Ulyana Sergeenko – Russian Fame

 Ulyana Sergeenko is the crowned Russian queen of fashionable ladies and the most high-profile figure of the so called Russian Fashion Pack, Russian Mafia or the Czarinas  (the core members of which are: Miroslava Duma, the daughter of a Russian senator and editor of a fashion and style site - Buro24/7; Vika Gazinskaya, a fashion designer known most for her numerous geometric hairstyles and Elena Perminova, a model and the wife of Alexander Lebedev, a former spy for the K.G.B. that is now a banking magnate and owner of The Independent and The Evening Standard of London newspapers - more on them later).  

We also have some new faces that joined the pack more prominently only in the last couple of months: Natalia Vodianova (a famous Russian supermodel) and Anya Ziourova (fashion director of Tatler magazine). And of course there's Frol Burimskiy, Ulyana’s business partner and the only man in this very select group.

This is the time for Russians to take the fashion world by storm and they are doing a great job at that.

These women have the means and a huge appetite for fashion and style considering Russia has been a “closed” country for a long period.

Combine that with the rapidly expanding class of Russians billionaires and the fact that their arrival coincided with the expansion and rise of blogs dedicated to personal style and you get an overnight sensation that had reached far beyond Russia’s boundaries. And when it comes to lady Ulyana, I feel all the buzz is well worthed.

Ulyana Sergeenko is 32 years old and the second wife of Russian insurance oligarch Danil Khachaturov (the owner of Russia’s largest insurance company “Rosgosstrakh”) whom she met in a dentist's waiting room. He is 40 years old and has an estimated fortune of $2 billions; the 42nd richest man in Russia according to Forbes. She is a former model, fashion editor (Glamour Russia), aspiring photographer and now designer.

Originally from Ust-Kamenogorsk, a small, poor town in Kazakhstan, Ulyana was raised in a family of linguists, and still credits literature as a source of inspiration.

Her grandmother was also a huge inspiration for her: “All my life I was absolutely crazy about nice, beautiful things. Maybe it's because of my grandmother. I had a Soviet childhood, and it was difficult to buy some things. My grandmother made dresses for me. She used all her sources to make me beautiful. I was born in Kazakhstan. When I was at school, all the school discussed how I was dressed. I loved to wear, for example, a dress with trousers, something a bit crazy. We had an uniform in my school. You know, teachers were angry with me because I was always disobeying them and wearing what I wanted”.

Her husband is the one that financially supported the start of her business and she says that she is “really happy that we did not just stamp his money. We are a small, but very strong, independent brand. We have a lot of clients”.

I also discovered, to my surprise, that this beautiful doll is the mother of two children: an 11-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. You know life is not fair when she looks like that after having two children.

The girl seems to follow in her mother footsteps as Ulyana says: “She's fond of fashion, and she's making a lot of sketches, which sometimes I use because some of them are very original. And she's making dresses for her dolls”.

Ulyana Sergeenko made an amazing transition from being the street style photographer’s ultimate muse to the fashion scene by showing her collections in Paris.

She lunched her fashion label in 2011 during Paris Haute Couture Week, and despite the fact that unlike many fashion designers, Ulyana did not study fashion design academically (she has a degree in Philology) and that everybody thought that launching her line during Paris Haute Couture Week was somewhat pretentious and arrogant, her show was a success.

Her pieces are not the usual designer pieces and a lot of work goes into producing them, it takes weeks for a single dress and months for a coat to be finished by her team of 40 seamstresses. With that amount of work is no wonder her dresses cost around 17 000€, while the coats climb up to 28 000 € a piece.

Keeping that in mind, the fact that her company was able to break even within its first year, it’s a huge success story.

Her line has proved more than a onetime hit wonder as Ulyana Sergeenko is constantly revealing new collections that keep on with her estétique, while also being relevant and inspiring. So Ulyana might be an oligarch’s wife, but she is certainly not just that!

Her worldwide claim towards the fashion elite started with the internet storm that she created among the fashion bloggers, who adored her from the very beginning. I guess she has done all this before it was label as distasteful and even desperate.

With her porcelain skin, unapproachable stare, unique beauty, impeccable style and grace and that pin up figure, she fast became the IT girl.

Ulyana Sergeenko’s style is unmistakable – she always wears something ultra feminine, think floral prints, full skirts, mohair sweaters and fun, surprising accessories. I love the fact that she is not a slave to trends but has succeeded to make her own style a trend; she mixes pieces like no other creating a now iconic 19th century Russian look with modern accents. She clearly has a thing for unique head pieces as well. 

I love the way she combines haute couture pieces with vintage items creating a perfect, detailed, different, effortless and timeless look. Having unlimited funds surely helps, but unlike countless other rich women, Ulyana has an eye for unique and beautiful and the charisma to transform herself into a legit and lasting fashion icon.

 Photos

 I hope you have enjoyed the Ulyana story - I already have a few other spotlight articles about the rest of this very special Russian club.

 Do you like miss Ulyana Sergeenko?

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