Vegan Fashion Week and Ukrainian Fashion Week join forces

It is with great excitement that Vegan Fashion Week® and Ukrainian Fashion Week announce their partnership in Los Angeles on October 10-12, 2022. With shared core values surrounding creativity and sustainability, the collaboration offers a unique opportunity to share an inspiring message in connection with the state of our planet to a global audience.

While fashion week is about the clothes on the runway, it’s also a creative medium of expression, an insight into the environmental, socio-economic and political situation of the world. This year’s event comes with a strong message inviting all people to reflect on the importance of compassion as a pillar of world peace, to highlight the connections between humans, biodiversity, and the pressing need to stop our negative impact on the planet and its inhabitants. This important fashion collaboration aims to introduce the best of Ukrainian fashion through a collective runway, a designer showroom and authentic conversations surrounding ethics and sustainability in fashion hosted by the newly renovated California Market Center in downtown Los Angeles.

“For 25 years, we have worked hard to become the unifying force of the fashion industry and its most influential player. In 1997 designers received a call from the Ukrainian Fashion Week to unite in the industry, and today UFW is developing in key areas – sustainability, digitalization, inclusion and diversity. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, all of us are living in a state of incredible stress and survival that everyone feels in every corner of our country. However, Ukrainian designers found the strength during the war to create new collections to tell the whole world about Ukrainian resilience and courage, as well as to show Ukrainian national identity through fashion,” – Iryna Danylevska, founder and CEO of Ukrainian Fashion Week.

Though not one of the major four, Vegan Fashion Week® has, in recent years, been the launchpad for vegan fashion and a hotspot for messages that matter. As one of the most influential international fashion weeks, VFW has become a beacon of hope for an ethical and sustainable lifestyle, emerging and established designers, and is creating industry-wide change. It has also made a name for itself by pioneering collaborations between plant-based textiles, brands and industry leaders in its quest to end the use of animal-derived materials in the fashion industry.

“As we continue to focus on the responsibility of our movement to incubate and strengthen the future of vegan fashion, we are incredibly humbled and proud to welcome Ukrainian Fashion Week as this year’s guest and take the opportunity to introduce their exceptional vision to our international audience. I look forward to activating our partnership and parallel dedication to celebrating creativity in meaningful design.” says Emmanuelle Rienda, Founder of Vegan Fashion Week®.

This historical event promises to be an inclusive platform of education, discovery, and collaboration, showcasing an entirely cruelty-free experience from the fashion we wear, the beauty we put on our skin, and the food we eat. It encapsulates a world where ethics and trends intersect as a celebration of human evolution.  

The Ukrainian Designer lineup includes: CHERESHNIVSKA, DEVOHOME, DZHUS, GOROHOVA, OCHIS, OVERSIZED, PALINGENESY, RCR KHOMENKO, REVICLO by MARKOVA, ROUSSIN, SHEEZEN, and more to be announced.

Rienda plans to cultivate the global fashion scene with exciting collaborations and activations, such as the exclusivity for the launch of a capsule collection by Nous Étudions (LVMH Prize 2020 Shortlist Designer) in collaboration with Desserto® cactus-based biomaterials. And continue to establish Vegan World, the only professional trade show focused on vegan fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands.

Ticket purchases and additional donations will benefit the VFW Mentorship Fund, which provides continued support for emerging sustainable fashion designers to increase their exposure and business opportunities in the US market. This season’s benefits will support Ukrainian Fashion Designers.