Tastemaker:
Anna Bystrova
The Russian couturier bringing her vintage glamour to London
WORDS: ROBINA DAM
PHOTOGRAPHY: TIM WHITE
WHEN PRINCE MICHAEL OF KENT, the British royal family’s foremost Russophile, was introduced to the fashion designer Anna Bystrova at a private dinner in a Mayfair hotel last year, she was presented to him as Russia’s answer to Coco Chanel. “That’s what the manager of the Westbury Hotel told His Royal Highness and while my style is very different, I also hope that it lasts as long as hers has,” Bystrova tells me over tea. Like Mademoiselle Chanel, she is dark, svelte and a perfectionist.
She clearly made enough of an impression. It was her wedding dress that was worn at the marriage of Lord Frederick Windsor (the Kents’ son) to Sophie Winkleman, the actress and half-sister of television presenter Claudia Winkleman, at Hampton Court in September. It was a coup for any designer to win the commission – and Bystrova was competing with the likes of Marquesa and Giorgio Armani before the bride made her final choice.
It was all the more surprising as Bystrova was the least well known of the designers who were on the table. Having launched her Roza couture label only eight years ago, specialising in handmade evening gowns, the Moscow-raised designer opened her fl agship boutique in the exclusive Pushkin Park area in 2006, where it is discreetly attended by the wives of high-ranking government officials and Russian VIPs. Fitting rooms are like aristo boudoirs and you can only visit by appointment.
But after she unveiled her collection in London last year, her customer base rapidly expanded through word of mouth: “Now one-third is Russian, one-third British and onethird from the Middle East,” she says of the clientele who visit her showroom in a suite at the Westbury Hotel. Having found success in the UK market this month Bystrova is holding a fashion show for 500 at the Criterion restaurant in Piccadilly (“The Art Deco interior is perfect for my 1920s collection with lots of embroidery”).
She will follow this by launching her first British store in Mayfair. “It will be totally modelled on the one in Moscow,” she says. The bespoke furniture has been built by the same Russian company that made Putin’s while he was in the Kremlin. The thinking behind it is that the dresses are precious artefacts which have to be displayed appropriately. In fact, Bystrova is so picky about her selection of vintage accessories that her approach is strangely anti-commercial.
“We have a saying in Russian that to ‘pass your pet puppy to someone’ means to put something into good hands. So I only sell the accessories to a client who will really love them, otherwise they can be rented.”
If this sounds like the fashion world gone mad, actually it’s because Bystrova travels around the world attending vintage fairs (from the twice-yearly ones in Moscow to London’s Portobello Market) where her keen eye picks out the likes of Elsa Schiaparelli brooches (circa 1940s) and Miriam Haskell hairpieces and necklaces (c1950s).
Her long bias-cut gowns – in buttery silks, raw silk or sheer natural fabrics – are made for the red carpet, which is why Roza is increasingly being seen as the Russian alternative to Georgina Chapman’s Marquesa label. The comparison is not merely an aesthetic one: Chapman, as the wife of Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein, has links with Hollywood stars; Bystrova, who is married to a senior politician, has close contacts in the government and is therefore favoured by the elite.
But her resolutely romantic designs (think the drama of Anna Karenina meets the soigné finish of Vera Wang) are why the Middle Eastern market in particular has been delighted by the intricate embroidery and detailed beading which have became Roza’s signatures. With dresses taking anything between six weeks and six months, Bystrova is far removed from fashion’s here today, gone tomorrow ethos.
The Chanel reference may be one hell of a description to live up to – especially as Bystrova doesn’t even do twice-yearly collections. “I do haute couture – and my clothes are not just for a season; they are meant to last. In Russia, we used to have a tradition that wedding dresses were passed down from mother to daughter but that has died out. Now, I want my clothes to become vintage and to be passed down to future generations.”
Roza Boutique (in Moscow), 16/2 Strastnoy Bulvar, +7 495 6509127 Roza Atelier (in London), The Westbury Hotel, Room 208, Bond Street W1, +44 (0)20 7629 7755; www.westburymayfair.co.uk
