How a country that once banned denim became a rising fashion star

It can be a somewhat unfair fate for fashion types who have been slogging it out for years to be deemed an overnight success when they eventually hit the mainstream.

Ukrainian fashion designer Svetlana Bevza’s namesake label Bevza experienced exactly this. The brand had been established in Ukraine for 13 years before she first showed on the schedule at New York Fashion Week in 2017.

Soon after, Bevza’s designs were spotted on so-called it girls such as models Gigi Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski. Then Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner (who played Sansa Stark) wore Bevza to her (first) wedding to singer Joe Jonas last year.

And of course, Bevza has broken through on social media: witness the oft-copied, handmade croptop knitted with "pearls" made from recycled plastic buttons.

Perhaps because it’s not a case of “overnight success”, Bevza takes it all in her stride.

People have the right to know what's beyond the clothes, who's standing behind the story, what you are telling people with your clothes.
— Svetlana Bevza

She acknowledges finding a global audience after that first New York Fashion Week was a particular thrill. “It [was] a huge role [in] our success,” she says.

Bevza, whose designs are timeless and minimal with enough of an edge to be both cool and sexy, has wanted to be a fashion designer since she was five.

She gets a lot of her inspiration from her home country, in its contemporary and historical moments, including civil unrest and memories of doing without.