Designer Items Based on the Orenburg Down Shawl

In a sense, it was a return visit that followed immediately after the large event “Orenburg Shawls from Prato to the Urals”, which in turn was held in Tuscany, Italy. In fact, the events of the second half of 2018 can be called a two-way exchange of experience, the ultimate goal of which was to integrate the classic traditions of the legendary down-knitting craft into quite modern fashion trends.

   

Let us recall that the ultimate goal of the Italian Polimoda students and a group of Moscow colleagues (besides the students from abroad, students of the design faculty of the Moscow HSE also took part) was to create a collection of designer items using elements of the Orenburg down shawl. It must be said that this has been quite a fashionable direction in recent years: collaborations between high fashion and folk crafts. The collection created was later shown at the annual “Fashion Week in Moscow».

To gain practical knowledge and find inspiration, with the assistance of Shalnoy Orenburg, the young people visited the Saraktash District, which is, without exaggeration, the capital of the down-knitting craft. Here they had the opportunity not only to receive invaluable lessons from professional craftswomen whose families have knitted Orenburg shawls for generations, but also to absorb the spirit and traditions of this place, learn its history, and understand its customs and way of life.

   

No one can describe the impressions our guests received better than they themselves; here it is appropriate simply to quote them.

We, however, are no less interested in the practical side, the result of the joint work, which took almost a year in total.

And we could see this result at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2019, where finished works were shown whose sketches and first drafts were created before our eyes, right in the Orenburg Region.

    

Unusual and interesting solutions, as well as the hybridisation of modern fashion and folk craft, led to a collection that amazed the guests of the fashion show.

All the items were exhibited at Fashion Week in one way or another, on the catwalk or in showcases.

Some of these designer items, for example this shopper bag, can already be bought on our website.

As a result, we can say that today the integration of folk art crafts is going quite successfully. Unusual collections appear every year, and the interest of the “fashion” world in crafts, including Orenburg down knitting, continues to grow slowly but surely.