Glory forever

The story of the main Soviet couturier Vyacheslav Zaitsev

Glory to Zaitsev died. One of the key figures in the domestic culture of the last 60 years. In fact, he was the first and only couturier in the USSR. Everyone who came after, were forced to look at him in one way or another. Go from his discoveries, develop or, conversely, deny them, continue or argue with his ideas. Glory was too bright to not notice him or pretend that he does not exist. In recent years of illness, court litigation and personal sorrows, he and he courageously held on, not giving a look, remaining the same radiant, shining and wise person, as numerous fans remembered and knew him.

Of course, by nature, Glory was an absolute Stoic. When he, with an unchanged smile and an invisible mother of the hard worker, simply listed all the trials that fate had prepared for him from birth, involuntarily took a dumb. And the question was suggested: what if there were no these tests? Would he then Glory Zaitsev? Personally, I do not believe that misfortunes are tempered. They destroy, harden, deprive the soul of some delicate suppleness, susceptibility, lightness. You become a stupid, angry stone. Everything is so, but it was clearly not a case of Glory of Zaitsev.

It seems that difficulties and obstacles only started him, tossed his imagination, gave additional energy. Helor-free poverty, mother who removed the entrances to send an extra five to his son to Moscow, homelessness in the most literal sense of the word ... Already a famous designer (though, then in his work book the “technologist” was listed), he lived with his young wife in the basement janitory. He talked about this not without some bitter call, they say, this is where the Soviet fashion came from. From the Dvornitskaya!

But there are such reinforced concrete people who do not take anything. Neither poverty, nor economic crises, nor even disaster. Glory was from this breed.

"Nails would be made of these people: there would be no stronger nails in the world." Glory was not a Soviet "nail". He was an artist, an artist. He wanted to serve the beauty. He, like no one, knew how to see her where others passed indifferently by or did not see anything but a dull scoop.

From his colored fufaes from reps and skirts from Pavlovoposad shawls, a crazy passion for the Russian style in the world began. Although the very first collection of Zaitsev, as you know, the bosses of the House of Models Zapozhilo, recognizing the launcher unusual for launch. And a spectacular report in the Parisian “Paris Match” with a slaughter heading “He dictates fashion in Moscow” almost cost the fame of a wolf ticket and a total ban on the profession. It was a scandal. But they started talking about him in the West. He met Pierre Carden. He was invited to Paris. He found out what the real Haute Couture is.

In 1971, Glory was a terrible accident. He spent nine days in intensive care between life and death. After that, the disappointing verdict of doctors: it will not be possible to save the leg. We must amputate. He already mentally imagined how he would hush along the Kuznetsk bridge in white and black. A poto, vest, wide trousers, black round glasses, like a cat Basilio in Pinocchio or Panikovsky from a Golden Calf. A stick with a silver knob ... But what? Ground bow! But then he decided: no, we must fight to the end. Refused all anesthetic funds. Suffered hellish pain from which others lost consciousness. He overcame everything, defeated everyone. Survived! Six months later, he again flew along Kuznetsk without any stick. Up and down. Back and forth.

I remember his young, thirty -year -old. In a creamy cloak that is fluttering in the wind. Everyone around is wandered, twisted from the cold and eternal winter, wrapped in their coat, moher scarves and rabbit hats. And then suddenly a glory arises with his blush in the whole cheek, Korolevich Tsarevich. Breasts are wide open, life is wide open. All in plans, plans, dreams, love.

He lived fashion, created fashion, adored fashion. He did not care where and with whom.

You can at home on a kitchen table, or in the studio of the All -Union House of Models, or on the stage of the Moscow Contemporary Theater, or on the ice of the Sports Palace in Luzhniki. He dressed athletes recognized by Div, high -ranking wives. Ah, what were the dresses of Tatyana Lavrova in the "Cherry Garden"! How to forget the punts silk of Marina Neelova in Lorentzcho? And the tea rose on Edita Piehi's shoulder? Or the epochal hoodie Alla Pugacheva, who covered like an immense parachute, all his native stage in the mid-70s? After all, he also came up with and sewed, the glory of hares, couturier N1 of the Soviet Union!

We had no one before him. Some boring ladies in the same English costumes and gas scarves with long pointers in their hands, like teachers in high school. And then suddenly the glory in their scums à la russe, colored trousers in a loud, with the scum of their own essay instead of memorized dull texts about the “trends of this season”.

In some miraculous way, he managed to exist outside of these trends, outside commercial calculations and inevitable intrigues. This was his undoubted power, but also vulnerability. In his psychology, Zaitsev is a typical lone shrub. Self-taught artist. He reached everything himself. Soviet life taught to manage the minimum of funds. Where it is necessary to stun, charm, shake the imagination, he had no competitors. Where business strategy, marketing, PR begins, Glory is bored before our eyes. He was not at all interested. He was not about money at all. And even the dividends from a completely commercially successful project - the Maroussia Spirits, which he launched in the climax of his glory and Gorbachev’s perestroika - in the end did not go to him, but the oldest Parisian perfume house Carven.

For many years, Zaitsev was saved by the fact that there was no fashion industry in the USSR at all. Almost like sex, according to a memorable statement by a participant in the Soviet-American teleconference in the mid-80s. Although, of course, everything was. What is there to a khanzh! To the current young for envy and surprise. But it was not supposed to talk about it directly.

The taboo applied to fashion. "Fashion cannot be where there is a shortage." For these words, fame will be exposed from the All-Union House of Models in the late 70s.

Much more will be remembered: dangerous friendship with dissidents, and inadmissible ties with foreign journalists, and the cult of bright, sonorous color in the middle of universal dullness and facelessness. He will slap the door loudly and go nowhere. In some district studio. The Great Zaitsev is in the studio, where they give the old coats to turn the overwhelming! But all this was, it was.

I don’t know what kept him so in the USSR. Mom that he adored? The little son Yegor? Any vague dreams or someone's good promises? After all, he knew how to find a common language with ladies from high society. He knew how to smile carelessly in time, sincerely admire, elegantly hand over a coat. Among his sanitary clients were Ekaterina Furtseva, Galina Brezhneva, and Raisa Gorbacheva. The glass on the Mira Avenue, which he received in 1982, is, one might say, their collective gift. The long -awaited gesture of recognition, a reward for patience during their many hours of examples and years of homelessness.

In the person of Glory of Zaitsev, domestic fashion has gained the status of a matter of public importance. And for a long time it seemed a little more-and something was about to begin seriously and for a long time.

But, as often happens, it soon became clear that it was easier to rent square meters than to pour over new collections that no one buys. Otherwise, this multi -storey glass makhina is simply not to control. And it is impossible to compete with Western brands that filled all the metropolitan shelves and catwalks, the domestic fashion house without state support. In addition, competitors have grown up and showed teeth - Valentin Yudashkin, Igor Chapurin, Tatyana Parfyonova. Against their background, the House of Glory Zaitsev looked like a monument of fashionable illusions of the 80s. It was too early for him to become a museum, and in order to be a truly relevant, fashionable brand, another grip, energy, financial turnover and advertising budgets were required. And where did they get them?

I know that some hopes were associated with the advent of Yegor Zaitsev. But the final transfer of power to the Kronprint, it seems, did not take place. Father and son shared too much. We went some kind of showdowns, slys, intrigues. A few years ago, the news flashed in the media that the Arbitration Court appointed a hearing on the claim of the Moscow City Property Department to recover 58.4 million rubles from the House of Zaitsev’s fashion. The basis was the debt on the rent. It became clear that someone really wants to get prestigious real estate in the center of the capital.

... The last time I saw the glory on someone's anniversary. In a black pot and round sunglasses, he relied heavily on a stick with a silver knob, but smiled joyfully to everyone who approached him with the words of love and greeting. He almost could not speak. I thought that at the ninth ten he returned to the very appearance, which fantasized after the accident almost fifty years ago.

On April 30, Glory Zaitsev left us. He went to those whom he loved all his life, whom he had sheathed, to whom he trusted his sorrows and secrets. And for some reason it seems to me that where glory is now, he should still be in the fashion of his silk and chintz.