Women in Art: Spring Window Displays Created from Fabric Remnants of Vsi. Svoi Brands

Vsi. Svoi presents updated window displays in Respublika Park shopping mall, at 27 Khreshchatyk Street, and at Lavina Mall, dedicated to five outstanding Ukrainian female artists. The project combines art, fashion, and upcycling, drawing attention to women who made significant contributions to cultural development but remained insufficiently known to the general public.

Oleksandra Ekster, Alla Horska, Liubov Panchenko, Sonia Delaunay, and Olena Kulchytska — artists who worked at the intersection of art and textiles, creating stage costumes, ornaments, and integrating elements of Ukrainian culture into their works. Inspired by their creativity, contemporary artist Kateryna Beslik, in collaboration with the Vsi. Svoi team, created collage-homages using fabrics provided by Ukrainian brands from Vsi. Svoi. “Women in Art” not only honors the memory of these outstanding artists but also promotes upcycling as a responsible approach to resources.

Kateryna Beslik: Art as a Dialogue Between Past and Present

Kateryna Beslik is a fashion artist, designer, and stylist working at the intersection of fashion and art. Her primary medium is clothing, which since childhood has served her as both protection and a means of self-expression. In her works, she explores the duality of the world: destruction and creation, life and death, cruelty and forgiveness.

At the core of her creative approach is the technique of upcycling, which she implements through textile applications in art and recycled clothing in the fashion industry. For this project, Kateryna reinterpreted the work of five Ukrainian female artists, finding parallels between their works and contemporary techniques. For example, Liubov Panchenko created collages from coat fabric scraps, Sonia Delaunay made an iconic patchwork blanket for her son that resonates with cubism, and Oleksandra Ekster worked in the cubo-futurism style, where forms are reduced to geometric planes.

Kateryna explains: “I chose women who were not only artists but also worked with clothing: they created stage costumes, developed embroidery patterns, and boldly experimented with fashion. Their creativity combined Ukrainian art codes with modernism. The vibrant colors that are the main accent of their canvases became the foundation for the created collages. Almost all the works feature a female figure.”

The project was implemented with the support of: The Museum of the Sixties, The Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv, The Olena Kulchytska Art Memorial Museum, and The Alla Horska and Viktor Zaretsky Foundation, to promote and correctly highlight artistic heritage.

“This initiative is more than just store decoration. It’s a way to tell the stories of women who influenced art and fashion, combining tradition and modernism. We strive to make their names sound louder and their style become part of the modern cultural code,” — comments CEO of the Vsi. Svoi store network Artem Fedosov.

The process of creating the window displays consisted of three stages: selecting iconic works by the artists, developing collages, and transferring them using textile techniques. Fabric remnants from Ukrainian brands presented in Vsi. Svoi stores were collected for implementation, which not only supported the concept of upcycling but also symbolically united contemporary Ukrainian fashion with artistic heritage. In total, over 100 meters of fabric were used in two stores.

The “Women in Art” project in Vsi. Svoi window displays is a cultural dialogue between past and present, drawing attention to the role of women in Ukrainian art and their contribution to world culture.

As a part of the project, the brand team will hold free thematic meetings with cultural experts, curators, and artists to deepen knowledge about art and fashion.

Oleksandra Ekster is a Ukrainian artist who introduced Kyiv to the cubo-futurism style after meeting Picasso and Braque in Paris. She combined European culture with Ukrainian traditions, and her scenographic experiments formed a new vision of theatrical art. Ekster also worked with clothing, creating costume sketches from simple geometric shapes, believing that fashion should be both functional and aesthetic. Her approach to color and form remains relevant today.

Alla Horska was an artist who combined academic schooling, folk art, and the avant-garde of the 1920s. Her mosaics and stained glass works are unmistakable: emotional, piercing, filled with powerful energy. Horska not only created but also fought for Ukrainian culture. She worked on scenography, costumes, and drew from the heritage of first-wave avant-gardists. She was fashion-forward and boldly wore pants back in the 1960s when this was a challenge to social norms. Her art and life are a story of courage and resilience.

Liubov Panchenko was an artist, fashion designer, and folk art master. She created clothing sketches, decorative paintings, fabric applications, graphics, and paintings, weaving Ukrainian ornaments into them. Her embroidery patterns were published in Ukraine’s main women’s magazine, and her designs were copied by craftswomen across the country. Panchenko revived traditions, preserved Ukrainian culture, created costumes for choirs, and raised funds to support political prisoners. Her creativity combined deep national identity with visual expressiveness.

Olena Kulchytska was an artist and designer who worked with engraving, textiles, book illustrations, furniture, and interiors. She had perfect knowledge of Ukrainian folk art, created patterns for fabrics, wallpapers, ornaments, and modeled traditional clothing. Her works are a documentary preservation of Ukrainian culture, from architecture to national costumes. In the late 1920s, she actively published embroidery samples, clothing projects, and interior designs in the magazine “Nova Khata.” She traveled extensively, researching and recreating traditional Ukrainian clothing, and also created over 80 carpet sketches.

Beyond her artistic activities, Kulchytska had an active civic position: she sought the release of Ukrainian cultural figures, saved the Lviv Art School from closure, and financed the publishing work of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.

Sonia Delaunay was an artist who invented her own style in art — simultaneism, experimenting with color and form. She revolutionized fashion by creating dresses, scarves, swimwear, and even cars in this style. Having opened her own shops in Madrid and Paris, she laid the foundations for avant-garde fashion. Her bright geometric motifs continue to inspire designers today, and her experiments with combining art and textiles have become classics.

For more information. Respublika Park is a super-regional shopping mall opened in November 2021 in Kyiv with a total area of 300,000 sq m. The owner of the shopping mall is Trafin Consulting und Entwicklungs GmbH, an Austrian company founded in Vienna in 2013 and operating in the real estate sector. Currently, the shareholder of Respublika Park is successfully represented in the real estate markets of Central and Eastern Europe. Trafin makes significant investments in shopping, hotel and residential complexes in many countries and is a significant participant in the investment sector of the Ukrainian economy as a shareholder of Respublika Park.