If there is a byword for young fashion talent in the UK, nine out of ten people would probably identify it as Fashion East, the much lauded initiative started by Lulu Kennedy 14 years ago.
There are others of course – NEWGEN (to which many pupils of Fashion East later flock) and Fashion Scout’s Ones To Watch showcase, plus Centre for Fashion Enterprise, which ‘fast tracks designers into businesses’ and the annual George at Asda sponsored Graduate Fashion Week event – but Fashion East is the name that sticks.
Make your way across the Atlantic, and you will find VFiles picking up the slack in New York. Conducting ‘fashion online social networking’, the Julie Anne Quay founded platform spearhead’s conversation within the industry, and tomorrow will present the third VFiles Made Fashion show ahead of New York Fashion Week.
“Hmm, a call from New York, that’s weird,” remarks designer Dasha Sleyanova of her addition to the VMF line up. “When I picked up the phone it was Chelsea from VFiles and she said they were seriously considering ZDDZ to be in the show. It felt amazing, of course! Fantastic! There was a serious judging panel making the selection for this season, so I feel really privileged to be included.”
Set up as a competition, Dasha and co were asked to submit images and videos to be reviewed by judges including stylist Mel Ottenberg, Candy Pratts Price and Calvin Klein Collection Men’s Creative Director, Italo Zuccelli, plus members of the VFiles team and online community; Tigran Avetisyan, Hyegin Hamm’s Hamm label and D.T.T.K by Kazuma Detto complete the winning line up.
“At the time,” continues Sleyanova, “I was stuck in Moscow waiting for my new passport, I didn’t even have a travel document let alone the USA visa. But I said yes and everything worked out in the end.” She tells Clash she picked up said American visa just two days before her flight.
Studying at the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow, Dasha completed the final year of her BA in the UK before taking on a digital print course at Central Saint Martins. ZDDZ was founded in 2011 and is supported by the aforementioned CFE; it stands for the first letter of her name, her ex partner’s name, and a friend called Zoya, with whom the business was started.
Born in Russia and now based in Britain – the label is widely advertised as ZDDZ London – the timing of VFiles’ pick co-insides, accidentally or otherwise, with an industry wide appreciation of Russian fashion: Gosha Rubchinskiy’s label made its debut on the international schedule in Paris earlier this year (last week he was in conversation with Marfa Journal’s Alexandra Gordienko at the ICA), while Aaron Tubb’s label Bazar 14 takes its cue from Russian iconography and propaganda; Avetisyan lives and works in Moscow, having graduated from CSM in 2012.
“It’s hard to define whether you or your work carry some ‘national characteristics’ (if there are such at all) yourself,” suggest Dasha, “I believe people from outside the label will be more qualified to judge. I am not particularly inspired by either Moscow or London. I mean, I could be doing it in New York or Baku and that would still be ZDDZ.”
She pauses before adding: “The colours and fabrications would probably change. I get inspired by the visual language of the city, by its graphic identity, by the type of packaging or paper they use there, but not by a specific location or national heritage.”
Indeed, AW14’s bold collection, pictured above, is, if anything, more instantly reminiscent of Swedish design, bearing similarities to the aesthetic enjoyed by Ann-Sofie Back: clean, consistent, considered.
She is careful not to pigeonhole the label, claiming, “I’ve seen rappers wearing ZDDZ tees as well as a married woman with two kids wearing our printed shirt, and if I’m honest I’m quite happy with it being that way. I would not want to be defined as a streetwear brand or a label for arty people or whatever else,” and you sense she’d rather others did likewise.
On contemporary designers of whom she is a fan she specifies Raf Simons and Louise Gray (“I like her energy”) for fashion, also dropping the names John Angelo Benson and Tom Sachs, a product designer and mixed media artist respectively.
As for the new collection, she pinpoints London’s Lycra clad cyclists, gas mask covers, shop display windows and printed nail polish tops as influences, sweetly apologising as, “I don’t have a long beautiful story to tell.” A peruse of social media suggests arrows will make for a strong motif.
“It’s going to be a whole new experience for me,” she gushes of the VFiles Made Fashion catwalk. “We did shows before but doing the VFiles show feels very special, I’m really excited to present my brand internationally.”
Finally it’s Preston, the casting agent who steals the show in VFiles popular web series ‘Model Files’, (six minute clips that see him indulge in every fashion industry cliché under the sun), that the designer is particularly interested to meet. “When I think of VFiles I think of him,” she attests, “he seems like a great character, loads of fun to be around.”
VFiles Made Fashion takes place on Wednesday 3rd September.
Words: Zoe Whitfield
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