There has been very little politics at New York Fashion Week this season, but the mere presence of Ukrainian designer Svitlana Bevza was a reminder of the ongoing war and the much-needed American aid package making its way through Congress .
The designer, who founded Bevza in 2006 in kyiv, where it is still produced, chose a symbolic location: the Ukrainian Institute of America, founded by Ukrainian immigrant William Dzus in 1948, to protect and promote his culture, which was being silenced by the Soviets, he said.
Bevza has been going back and forth from London, where her children are now at school, to kyiv, where her husband and business remain. “The main mission is to continue talking about our cultural heritage… and as a designer I have a medium to talk about the beautiful parts of Ukraine and the main thing we fight for, which is the grain,” she said of the incorporation of the Accessories in spikelet shape, inspired by a sacred Ukrainian symbol of fertile land, in some of its fall 2024 garments and accessories, such as brooches that fasten the sides of a gray double-faced wool poncho with a funnel neck, or adorn the neckline of a silk dress with a bias cut. dresses, for example, and T-bars on shoes, expanding its successful range of Spikelet jewelery and now Spikelet bags.
Following the link between grain and bread led the designer to create apron dresses, which she beautifully presented in various materials and shapes, including viscose and vegan leather, along with feminine suits, while the “Kosa” braided bread pattern was turned one stitch into an open thick knit. vest.
The traditional “Kozukh” shearling coats added texture and were adapted into a lovely rounded cream quilted coat and a double-faced wool cream coat with shawl detail. It was a gorgeous lineup that had a lot to add to the season's minimalist fashion conversation, and should make Bevza one to watch alongside Toteme and others leading the look.
“It's important to know that a lot of the money that goes to Ukraine comes from the United States, but my mission is to show the aesthetic part so that maybe people will start searching on Google differently,” he said during a preview before expanding the current state of affairs.
“I believe we will win this war. The price people are paying: too many victims, too many civilians. I went to Ukraine two weeks ago, when I arrived there was another air raid alert. Mermaids. I was driving from the train station in an area that they normally hit, I don't know why they hit, rockets, there's nothing in this area. In Russia, some machine stands in one direction and just fires rockets there. So I asked the driver if he could quickly pass through this area. And within 20 minutes rockets fell there. So when I'm not there, I live in a parallel reality.”
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