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| A long, diaphanous black blouse is combined with gleaming, celestial blue trousers and Pre-Raphaelite grunge hair. Photographs and cover picture by Elli Ioannou for DAM |
Kristina Fidelskaya founded her luxury ready-to-wear brand in 2014 after completing a fashion design degree at the École supérieure des arts et techniques de la mode (Esmod) in Dubai. She launches her new Spring/Summer 2019 collection in Paris this season combining arte povera, contemporary grunge and a new realism. Report by Antonio Visconti and Elli Ioannou for DAM
UKRAINIAN designer Kistina Fidelskaya's new Spring/Summer 2019 collection was shown in Paris last night. The designer says that luxury is not shouting wealth out loud but showing it in "small gestures that speak of care, of attention, of love." This is translated into designs that mix the rough with the smooth, matt with the shiny and light, floating fabrics ~ that don't need lining ~ with heavier fabrics. She wanted this season to be about subtlety and details
The designer says she finds inspiration in the New Realism movement and explores shapes, volumes and finishes defined more by their differences than their similarities. The designs are mostly free of decoration and are made up of textured layers that she says are "essential" but not minimalist.
The palette is summery and includes blush-hued nudes mixed with creamy whites and blacks. Dashes of yellow and metallic touches are like brushstrokes on a canvas. The designer refers to Arte Povera and is drawn to materials that evoke the natural world and she mixes this aesthetic with techno-taffeta, metallic viscose gazar, laminated silk poplin and a Vichy check.
The silhouettes play with ideas of gender and are partly inspired by David Bowie. The designer stretches this to influences as far afield as Deauville and looking back to the Edwardian Gilded Age. She says the collection has an edge of contemporary grunge that expresses the freedom of what she terms a "post-consumerist" society. Ideas and clothes merge to embody a new aesthetic that is both austere and clean-cut yet still filled with sudden clashes of texture, colour and proportion.
See highlights from the show below. Tap on photographs for full-screen slideshow
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| A fine cotton, Nehru-collared shirt with interesting caped sleeves is tucked into and partly drawn through the waistband of check trousers in dark navy and white. |
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| Metallic viscose in that shimmering sky blue adds a brilliant sheen to a light, caped jacket and shorts with an elasticated waist. |
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| Floating, semi-transparent blouses in white have long sleeves and string-like ties that fall below the knee and are combined with black shorts. |
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| The silhouettes play with ideas of gender and are partly inspired by David Bowie. |
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| The designer says the collection has an edge of contemporary grunge that expresses the freedom of what she terms a "post-consumerist" society. |