its gold buttons and badge sewn on the left pocket. Throughout the collection, traditionally male accessories like bowties, fedoras and ties are rendered ladylike and elegant—certainly a master of theatricality would employ irony when possible. Splashes of fiery pigments come as a welcome surprise in the primarily white, navy and gold color palate of this collection. One high-low, strapless white dress with feather-like orange and vermillion streaks gathers at the side of the model’s waist, allowing the filmy silk to trail behind her lightly, like smoke emitted by a phoenix. The penultimate dress of the collection would be completely transparent if not for the futuristic embroidery that runs throughout the piece in sinuous lines. Since Yudaskin is not a stranger to designing haute couture, the embroidery—which looks as though it was made from found metal objects and broken shells—is impeccably stitched and well-distributed throughout the dress.

Valentin Yudashkin is Russia’s most illustrious designer. He is a member of the Syndicate of High Fashion in Paris—the only Russian designer to hold that position. His pieces are displayed in various museums, including the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the national artist of Russia, he redesigned Russia’s military uniforms. His ongoing theme of Soviet-kitsch-meets-Winter-Palace-extravagance is a silent love letter to his homeland.