How Bevza Became One of Ukraine’s Hottest Fashion Labels

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Before Ukraine‘s 2014 Euromaidan protests and Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022 — leading to over 53,000 civilian casualties in the past three years, as reported by the UN — there was Bevza. Svitlana Bevza’s eponymous label, founded out of Kyiv in 2006, wasn’t reactionary in the political sense. Instead, Bevza felt a pressing need to remedy the barrenness of the Ukrainian fashion scene at the time. Kyiv was no Paris or Milan or even Copenhagen, and still isn’t, but, since launching almost two decades back, her fashion house has been able to introduce its signature aesthetic restraint (marked by an emphasis on clean lines, unfussy silhouettes, and never-overbearing hues) into the country’s sartorial landscape. In the present day, Bevza is known — and shopped — the world over.

Though the most recent conflict in Bevza’s home country didn’t jumpstart her brand, it undoubtedly refined her mission. “ I felt even more responsibility to continue to implement symbols and codes telling the story about Ukrainian culture,” Bevza shares with WWD. “It became crucial.”

In the Soviet era, intentional processes of erasure sought to eradicate all that was markedly Ukrainian. Bevza’s continuing goal is to let the world know there’s so much more to the country’s cultural frame of reference than a brightly embroidered “vyshyvanka” shirt or a height-happy, floral “vinok.”

Bevza remembers first hearing the news about Putin’s plan to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine and knowing, right then and there, that she had to “save [her] kids.” Like thousands of her fellow citizens, Bevza fled, and the vignette she recalls — just “two kids and one suitcase” — feels far removed from the glamour that’s commonly associated with fashion designers of note.

From then on, her creative work at Bevza became something that “[woke her] up in the morning”: a tonic against uncertainty, one could say, and a healing balm amidst so much brokenness.

Fortunately, Bevza was a builder from the start, so she leaned into what she did best: forming a “dialogue with our generation” through each clothing piece she designed and taking what she terms a “neoclassical” approach to her garments.

At one point, it felt like headlines about Ukraine dominated 90 percent of front-page newspaper spreads and were all anyone — from political commentators to everyday residents of far-flung cities — could talk about. So Bevza decided to give them a more authentic lexicon, through the aforementioned symbols that she subtly infused into her work.

 ”The spikelet of wheat is the main symbol of Ukraine as a fertile land: the land that is fighting now for itself and for these beautiful harvests. In general, it symbolizes life and abundance. We refer to it in many collections, accessories, textures, and parts of clothing like back closures,” Bevza tells us.

After 2022, many Ukrainians, Bevza among them, had no choice but to emigrate, creating a makeshift diaspora and oftentimes moving to a place where they knew absolutely no one. Bevza was well aware of the subsequent loneliness and wanted to be a source of something tangible that Ukrainian women could cling on to — a kind of wearable souvenir from home that seemed to say, “This is who I am, this is the place I love, this is all that I left behind.”

Naturally, sales for her spikelet jewelry pieces skyrocketed. “ Our spikelet jewelry became even more popular because millions of women that had to leave Ukraine needed something to ‘sign their identity,’” Bevza says. “Lots of women told me, ‘When I’m walking in New York and wearing the spikelet earrings and some Ukrainian woman or man meets me, they understand that I’m from Ukraine.’ They needed a symbol that would keep their connection with the homeland.”

In this context, something as small and lightweight as a pair of earrings could serve as the colloquial glue that united people under one national identity, at a moment in history when destabilization and separation were the modi operandi of a country sharing a border with Ukraine.

When Bevza the brand was born, of course, the woman at its helm could never have predicted that someone an ocean away would come to rely so heavily on the implicit meanings behind Bevza’s offerings. Bevza says that, in 2006, there was practically no fashion industry to speak of in Kyiv.  ”What I saw on the runways in Ukraine was looking mostly like an art show. I’m a practical person, so I thought that if we are talking about prêt-à-porter, it should be prêt-à-porter! It should be wearable, applicable, and combinable.”

They needed a symbol that would keep their connection with the homeland.

The 43-year-old now runs one of Ukraine’s most successful fashion houses, which was scouted by the Vogue Talent Contest, won it in 2013, and made its New York Fashion Week debut in September 2017. Bevza can be shopped online and is also stocked in locations like its Kyiv flagship, NYC and Paris’ The Frankie Shop, London’s Iconic Ukrainian Showroom, Space Mue in Seoul, and no shortage of other storefronts, not to mention luxury online marketplaces like Moda Operandi, Revolve, Farfetch, and Ssense. Its fresh arrivals have been worn by everyone from Pamela Anderson and Sandra Oh to Cynthia Nixon and Jenna Ortega.

When Bevza was a little girl, though, she imagined things quite differently: “ It was a very early dream from my childhood. When I was five, I made a sketch of a fashion house and said to my mom that I want to own one. I thought that it’s a literal building where ladies get dressed. On this sketch there were lots of hangers and rails with dresses.”

As for the woman Bevza holds in her mind’s eye when she’s sketching out new concepts and ideating season-specific collections? “ I create for women like me and you. Bevza is not about a particular age or particular body. It’s about women that have the same attitude to life, like how to treat people and this planet with elegance, how to make decisions, how to live with a high [standard] for yourself. The Bevza woman is a self-made, demanding, strong woman. Her strength comes from a self-completed mindset. This is what inspires me in the women I meet.”

Bevza’s pieces have even ended up in the hands of fashion veterans like Julie Gilhart, who helped launch the LVMH Prize for Emerging Talent that ended up replacing the Vogue Talent Contest. Gilhart told our interview subject that her Shchedryk Ornament Set — sold out multiple times over the years — was “lovely.”

 It was a very early dream from my childhood. When I was five, I made a sketch of a fashion house and said to my mom that I want to own one.

“Shchedryk” is the name of one of Ukraine’s most famous folk songs, about a swallow ushering in the new year by singing of the bounty that will bless a household come spring. Unbeknownst to many, “Shchedryk” was turned into the Christmas tune “Carol of the Bells,” featuring English lyrics.

“ The world that knows the ‘Carol of the Bells’ might not know its original composer,” says Bevza, referring to Mykola Leontovych. “Because of his pro-Ukrainian position, he was [assassinated] by the Russians in the 1920s. Lots of talents were destroyed in the 20th century by the Russian regime. I want to tell the facts of this history to avoid such things being repeated.”

So, one crepe maxi dress, silk shirt, pinstriped blazer, and spikelet brooch at a time, Svitlana Bevza attempts to defy — and redefine — her homeland’s history. At Bevza, there’s not a flashy logo or blue-and-yellow color palette in sight. But look deeper and you’ll find that those gilded, wheat-inspired adornments do, indeed, tell the tale of a whole nation: hardworking and hopeful, refusing to be destroyed.

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Shop Bevza’s Bestselling Pieces

Bevza Hustka Satin Scarf-Neck Top

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Bevza Spikelet Hoops

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Bevza Pinstriped Jumpsuit

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Bevza x Revolve Square Bra Dress

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Bevza Corset Top

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Meet the Author

Stacia Datskovska is a Senior Commerce Writer at WWD. Previously, she worked at ELLE DECOR as an assistant digital editor, covering all things luxury, culture, and lifestyle through a design lens. Her bylines over the past five years have appeared in USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Teen Vogue, Boston Globe, Food & Wine, and more. Prior to joining ELLE DECOR, Datskovska learned the ins and outs of e-commerce at Mashable, where she tested products, covered tentpole sales events, and curated gift guide roundups. She graduated from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and international relations. Datskovska regularly reports on influential fashion designers of the 21st century worth shopping from.