Fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin passed away at the age of 59. This was reported to Channel One by his wife Marina Yudashkina. The cause of death of the master was an oncological disease, which he has been fighting since 2016.
Despite his illness, Valentin Yudashkin until recently tried to create collections for Valentin Yudashkin’s house. It was she who drew sketches for collections, as her daughter Galina told socialbites.ca in January 2022: according to Yudashkina, she did not plan to retire, although her father once said that he would retire at the age of 60. “It seems to me that anyone says they want to break up when they turn 60. But if this person is a workaholic and Valentin is like that, I don’t think he’ll go anywhere until he’s 60. Knowing her, I can say that work gives her life, strength, interest, she loves to do it, ”said Galina Yudashkina.
Unfortunately, the fate of the fashion designer was not to live up to his 60th birthday.
Valentin Yudashkin was born on October 14, 1963 in the village of Bakovka, near Moscow. In 1986, she graduated with honors from the Moscow Industrial College, where she simultaneously defended two diplomas, “Costume History” and “Makeup and Decorative Cosmetics”. The following year he created his first collection.
International success came to Yudashkin in 1991 – the young fashion designer was offered to show at the Fashion Week in Paris the Faberge collection, inspired by the eggs of the famous jewelry company.
Fashion designers Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne were among 600 guests at the fashion show held at the Russian Embassy building in France. Later, the collection was shown in Italy, Israel and the United States, and Faberge’s egg-shaped outfits ended up at the Louvre and the California Fashion Museum.
In 1993, Valentin Yudashkin, currently the founder and owner of Vali-Moda, founded his own personal brand, Valentin Yudashkin. In 1996, he officially received the status of couturier – Yudashkin was recognized as a corresponding member of the Paris High Fashion Syndicate. This gave him the right to regularly showcase his collections twice a year at Haute Couture Weeks in the French capital. True, with a short break – as a member of the Syndicate, he was supposed to have a fashion house in Paris. Yudashkin for some time showed his collections in Milan, but nevertheless returned to the French capital thanks to the patronage of Vogue’s then editor-in-chief Karine Roitfeld.
Yudashkin was at the High Fashion Weeks in Paris until 2022, when he did not declare his condemnation of the Russian military special operation – at that time he was forbidden to show a new collection. She showed it at Moscow Fashion Week – the Valentin Yudashkin show on the Rising Bridge in Zaryadye Park was the last.
Valentin Yudashkin dedicated his collections of the late 90s to Russian culture – they were called “Russian Modern”, “Anna Karenina”, “Catherine the Great”.
The first Valentin Yudashkin boutique opened in Russia in 1997. However, the fashion designer was not limited to the creation of ready-to-wear and haute couture clothes. For example, he developed a uniform for military personnel – a men’s uniform in 2008 (later it turned out to be very cold, but not his fault), and in 2013 a female, dress and casual. He hosted the program Moda Cümlesi and was the editor-in-chief of Stil ve Moda TV channel.
Valentin Yudashkin also created costumes for the theater – his first experience was working with the Musical Theater named after Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, then he collaborated with the Bolshoi Theater and the Moscow Oleg Tabakov Theater.
As her daughter Galina told socialbites.ca, the couturier has recently been enthusiastically working with theaters – she called creating costumes for the stage “her favorite business.”
He himself said that they can set the fashion for theatrical costumes. “Theatrical costume has been instrumental in creating costumes for fashion collections over the years. We know very well how the costumes in Diaghilev’s “Russian Seasons” made a great impression on the French public, and fashion houses began to work with this impression, this partly determined the fashion of the twentieth century, ”Yudashkin told Expert in 2020.
Theatricality, abundance of details and love for Russian culture brought Valentin Yudashkin closer to another Russian fashion designer, Vyacheslav Zaitsev. Just two days ago, on behalf of Yudashkin, a statement was published on the official Telegram channel about the death of an older comrade.
“I remember how I came to work with him at the Fashion House on Prospekt Mir. Every meeting and all the years spent with him were simply unforgettable. There was a joint work, I attended master classes, photo shoots. “I can watch him create art and history, it’s very valuable,” he said in a statement on behalf of the fashionista.
Today, Russian fashion has lost another master.