Vika Gazinskaya is a young and upcoming Russian designer that has managed to challenge the present of Russian fashion scene and has drawn the attention of the world-known fashion designers and bloggers by merging her personal aesthetics with a rebellious spirit of her cloth. Exaggerated and blown out of proportion forms, oversized coats, all combinations of white, black and red with the wild patterns, disproportional pencil dresses, prints in the shape of forks and knives over the peg-top skirts and exaggerated buttons – all of the things harmonically compose the lines of Vika showing her individual couture voice with a glimpse of outrageousness. If you can imagine a slightly creepy atmosphere of David Lynch movies, Middle-Eastern motives, Geena Davis’ coat in the movie ‘Fly’, the style of the late 80s-early 90s, over-exaggerated forms with unexpected prints – all those elements would form what’s came to known as Vika Gazinskaya style. If you ask Vika: ‘What’s trendy now’ – she would probably say ‘the details’.
If you ask Vika: ‘What’s trendy now’ – she would probably say ‘the details’
Her looks and her street-style are all about the energy of the small details, those that give you a strong vibe, cultural atmosphere or a throwback to a certain point in the past.
Having first presented her first collection in 2007, she immediately drew the attention of the Russian fashion crowd with the individuality of the line rooting deeply in a futuristic atmosphere and the graphic forms of the clothes. She did not leave much room for indifference among the international crowd either when for the first time presented her line outside of Russia in 2010 in Paris. After that, she has been involved in the most happening events in the fashion scene like Paris Haute Couture Week, had her lines out in Parisian Collete boutique and won several prizes, such as ANMDAM and LVMH Prizes. While her popularity and fame progressed rapidly in the West, while she was gaining more and more support from the key fashion figures and international online fashion stores, her attitude has caused some controversies in her own ‘take-off runway’.
According to Vika ‘Made in russia’ sign on the tags of her clothes is no more than a thing that attracts foreigners that go for the ‘exotic things’. Going in as a global-player, Vika has never positioned herself as a Russian designer, in some cases maybe, even the other way around.
Casually throwing slightly anti-Russian captions in her Instagram, thanking western stores for the support and blaming Russia for the lack of opportunities, preconceptions of the progressiveness in fashion and conservatism, she very soon stirred a certain sense of enmity among deeply patriotic fashion designers and even political figures. In the various interviews, Vika has compared Russia to the ‘wind blowing straight in the face and blocking you from walking freely’, and herself with ‘a rare orchid growing in the North Pole’.
That instantly gave her the reputation of an unappreciative and narcissistic ‘it-girl’ overindulged in her own fame among the more settled crowd but at the same time caused high excitement and loads of hype among young Russian fashionistas. One way or another, she did not leave people indifferent, proving one more time that controversy, edginess, criticism towards the government and dark pr might not make you the most loved babe in Russia, but for sure are the way to go in the fashion industry.
Text by Mariya Moisseyeva
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