Haute Couture Russian designer Malyarova Olga is skilled in the art of making women feel like princesses. Her couture expertise leads her to spending hundreds of hours around one detail: embroidery, hand beading, and cutting the perfect silhouette. She aims to dazzle and glamourize, and the proof of her success comes from the loyal patronage of clients. Her painstaking attention to detail – and ceaseless pursuit of silhouettes that flatter the female form – has seen her reign supreme in the bridal stakes in St Petersburg, Russia. Olga’s bridal and evening couture is practically legendary among Russian VIPs, and stars that loves to wear her ethereal creations.
“With each new collection I try to surpass myself, to achieve the best quality, perfect fit and amazing effect; to evoke emotions with the beauty of my works.”
In this exclusive interview with Alina Dyachenko, Olga Malyarova discusses her fashion career, her future plans, and the transitory inspirations and very real hard work associated with the life of a couture designer.
Chic Icon: How did you decide to become a fashion designer and how your creative career has started?
Olga Malyarova: Malyarova Olga is my real name, and my whole life is a constant creativity and fashion phantasmagoria. I started to tailor from an early childhood. My mother worked as a seamstress and I learned a lot from her. With my mother we used to attend ballroom dancing shows and admire those gorgeous dresses in crystals and feathers, since then and till now I’m a fan of that chic style.
I decided to become a fashion designer at the early age of 12, and was tailoring every time I’m free from school. At the age of 16 I started to study in the University of Technology and Design of St. Petersburg, Russia and at the same time started to develop my very first collection that had a big success at the competition of young designers. Since then I’m working professionally as a fashion designer. With each new collection I try to surpass myself, to achieve the best quality, perfect fit and amazing effect, to evoke emotions with the beauty of my works.
CI: What is the concept of dresses by the designer Olga Malyarova? What’s your mission?
OM: I want to give happiness through the beauty, to give aesthetic pleasure. My mission is to make women beautiful, to give them radiance from joy and self-love. A woman’s path is quite complicated and thorny, there is a lot of aggression and stress around, it’s very easy to start judging yourself, because the canons of beauty are very strict. I tailor chic outfits for all women; I do everything to emphasize on the elegance and beauty of the body, to hide what has to be hidden. Many girls, especially brides, start to cry from happiness when they see themselves in my dresses in a mirror. This is my mission!
CI: Where do you get your inspiration?
OM: Inspiration is around us, it is in the air same as thoughts. You never know at what moment this thought can get into your head, you can accidentally see something in a certain perspective and you may dream something abstract, but interesting as an idea for decorating a dress, for example. However most often I see all my creative ideas before sleeping or when I’m sleeping. Perhaps the brain at that moment focuses on everything seen during the day and the inspiration and ideas add up as a puzzle into something specific. It’s hard to explain.
CI: How much time on average does it take to create one of your masterpieces?
OM: It took me 9 months to create the most complicated dress, almost like having a baby. This is a corset dress made of natural silver. Details for the corset were made by jewelers in the Filigree technique according to my sketches, as well as inlaid with diamond-cut crystal stones. The dress has a unique shape, a large train, embroidered with delicate Chantilly lace and embroidery in the shape of feathers.
Just recently I created another masterpiece which took me around 8 months. It’s a dress completely strewn with around 200 thousands of crystals. This dress was introduced to the public at the Estet Fashion Week in Moscow in November 2019.
CI: What should a client know before ordering a wedding dress by Malyarova Olga?
OM: We tailor dresses starting from 2 months on average. We can repeat any dress from our collections or create a unique dress design that will fully meet the tastes and wishes of the client. The most important is to contact us in advance, as all the dresses are hand made, I personally work on each dress and control all processes. It takes a lot of time.
CI: Do you have any role models among fashion designers?
OM: My most favorite designer of all times is Alexander McQueen. He is the only one who I really admire and appreciate. Also I really respect such world famous designers as Elie Saab, Zuhair Murad and Georges Hobeika.
CI: Tell us about your new collection?
OM: I haven’t done wedding collections for a long time, so this time I focused on this topic. Fluffy skirts, embroidered corsets, delicate playful images, flounces of white tulle and the sheen of pure transparent crystals. This season, materials of a pure transparent type are very relevant. Be it glassy sequins or faceted transparent crystals of various shapes. A lot of white and silver. Very cute! The wedding theme is also diluted in our new collection in red. Juicy scarlet shade combined with silver. Bright, bold, pompous.
CI: What are your plans for the near future?
OM: I’m planning to organize the first individual exhibition Malyarova Olga “The Art of Dresses” this year. To expose the most luxurious dresses with good lighting, so that every visitor can see our painstaking work. The model runs fast and you do not have time to enjoy every detail of the costume at the fashion shows. I want to fix it and present my dresses in all its glory. The entrance will be available to everyone.
CI: What does Olga Malyarova dream about?
OM: It’s hard to answer this question. Dreams are ephemeral. It is supposed to dream about something inaccessible and impossible. And for everything else, you just need to build plans and goals. After all, everything material in our life can be obtained with a great zeal. My dream is that I have enough strength for all my ideas and projects. My dream is to glorify my country to the fashion world.
Photo project by Yulia Malyarova
Video by Ilya Logachev
Locations: Faberge Museum; The Gamma Hotel.
