One of the brighter talents emerging from Russia at the moment, Alisa Kuzembaeva gained some newfound fame when Kim Kardashian West recently wore one of her slip dresses. For Spring, Kuzembaeva took a covered-up route, riffing on the theme of a “packaged woman,” a Russian term that can refer to a female as a ready-to-ship object, or in contrast, to a woman who “has it all.” To convey her idea, pretty, loose dresses with tight, pleated necks were stamped with barcodes and labeled with their literal names, like dress, a trend at the moment. Kuzembaeva also delved into patterns this season, creating a high-slit dress boasting a print of blotted swirls of magenta and purple that abstractly mimicked meat in a bag.
The designer excels when she infuses a tomboy element into her looks, as she did with a white jumpsuit styled off the shoulder with slouchy pants, which had a masculine but sexy effect. Also in the mix was a utilitarian black jumpsuit that was refined with diving décolletage and sleeves that had slits up to the bicep. It was labeled kombinzon, the Russian word for jumpsuit. Though some of her references have already appeared on other runways, Kuzembaeva does have a way of making them her own.
