As a Ukrainian designer, it was meaningful for Svitlana Bevza to showcase her collection at the Ukrainian Institute of America. As a nonprofit organization donated by an inventor, William Dzus, it focuses on promoting the art, music, and culture of Ukraine. It also set the perfect backdrop to Bevza’s minimally aesthetic clothes that a former Vogue colleague, Liana Satenstein, described as “rich bitch clothing” backstage, a fitting term for a show that was able to get Lauren Santo Domingo and Derek Blasberg into the front row.
Symbolism is a key aspect of the designer’s collections, with last season focusing on the marigold, and this season being grain. As one of the country’s main cultural exports, Bevza wanted to tie it into her collection through square-cut apron dresses that came in a variety of fabrics like eco-leather and viscose. “It was a metaphor for me in a way, that we bake a lot of bread for a lot of countries in the world,” she said. Elsewhere, the ‘Tisto’ vest (which means dough in Ukrainian) was hand-knitted to mimic the texture of a braided bread pattern.
Styling remains important at Bevza’s shows, and this season the designer was focused on portraying an old-school elegance, fitting for society’s obsession with “quiet luxury” and “swan culture.” An excellent example was a split collar shirt and paper bag-esque trousers that cinched at the waist with a thin leather belt. For outerwear, Bevza focused on an A-shaped silhouette inspired by a traditional 19th-century Ukrainian coat called a ‘Kozhukh’, which comes in two variations: sleeveless and not.
While Bevza traditionally sticks to a more neutral color palette, she added hints of gold and brown to pay homage to the color of wheat fields. The progression of the shades of brown lightened as we get closer to the finale, a symbol of when wheat is ready to be harvested. It may have not been intentional, but with a Bevza collection, there is always a clear beginning and end.
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