Ukraine Fashion Event Gathers Designers, Manufacturers
What Westerners consider a fashion industry – creative designers, skilled manufacturers who translate their visions into well-made clothes, and a developed distribution network – didn’t exist in Ukraine for a long time. Ukrainian fashion designers essentially created clothing for art’s sake in an economy in which consumers were often stuck wearing cheap and for the most part unfashionable Chinese- or Turkish-made clothes. All the while, Ukrainian apparel manufacturers toiled under cut-and-make schemes in which they produced clothes for foreign buyers, but made only marginal profits themselves.
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Elleana Fall-Winter Collection at the Made in Ukraine: Trademark Défilé
Photo Credit: Olha Myrtsalo |
However, in a recent competitiveness assessment entitled “Ukraine: Competing in the Global Economy – Strategies for Success,” USAID’s BIZPRO project identified the country’s textiles and apparel industry as one of its most promising economic sectors. Working simultaneously at the enterprise, sector, and national levels, BIZPRO helped bridge the gap between Ukrainian designers and apparel manufacturers, creating synergies and boosting the sector’s competitiveness in both the domestic and foreign markets.
Irina Danilevska, organizer of Ukrainian Fashion Week, the country’s premier fashion event, claims that a fashion culture existed in Ukraine before BIZPRO got involved, but that the project’s intervention has finally given Ukrainian fashion a shot at financial success.
A major part of this past Ukrainian Fashion week, held in March 2006, was the “Made in Ukraine: Trademark Défilé” event, during which 15 Ukrainian apparel brands presented their wares and made contact with the fashion merchandising community. Organized with BIZPRO’s help, it attracted 25,000 visitors, among them designers, buyers, wholesalers and manufacturers in search of new designs and partners to satisfy the demand for stylish, trendy and affordable clothes bearing the “Made in Ukraine” label. Designers met the large-scale producers who can make their designs realities; manufacturers saw new designs and boosted demand for their goods; and retailers took a step toward maximizing profits by selling non-imported clothes.
“Trademark Défilé” was received enthusiastically as a unique opportunity to see in one place what domestic manufacturers had to offer. Negotiations were held right behind the podium. Most Ukrainian producers sold all the goods they’d just unveiled on the spot. They all increased their market visibility and received great publicity. Ukrainian consumers, meanwhile, will now be able to wear fashionable clothes made in their own country.
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