Old world luxury and Cossacks mix in Moscow Fashion

By Amie Ferris-Rotman

MOSCOW (Reuters Life!) - Tsarist empress gowns, rich silks and embroidered flower patterns featured heavily in the Russian capital this week as fashionistas paraded designs of the motherland from a pre-Soviet age.

Old world luxury reminiscent of the tsars opened the city's first fashion week of the year, held in Gostiny Dvor, a revamped 19th century exhibit hall near the Kremlin.

Pale-faced models displayed flowing cream and black dresses from the turn of the century under high-collared fur coats to an audience of hundreds of people, which included few members of the international press or foreign buyers.

"Russian fashion has been given back to us, it's arrived," said designer Valentin Yudashkin after his show.

Moscow mayor of 15 years Yuri Luzhkov took his place on the first row and enthusiastically applauded the celebrated designer, who has shops in western Europe and was recently commissioned by generals to dress the Russian military.

"We are a rich country, and that's why we have rich fashion," Luzhkov told Reuters TV after giving Yudashkin a large bouquet of flowers.

Other designers went beyond tsarist fashion to evoke the feeling of pre-Bolshevik Russia.

Deep blue flowers on black backgrounds similar to traditional Russian lacquered boxes dominated at Slava Zaitsev's show, a 69-year old designer who used to dress the Soviet elite.