April 30, it became known about the death of the famous Russian and Soviet fashion designer Vyacheslav Zaitsev. Sport talks about the role of couturier in the success of several generations of our champion figure skaters. Costumes created according to his sketches helped win more than one gold at the Olympics, World and European Championships.
Many progressive things in our figure skating are associated with the name of Tatiana Tarasova. Due to her broad outlook and respect for other people's professionalism, she attracted professionals from different fields to work with her athletes. One of these areas, of course, was tailoring.
Now you can buy a piece of elastic supplex in a hundred colors in any shop, stick specially purchased rhinestones with convenient technological glue, and draw a sketch in a computer program. Previously, it was great to jump with a tambourine to make the simplest dress. On the one hand, life in the figurine industry has become easier, and its growing popularity confirms this. But the process of creating a costume turned from a ritual action into a utilitarian primitive affair. Vyacheslav, or, as he preferred to call himself, Slava Zaitsev, was one of those who worked unprimitively.According to his fate, you can shoot an adventure film, and the first part will be almost tragic. Military rear childhood. A front-line father who reached Berlin, but because of German captivity, he was convicted as a traitor to the Motherland for 15 years. Slava saw him consciously for the first time when he was twenty. Pretty early death of mother. A difficult, unlucky brother, whom Zaitsev will subsequently help all his life.
There is a saying that oak grows among oaks. Like, there is nowhere to take the artist's talent from a child who grew up in Ivanovo, and not in Florence or Paris. However, the talent was growing and getting stronger, and there was little space for him.Let's omit all the career ups and downs of Slava Zaitsev — this is worthy material not even for a separate text, but for a book. Let's just say that he has achieved tremendous success and recognition, including international, and all this, adjusted for the complexity of time. There was no free fashion in the USSR; Zaitsev could not travel abroad. Nevertheless, he managed to invent his own language in fashion, be super in demand in his country and secure the title of «Red Dior» in the eyes of the rest of the world.
In his work, Zaitsev showed great attention to detail and always spoke with the athletes exactly how they understand the dance. I listened to music a lot and drew, painted, sketched. Then the best of them was chosen by common efforts, and work of a different plan began.
“Like every great master, he understands when he gets the job he is working on, and one of the many options is accepted when Slava says to himself: “Brilliant!” I admire this “Brilliant!” He makes dresses like would be very simple, without a single sparkle, but so stylish, refined, so avant-garde.I don’t know more successful skirts for rock and roll than those that Zaitsev made for us in the 1983 season, when this dance was included in the program as an original one. Natasha Bestemyanova had a striped skirt-pants, she went to her surprisingly, «- this is how Tarasova recalled working with Zaitsev.
He did not mass-produce costumes for figure skaters, because it would be contrary to his piece-by-piece approach to each of his own creations. After Bestemyanova/Bukin, who won everything in his outfits, including the gold of the Olympics, the maestro took a break. He returned after almost 20 years, again dressing athletes associated with Tarasova. They were Yana Khokhlova and Sergey Novitsky, students of Irina Zhuk and Alexander Svinin.
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“I don’t remember him stopping us. We weren’t forbidden at all — he constantly listened to what we asked, and we didn’t have any problems while working on the costumes. There were ordinary working moments. Somewhere the trousers are more comfortable, where -something freer, something asked to add, something to remove.In a word, we had no problems like «I drew a sketch, I said, so we will sew, and a step to the right or left is an attempt to escape,» he said Sergei Novitsky in an interview.
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Working with figure skaters, Slava Zaitsev found a creative balance that is especially important for this sport. back tight, and the pants hang like a sail, it will turn out so-so. And there will be no victorious impression anymore. At the same time, Zaitsev remained the main one as a couturier, so the result always came out eccentric and memorable.