When Vogue Ukraine was launched in March, fan anticipation centered on who would grace the cover. The choice would be a Ukrainian top model, but since the field includes many good options, there was still mystery over who would get the honor.
The winner for the debut edition turned out to Daria Werbowy, a Canadian model of Polish and Ukrainian origin.
Ukrainians are not strangers to the runways of Paris and New York. Snejana Onopka, Alla Kostromichova, Nataliya Gotsiy and many more beauties got terrific contracts from the big names in the industry. While some of them have then moved on to family life, business or even college, they are still getting job offers that would make many other models envious.
“A model who was once at the very top can count on occasional jobs even years after she stopped working intensely,” says Vladymyr Yudashkin, the founder of 1motheragency.
This was the case for Snejana Onopka, Ukraine’s most successful model. But the fashion industry is always looking for new faces.
According to Yudashkin, Ukraine has just 10 model managers. Most model agencies make money on “modeling schools,” where girls and young women are educated in manners, makeup and style. Yudashkin says Ukrainian models need work. “They often don’t speak English, are very self-focused and don’t have the perspective,” he says.
The industry is, however, hard to predict. “The early 2000s were a time of Russian models, but for no particular reason. These things are more of a coincidence,” says Yudashkin.
Evelina Mambetova
A face of the ongoing Ukrainian Fashion Week, Evelina Mambetova has an impressive portfolio. Mulberry Evelina bag was named after her. In 2013, Focus magazine ranked her first in a list of most-wanted brides. Mambetova, 22, comes from Yevpatoriya in Crimea, but now lives mostly in New York and London. In 2012, Mambetova announced she had left the catwalk and was preparing to enter Oxford University to study law. Her latest job was the cover of Bootleg Newsprint in 2013 and an editorial in Vogue Ukraine.
Alla Kostromichova
Alla Kostromichova, 26, is another Crimean treasure. She won her first Western contracts in 2008, and since then has been a constant presence on catwalks in New York, Paris and Milan. In her interview with Russian Spletnik.ru website in 2010, Kostromichova confessed that when she started at age 16, agencies I didn’t know what to do with a face like that.” Apart from catwalks and advertisements, Kostromichova’s portfolio includes campaigns for makeup brands, the real money-making jobs in the industry. She also founded her own agency, KModels.
Juju Ivanyuk
Ukrainian model Yulia Ivaniuk, 22, more widely known as Juju Ivaniuk, started her Western career on the models.com list of top 10 newcomers in the 2011 fall-winter season. Then, Ivaniuk opened and closed the Celine show, which in the fashion industry is the equivalent of a leading role in a Hollywood movie. Her latest gig was in Ukraine, when she was featured on the September cover of Harper’s Bazaar Ukraine.
Irina Kravchenko
The redhead with small, but strong face lines was featured on the cover of Vogue Ukraine in October. Before that, Kravchenko, 25, appeared in Valentino and Prada advertising campaigns and walked the runway in dozens of shows, including for top names like Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney. “Models like Kravchenko, models with weird faces, they usually go up to the very top very fast, and fall down fast,” says Yudashkin. “I hope it won’t be this way with her.” Stas Yankelevskiy, the director of L-Models agency that promotes Kravchenko, told fashionweek.kiev.ua that her success didn’t come quickly. “Not everyone accepted Kravchenko at first.”
Snejana Onopka
Her name is familiar to those with an interest in the fashion industry. Snejana Onopka, 27, who was born in Donetsk but lives in Kyiv, began her career in 2004 and soon climbed to the top of the industry. She opened and closed the best catwalk shows, was featured in a Tom Ford advertising campaign and was once in a list of the world’s 10 best models. Her career has slowed in recent years, following her marriage to Donetsk businessman Nikolay Shchur in 2011. She is paid to have a special “I don’t give a f*ck” walk.” “With her proportions and her face, I believe Onopka could become the number one model in the world, if not for her temper,” says Yudashkin.
Nataliya Gotsiy
Nataliya Goysiy, 26, is another “partly retired” top model. She won a modeling contest in 2004 and was active for several years, landing jobs with many big designer names. But a rainy day in Gotsiy’s career came in 2006, when at a Guy Laroche show she was photographed in a white top with cutouts that revealed her ribs and spine. Gotsiy then became a topic in the media’s discussion of underweight models. However, she claimed the striking photos were edited and that she had no weight problems. In an interview with New York Magazine, she said she received no jobs offers for two months after the scandalous photos. She also said the echo of the scandal affected other Ukrainian models, including Snejana Onopka. Years later Gotsiy admitted in an interview that she had to put on weight to give birth to her first child. Now Gotsiy, a mother of two, lives in Kyiv and accepts occasional fashion jobs proposals.
Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
