Fashion designer Vyacheslav Zaitsev died at the age of 86. As the Telegram channel Mash briefly reported, on the afternoon of April 30, he was hospitalized in the city of Shchelkovo with internal bleeding from his studio house in the village of Kablukovo, near Moscow, and later died in the intensive care unit at around 6 pm. maintenance unit.
The designer’s representative, Nikolai Golovin, told socialbites.ca about the death of the fashion designer. “I approve. Today. When talking about the death of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Zaitsev, I do not want to talk about any diagnosis. The truth is, unfortunately, he left us. What difference does it make – from what, ”she said.
The fashion designer appeared in public until recently: he was seen at public events – in a hat, in sunglasses, with a constant smile, in a wheelchair, although the public knew that Vyacheslav Zaitsev has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease since 2016. for example, the fashion show of the fashion house Slava Zaitsev, which opened the first Moscow Fashion Week in September 2022 in Zaryadye Park.
This year, Super Edition released a video from the fashion designer’s birthday celebration, who turned 85 on March 2, 2023. In the Yar restaurant, the designer sat at the main table in a small company in front of several tables where guests, among whom Bedros Kirkorov, sat.
Vyacheslav Zaitsev left the post of general director of the fashion house only in December 2019, transferring the business to his son Yegor.
Zaitsev was a true legend for Soviet and Russian fashion – and not only for the clothes he created, but also for his personal charm and hilarious comments at shows and on the Fashion Sentence program, which he hosted from 2007 to 2009. However, the main fashion designer – first of the USSR, and then of Russia – became, of course, not immediately. First, it was necessary to go all the way from a 14-year-old student of the Ivanovo Chemical-Technological College, where Slava Zaitsev, a young native of the Ivanovo region, entered the specialty of a textile drawing artist.
After technical school, Zaitsev entered the Textile Institute in Moscow, from where in 1962 he was sent to the experimental and technical clothing factory of the Moscow Regional Economic Council in the Moscow region. There she saw the light of her first collection – practical and feminine clothing for factory workers, which was not approved by the methodology department.
Surprisingly, the story of the criticized collection and its author was published in the French magazine Paris Match – the title of the article was “Dictating fashion to Moscow.” Three years later, in 1965, Slava Zaitsev was spotted in the Soviet capital by then-Dior fashion designer Mark Boan and designer Pierre Cardin. Fashion designer Guy Laroche was with them as part of the French delegation.
At that time, Vyacheslav Zaitsev was already appreciated in the USSR – he worked as the artistic director of the experimental and technical workshop of the All-Union House of Fashion Models in Kuznetsky Most. Here he will work for thirteen years and publish several successful collections. Among them is the “Russian Series” of calicoes in Russian folk motifs, presented in the USA, Canada, Japan and Europe. The fashion designer gained authority abroad: in the West he was considered the legislator of Soviet fashion and was nicknamed “Red Dior”.
At the end of the 70s, Vyacheslav Zaitsev left ODMO: due to the large number of clarifications and changes, his sketches were embodied in a distorted form – it seemed that the work lost its meaning. The fashion designer went to the individual tailoring factory for Fashion House No. 19, where he successfully developed, first becoming the artistic director, and then the head of the factory.
In 1980, Zaitsev dressed Soviet athletes for the Moscow Olympics. He also worked on costumes for theatre, stage and cinema, made costumes for the Theater of Satire. Moscow City Council, Moscow Art Theater and Sovremennik bring a new trend to classical productions. Even Broadway theaters turned to him: his most famous work is Duke Ellington’s musical “Sophisticated Ladies.”
An important part of Vyacheslav’s creative path was painting and poetry: he reflected on them personal experiences and emotions that were incompatible with the world of fashion.
“I am happy to have the opportunity to record the state of my soul, its pleasures and sorrows, love and disappointments, the constant desire for knowledge and revelation,” said Zaitsev about his work.
By the end of the 80s, Zaitsev became the main Soviet, and then Russian fashion designer: his theatrical performances and colorful costumes were the highlights of the local fashion industry.
In 1992, on the basis of the Vyacheslav Zaitsev Fashion House, its own design academy “Fashion Lab” appeared.
He tried to never give up on his position – even in the 2000s, when his influence began to wane, he continued to “dictate fashion”, in the words of Paris Match, especially in the Fashion Sentence program.
In recent years, Evi has always led fashion shows at Fashion Weeks in Moscow. Hats, shawls, tiaras, bright colors – you can clearly identify whose show you are on. And in life Vyacheslav Zaitsev did not change himself. The smartest, kindest, most smiling fashion designer has left, maintaining the status of a legend.