"Red Dior" is banned: What Soviet movie stars did Vyacheslav Zaitsev wear, and why he was not allowed to go abroad

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

March 2 marks 80 years of the famous Russian fashion designer Vyacheslav Zaitsev … Today he is successful and in demand, and in Soviet times, despite the fact that in the West he was called "Red Dior" and included in the five "fashion kings" of the world, Zaitsev was not allowed to travel abroad and did not have the opportunity to fully realize all his creative projects. The public did not even suspect about most of his achievements - for example, that it was he who dressed Zinochka in the film "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession" and many other film heroines, and also created sketches of costumes for pop stars and athletes.

Vyacheslav Zaitsev made his choice of his future profession very quickly, although this choice was forced. He could not enter any of the universities, as he was considered the son of a traitor to his homeland - during the war, his father was in captivity. Therefore, after graduating from a seven-year school, he entered the only technical school where he was accepted - the Ivanovo Chemical-Technological Institute, and then - the Moscow Textile Institute. He created his first collection of clothes at the experimental and technical sewing factory of the Moscow Regional Economic Council in Babushkin, where he got on distribution. It was overalls for rural women, which did not pass the test of the Soviet methodological department due to the fact that it was too extravagant: multi-colored sweatshirts, skirts from Pavlovo Posad shawls, felt boots painted with gouache.

Not appreciated at home, this extraordinary collection attracted the attention of Western journalists, and it was published in the French magazine "Paris Match" with an article entitled "He dictates fashion to Moscow." Three years later, Pierre Cardin and Marc Bohan ("Dior") tracked him down under this article, and a meeting took place, which Western journalists called the meeting of "fashion kings". In Europe, he was called one of the world's leading designers, and in the USSR he became restricted to travel abroad until the end of the 1980s. His author's collections were successfully demonstrated in the USA, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, but all of them took place without the participation of the designer.

In 1965, Vyacheslav Zaitsev came to the All-Union Model House on Kuznetsky Most, where he worked for the next 13 years. He collaborated with the most famous Soviet fashion models: Regina Zbarskaya, Leka Mironova and Mila Romanovskaya. Dress "Russia", created by Zaitsev for his collection "Russian Series", won the Grand Prix at the World Fashion Festival. After that, the Western press began to call the fashion designer "Red Dior".

There was a period when Vyacheslav Zaitsev wanted to leave the world of fashion. He told: "".

Later Vyacheslav Zaitsev admitted: "".

The famous Soviet couturier created costumes for many movie heroines, pop stars and athletes. So, it was he who dressed the Soviet sports delegation at the Olympics-80, and also developed the design of the costumes for the main character of the film "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes the Profession" Zinochka and the dress for the final release of the heroine Alisa Freindlich in the film "Office Romance". Zaitsev worked on the image of Alla Pugacheva, Edita Piekha, the Na-Na and Integral groups. He worked with Lyubov Orlova in her latest film, The Starling and Lyre.

I also had to sew for high-ranking people, however, with some the designer did not find a common language: "".

She was his first model: The sad story of the Soviet Audrey Hepburn - Leki Mironova.