Vegan Fashion Week, a fourth edition under the sign of emotion and compassion

By

Chenu Alexis

Published
Oct 11, 2022

Founded by Emmanuelle Rienda, the Vegan Fashion Week proposed this Monday evening, a unique show, built in partnership with the Ukrainian Fashion Week. A show placed under the sign of emotion, and an unprecedented support sent to the Ukrainian fashion designers.

Held in the large lobby terrace of the renovated California Market Center building, in Dowtown LA, the show took place at the bottom of a staircase worthy of an Oscar ceremony, under an atrium adorned with the Adidas logo. "A fabulous space," admitted Emmanuelle Rienda, founder of Vegan Fashion Week, "and a perfect foil to an international brand whose ethical and eco-responsible values have yet to be proven."
 
As a prelude to the show, Emmanuelle Rienda invited actress Mychal-Bella Rayne, recent Golden Globe winner for her role in "Underground Railroad", to read a poem, a dedication to peace, imagination and passion, before the arrival of singer võx, whose mysterious voice and spellbinding choreography captured the audience's attention. 

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The Korean vegan brand, Vegan Tiger, founded by designer Yang Yoo-na, was the first to take to the stage and showcased its new silhouettes, before Ukrainian Fashion Week lined up the creations of 12 Ukrainian designers including Chereshnivska, Dzhus, Gorohova, Ochis, Oversized, RCR Khomenko, Roussin and Sheezen. Some brands which are not all labeled vegan, but all cruelty-free and sustainable. 

A fashion show placed under the sign of emotion, and whose lipsticks of some models, imagined in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and symbols of the country, recalled the sad episode that Ukraine is going through today. "Today is a hard day for Ukrainians," explained Aleksandra Kakurina, head of designer department for Ukrainian Fashion Week, who woke up under the bombs. "But we are resisting, our designers now share part of their time between making clothes for the army and their own collection. With Vegan Fashion Week, it is an opportunity for them to resist, to continue to show their work." 
 
Already associated with several Fashion Weeks in the last 3 months, in Brussels, Berlin, Madrid and Copenhagen, Ukrainian Fashion Week seems to have found less support in the Big Four, namely Paris, London, New York and Milan. "It is more difficult for them to show their support," says Kakurina. "Speeches and words go in the right direction, but there is no action. New York Fashion Week, for example, offered to support us in exchange for 60,000 dollars... A budget, which in times of war, we obviously do not have. In our organization, we are all volunteers."
 
Still settled, for the most part, in Ukraine, Ukrainian fashion designers want to stay in the country, "a desire that can be explained by the proximity of the factories with which they work," adds Kakurina, "also by their desire to protect their home, their family but also their brand and what they have built, while facing the war."