Vyacheslav Zaitsev

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Zaitsev (Russian: Вячеслав Михайлович Зайцев; 2 March 1938 – 30 April 2023) was a Russian fashion designer, painter, graphic artist, and theatrical costume designer. He was considered to be one of the most prominent fashion designers of the Soviet Union, and had been compared to Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.

Zaitsev first came to prominence in the 1960s, when he was featured in the magazine Paris Match and dubbed the "Red Dior" by the French media. By the 1990s, he had designed outfits for Russian politicians and foreign celebrities. His style was influenced by traditional Russian and Slavic designs, featuring shawls and quilted jackets, and several of his designs were intended for "larger" women. The Hermitage Museum has an extensive collection of his designs on exhibition.

Zaitsev was born on 2 March 1938 in Ivanovo to Mikhail Yakovlevich Zaitsev and Maria Ivanovna Zaitseva. His father was a victim of the repressions of Joseph Stalin and was incarcerated in one of Stalin's camps, and his mother was a cleaner and laundress. From 1945 to 1952, he studied at Secondary School No. 22 in Ivanovo. As his father was deemed by the State to be an enemy of the people, Zaitsev was denied the opportunity to study at an industrial academy, a theatrical school, and a pilot training school.

In 1952, he began his studies in the Faculty of Applied Arts at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Ivanovo, and during this time he became interested in manufacturing and received the credentials to become a textile artist. He graduated, with honours, from the university in 1956. After realising that working with textiles was his dream, he moved to Moscow in 1956, and commenced studies at the Moscow Textile Institute, from which he graduated in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in painting and designing. Whilst he was studying at the institute, he married Marina Vladimirovna Zaitseva in 1959, and fathered a son, Yegor Vyacheslavovich Zaitsev, in 1960.

During the Soviet era, clothing was dominated by Zaitsev and Valentin Yudashkin, and he was compared to other world-renowned fashion designers such as Christian Lacroix, Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, Zaitsev was seen as being able to compete with Western designers; however, under the communist regime, the only country outside of the USSR where Zaitsev was able to work was Czechoslovakia. Alexandre Vassiliev, a Russian-born, Paris-based fashion historian and designer, stated that "[i]f he had had a chance to show his collections abroad he would have been most possibly a world-famed brand."

In March 1962, he began work as the artistic director of experimental technical garment factory Mosoblsovnarkhoza, where he oversaw production of women's clothing for retail stores in Moscow and the surrounding region. Zaitsev came to attention in 1963 when he designed a chic version of the telogreika, Pavlovsky Posad shawl-inspired skirts and multi-coloured valenki for kolkhoz workers. Whilst his creations were lauded by the authorities for "sparkling with all colours of the rainbow", his collection was not approved for production by the Methodical Council. In February 1963, Paris Match became the first foreign media outlet to profile Zaitsev, and rated his collection highly.

In March 1965, Zaitsev became the chief designer at the All-Union Fashion House (Dom modeley) on Kuznetsky Most. In April 1965 Pierre Cardin, Marc Bohan (then with Dior), and Guy Laroche visited Moscow and became familiar with Zaitsev's works, although Zaitsev was not present, and was covered in an article of Paris Match. Pierre Cardin called Zaitsev an "equal among equals", and the French press dubbed him the "Red Dior". Between 1965 and 1968, Zaitsev's works, known as "the Russian series", were displayed abroad.

Zaitsev resigned from the All-Union Fashion House in 1978, and began to work out of a small studio. His mother, with whom he had a great affinity, died in the same year, and after her death he took up writing poetry. Zaitsev designed a collection of costumes for the Soviet team for the 1980 Summer Olympics which were held in Moscow, for which he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor. He authored two books in 1980, Such Changeable Fashion (Russian: Такая изменчивая мода) and This Multifaceted World of Fashion (Russian: Этот многоликий мир моды), which were republished in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia in 1983.