Belarus Fashion Week - Belarus Fashion Week

On November 16, the ninth season of the Belarusian Fashion Week ended in Minsk. In the spring, Week will celebrate its first anniversary - 10 seasons.

For 9 seasons Belarus Fashion Week has matured, strengthened and acquired its own specific traditions. For 9 seasons, everyone who is not indifferent and interested in fashion has become accustomed to and akin to the Week. And it seems that it has always existed. For 9 seasons Belarus Fashion Week has been criticized more than once, but has been praised more than once. And in fact, the Week has always had both its pluses and minuses. But there are more and more advantages with each season.

So what can you tell about the ninth season of Belarus Fashion Week? Much. And below is just the most interesting. 9 facts about Belarus Fashion Week.

1. Stability. Permanent playground.
It seems that Belarus Fashion Week is finally acquiring a permanent place for its shows - the BelExpo pavilion, located next to the State Flag Square. And this site has many advantages.

First, the size of the pavilion. There is where to turn around. There is space for both the podium and a wide guest area outside of it. There is a comfortable wardrobe, a separate room for press conferences with designers. This season, the organizers of Belarus Fashion Week did not even take the seminars that were held as part of the educational program of the Fashion Week outside the main site. There was also a place for them in the pavilion itself. And it's convenient.

Secondly, it is the place itself outside the pavilion. Namely, the State Flag Square and the Palace of Independence located next to it. This place quite eloquently suggests that fashion is important.

2. Diversity. Collage, mosaic, quilt made of scraps of fabric.
Belarus Fashion Week of the ninth season turned out to be extremely multi-layered in its content. These are shows of the main catwalk, and shows of young designers within the Off Shedule platform, and the New Names BFW competition for novice designers, a blogger competition, shows of foreign guests, an educational program. And everything is interesting. And you can't keep track of everything!

3. Belarusian Fashion Week started under the guise of China.
An interesting feature. An unexpected combination. The first day of Belarus Fashion Week, namely an opening press conference for journalists and a fashion show of the O.Jen brand, were held at the Peking Hotel. And I definitely liked this place (Beijing Hotel). However, I like to fall out into other dimensions.

Red is the color of Chinese lanterns, black is the color of hieroglyphs, oriental luxury. The stunted Chinese waiters look funny. Managers look proud - Chinese women with good posture and hair gathered in a strict bun. How the Chinese guards look like Jackie Chan.

It was simply impossible to choose a more surreal venue for the BFW press conference, and even more so for the O. Jen brand show.

Simple silhouettes of O.Jen dresses, plain plain fabrics - here it is cornflower blue, field, straw Belarus - against the backdrop of proud and calm oriental luxury.

They are thousands of years old, behind them thousands of years. And it was already believed that the vases in the corridor were not at all mock-ups, but certainly not of the Ming dynasty, or of the Qing dynasty.

And what is behind us?
However, both we and our dresses with their simplicity and modesty, how it may seem and not strange, fit into the interiors.

Well, yes, there were also high-heeled shoes, in which the models had to "march" on the carpet. Horrible! Everyone paid attention. Everyone rushed to criticize, and along with the dresses themselves. Well, I would just take these shoes off. Perhaps one could walk barefoot on oriental carpets. And the dresses ... And the dresses are what they are. And from this monotonous simplicity we have nowhere to get away. Sometimes it seems to me that this is just the spirit of Belarusian fashion. A base from which we can push off and take off. Well, or fall. Into the abyss. Going nowhere.

4. National traditions. Local to global. New Names BFW Contest.

I love BFW. I love Belarus.

The motto of the ninth season of the Belarusian Fashion Week.
Fashion can be very similar.Fashion itself is a global phenomenon. And what happened in Paris may well be in London, and in Warsaw, and in Moscow, and in Minsk. Moreover, not only in mass brands, but also in designer items. After all, designers themselves very often can turn to global themes, looking for inspiration in nature, among the stars of the night sky or in architectural structures. Ancient Greece.

But fashion becomes interesting only when it turns to what lies next to it. When designers, for example, Polish, start looking for inspiration in Krakow, Russian in Ryazan and Novgorod, and Belarusian in Grodno, Nesvizh, Minsk. When designers turn to national traditions, local, it is always interesting.

This season, the participants of the New Names BFW competition were invited to design collections using Belarusian motives. And the collections turned out to be varied and interesting.

The collection of the HONAR brand was also presented. T-shirts, shirts, dresses using elements of the Belarusian national ornament. The founders of the brand are husband and wife - Pavel Dovnar and Karina Adesenko. All clothes are handmade only.

5. Foreign guests.
Within the framework of Belarus Fashion Week of the ninth season, as never before, many collections from designers from abroad were presented. Designers from Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, as well as from Germany and Italy presented their collections.

The shows of designers from Germany and Italy were held with the support of the embassies of these countries in Belarus. In the future, according to the organizers of Belarus Fashion Week, they plan to expand cooperation with foreign designers. However, no one forgets about the support of Belarusian designers, namely, this is the main goal of Belarus Fashion Week, the organizers of BFW assured the journalists.

From Germany, the beginning designer IVANMAN demonstrated his collection of menswear. Italy was represented by the designer GRINKO with the “Synthetic Riot” collection.

GRINKO, IVANMAN

6. For the first time, a non-designer collection was presented. Singer Olga Barabanshchikova presented her collection. The name of the collection of the singer is Candy Lady. And this is another controversial moment in the past season of Belarus Fashion Week. What for? Why show a collection not from a designer, but from a popular singer. Why turn a professional forum into a get-together. Why engage in PR for an artist.

But on the other side. On the other hand, if this practice does not expand, if there is only one such collection under the brand of a famous person in the season, then why not. After all, fashion and celebrity are always linked to each other. After all, fashion cannot exist without singers and actors. After all, who else, if not them, so often follow the latest fashion trends. Who, if not them, is best at advertising clothes from certain designers. The main thing is not to overdo it.

7. Not a bad educational program.
The educational program within Belarus Fashion Week is traditionally good. And this season was no exception. There were seminars on image, style, branding, a meeting with a fashion blogger (Polina Galushko), who managed to present her blog at a good level. Although, as you know, in Belarus all fashion blogs are known only among those who are interested in them.

8. Absence of some designers (Tatiana Marynich, Valeria Aksenova, Tarakanova). Designers everyone is used to. Designers who participated in almost all seasons of Belarus Fashion Week. However, they promised to return. The absence of a collection from Valeria Aksenova (brand by ava) became especially noticeable, because Valeria's collection is always a celebration of bright colors and unexpected combinations.

9. Collections of the main podium.
The collections of the spring-summer 2015 season from Belarusian designers were interesting and not bad. Are they great? No. Are they good? Not all.

What do you remember? The monotony of most of the collections, their simplicity and minimalism. However, it is not worth talking about the collections, it is better to watch them. And here are some of them: