Russian fashion designer Slava Zaitsev, known as the ‘Red Dior’ has died

The famous Russian designer Viacheslav “Slava” Zaitsevnicknamed the “Red Dior”he died on Sunday at the age of 85, a spokeswoman for his Moscow fashion house told AFP.

“Yes,” he died, said Kira Burenina, confirming the information released by the Russian media. In early March, when she “gathered his friends for his birthday, it already looked very very weak‘ the spokesperson said.

Until now the reason for his death is unknownalthough it was known that he had suffered from Parkinson’s in recent years, according to the REN-TV channel.

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Zaitsev was hospitalized this Sunday with a internal bleeding in a Moscow clinic, where he died a few hours later, the relatives of the famous couturier told the local press.

The son of an “enemy of the people” subjected to reprisals during the Stalinist purges, the couturier graduated from the Moscow Textile Institute and during his career he has dressed the most famous celebrities of the former Soviet Unionlike the singer Alla Pugacheva.

His fame skyrocketed when he received permission from the Soviet authorities to put his personal stamp on his designs.

“Fashion designer Viacheslav Zaitsev has died. This year he celebrated his 85th birthday,” Russian public channel Pervy Kanal reported, paying tribute to whom “dictated by Soviet fashion and Russia for decades, an innovator who was not afraid of the daring experiments“.

The couturier, who created more than a thousand models during his career, became known for the pattern of his clothes, similar to that of the traditional colored shawls of his country.

Slava Zaitsev, the “red Dior” of Soviet fashion

The French press called him the “red Dior” in the 1960s both for being a designer from the Soviet Union and for his talent, recognized by Pierre Cardinamong others.

In 1980 he designed the uniforms of the Soviet team that played at the Moscow Olympics and then dress Raisa Gorbachovathe first wife of a Soviet leader –Mikhail Gorbachev— who broke tradition by dressing like a true Western first lady.

Later he also occasionally designed clothes for Ludmila Putina, ex-wife of the current head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.

“I can dress up a whole parade on Red Square in my clothes,” Slava Zaitsev told AFP in 2017 during an interview.

Her last public appearances were on a popular public television morning show called ‘The Fashion Verdict’.

DS