You're reading: How one law student came to be a local fashion guru

Kostya Omelya is 23. But his brand, Omelya Atelier, is probably one of the best known in the European fashion world among young designers. And he only launched it a year ago.

Not bad for a young man whose parents desperately wanted him to become a lawyer.

Sucking on his cigarette in a small, white-walled apartment close to Bessarabska Square that serves as his sewing studio and boutique, Omelya said: “I finished law school and I am not even sure I know where my diploma is.”

He knew nothing about the fashion world when he started. The only thing he had going for him was a blurry and elusive “love for aesthetics.”

He started off by getting a job as close to fashion as he could. At 17, he became a shop assistant in the men’s department of one of Kyiv’s fanciest stores and started learning fashion brands. Soon he met established show business stylist Anna Osmekhina and started working as her assistant, taking another step closer to fashion.

“At the very beginning, Anna told me ‘In a year’s time I see you working on your own in this business’ –  and that’s exactly what happened,” Omelya recalls.

That year he learned about how the business works, and made some useful contacts. And then he took a leap into designing his own collection. He studied a bit of dressmaking before he started.

His first collection was small, just 10 full looks, mostly dresses. But it was ready when he was only 19. Typically, a designer prepares 25 or more looks for a single collection.

The clothes were all made by a single tailor he hired, a woman whom he says “knew the basics of cutting.” His budget was $1,000, and the money came from his last styling contract.

At that point, he couldn’t even dream about taking part in a full-scale fashion show. He showed his collection at a charity event that was vaguely related to fashion. But what it did was give him his very first sale.

“Strangely, the first sale was shoes,” Omelya remembers. “Nice booties, actually. A model hired for the photo shoot saw those and totally fell for them. She made a call and someone brought her money and she bought them right away. They cost about $200.”

Now his dresses go for up to $1,000. He prefers working with silk. Asked why he mostly makes dresses, he simply says: “Because they’re beautiful.”

Right after his first collection, he started a brand named O.K., which originally stood for his initials. Then, another young designer joined in, Kseniya Kireyeva, but the initials handily covered both last names.

The union was needed for both to survive. “A couple of years ago times were hard for young designers,” he said. Only several stores in town stocked clothes by young designers, and few buyers appreciated such work anyway.

The duo worked together for a year and a half. Then, Omelya took off to start his own atelier. By now, his business is self-supporting.

He has seven people working for him, costing him “several thousand dollars” per month in wages, rent and operating expenses. In addition, his initial investment into the sewing equipment totaled $5,000, but he says costly  extra pieces of equipment have beednadded up ever since. Nevertheless, he invested only his own money as he feels having investors would limit his creative freedom.

Omelya sells his dresses to four stores in Ukraine, but says the sales are good. He also sells an exclusive line through the website Dash (d-a-s-h-store.com). The two dresses, a long and a short one, sell for Hr 600-800, and he claims they’re best-sellers of the site’s young designers’ line.

Masters cut fabric that will become part of Kostya Omelya’s collection

A lot of sales are made through his downtown showroom, where ready-made items can be purchased or individual orders made. Omelya says he has close to 100 regular clients, and says taking part in Fashion Weeks is one of the best ways to find them.

Omelya’s triumphant show at Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Week in the fall of 2011 was his breakthrough. It brought clients, attention of owners of fashion stores, and even a mention in Vogue Italy. By spring, he was already a headliner at the same Fashion Week.

His latest show took place on June 23-24 in Odesa. His summer collection was dominated by dresses of delicate fabrics of mild colors, including mint, pink and white.

When preparing the collection, he was particularly inspired by the news coming from Marie Claire USA, which put him on the list of “10 Eastern European fashion designers to keep on your radar.”
His name featured alongside designers like Ulyana Sergienko, a Russian oligarch’s wife, whose debut caused a furor last year and Alexander Terekhov, one of Russia’s most successful designers and another fashion prodigy.

And from here, it seems that the sky is his limit.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected]