Holding up a pale pink and ivory satin slip dress from Anna October’s collection, it sinks in that the person who’d devoted so much skill and attention to perfecting its bias-cut patchwork was sewing it in Kyiv, while air raid warnings were going off. October
fled Ukraine and managed to make her way to Paris with a backpack in the early part of the Russian invasion. How she’s continued to produce another collection between Paris and her studio in Kyiv says everything about her own and her young compatriots’ optimistic powers of organization and resilience.
“It’s been like a movie. A real movie,” she said, shaking her blonde hair and smiling calmly. Friends who had worked for October before the war making her pretty, romantic clothes were determined to continue. People who’d sheltered in the city, the countryside, and some who’d gone to neighboring countries began to reassemble when the capital seemed safer. “We had fittings on Zoom, while there were air raid alerts. I could hear it. I was like girls, do want to go to the bomb shelter? Shall we stop? And they were like no, we’re fine. Continue the fitting. It was surreal.”
This season October wanted a collection with a sexier direction than the artily flounced style she’s evolved since setting up her business in 2012. “To be honest, usually it’s been about some stories that happened to me in the past. But now,” she paused, with an intake of breath, “it’s more about the story that I wish to be happening.” In other words, it’s a wardrobe that imagines a near future of
dating, dancing and fun. “I didn’t think rural at all. This is definitely a city girl,” she observed. “But I don’t think of a woman who dresses for others’ eyes. I think that a woman has to appreciate the body she's living in, because it gives her the ability to feel. Because without feeling, without feeling your senses, how do you feel you’re alive?”
In close-up, the lingerie-making skills of October’s machinists are impressive. “I knew they could do this,” said October matter-of-factly. These things look as good inside as out.” The finesse of the details—like tiny bra straps inserted at hip-level as a belt suspending a long, liquid silver charmeuse skirt, or hooks and eyes that can be undone to show slices of skin between a bustier and a skirt—has something of the 1990s about it. Not too polished and dressed-up, an air of easy-to-wear cool.
And then there’s the very Ukrainian touch: fluffy, web-fine mohair sweaters, knitted in a patchwork of traditional doily patterns. “These are what we make to hang on Christmas trees. I was thinking about the new year.” The hope implicit in all of this is touching, and indomitable.
The backstory of how it came about is testament to October, to some of the help she’s found in Paris, and to the assistance she’s providing other Ukrainian designers. A fashion industry mentor, who October first met in 2014 when she was a finalist in the LVMH Prize, offered her a flat to stay in. The Paris fashion school, the Institut Français de la Mode, offered her a space to work in the college. “This beautiful light building on the Seine, surrounded by the energy of students and creative people,” she exclaimed. “So I really could get going!”
Her determination was that the invasion would not ruin her livelihood or the livelihoods of the people who depend on her. “We are always so organized. We have our own system of production in Ukraine. We are always so early that our summer collection was all ready to ship in February. And then it happened.” The last thing anyone was thinking about was fashion in that horrendous time. But somehow October needed to get her clothes out of her locked-up studio. Eventually she found “a very trustworthy man,” who had been working on her garden who collected the orders and despite all the difficulties, trucked them across the border to Estonia, where part of her team had escaped. From there, they set up a distribution hub.
In Paris, October found a Ukrainian tailor, also a refugee, and hired her. She had donations of fabric from Celine and eco-leather from Stella McCartney, which she’s also distributed to other displaced Ukrainian designers around Europe. Then her new collection was ready to be presented to buyers in her Paris showroom. “So two days ago my director of the production came from Ukraine to bring it. It took her two days by trains, because she can’t fly. But it is here!”
Her regrouping with friends and colleagues is touching and humbling to hear about. The clothes are good, too; they are not pieces that speak of trauma, but the overcoming of it. “You see, people sometimes ask why I do this. And the reason is that
work structures you.” At a guess, being productive to Anna October’s mind is a way of coping, keeping sorrow and fear at bay. The challenges of finding ways around problems is part of that.
“People thought I was crazy when I called the people who work for me on the seventh day of war, and asked how we were going to do the next season,” she remembers. “They were at home, sheltering. Then over months they started to want to come back. There are terrible stories that you hear about that have happened to people’s families, of course there are. But now, they say they are very happy to be doing something again.” Truly, when you hold these clothes in your hands, you can feel the emotion, tenderness, and pride in every stitch.
