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IRINA KRAVCHENKO, CENTER, POSES BACKSTAGE AT ALEXANDER WANG WITH WYLIE HAYS AND ASIA PIWKA.
AFTER SEEING A CELL-PHONE PICTURE OF HER MONTHS BEFORE THE SHOW, WANG FELL IN LOVE WITH THE LOOK OF IRINA KRAVCHENKO, PICTURED WITH THE DESIGNER ABOVE. "THERE'S KIND OF A PROVOCATIVE WAY THAT SHE WEARS THE CLOTHES," HE SAYS. "EVERYTHING IS JUST BELIEVABLE ON HER."
style.comThe hunt for the next big thing begins immediately after the last show has ended. Bitton and Wang have been in communication about the casting since March. They've tracked a handful of candidates, many of whom will end up in the lineup, but zeroed in on one in particular: a snub-nosed henna redhead named Irina Kravchenko. She is 23 years old, five-feet, ten-and-a-half inches tall, Ukrainian, and speaks very limited English.
Bitton and Wang call her a new Freja, after Freja Beha Erichsen, the boyish, multi-tattooed Danish model who was a sensation a few seasons back. She, too, projected a sinewy, loose-limbed aura of not giving a sh**. If many new models—essentially, teenagers plucked from obscurity and sent around the world to be dressed up by teams of adults chattering in languages they do not speak—seem like lost sheep separated from the herd, Kravchenko is a wolf. "There's a certain toughness," Wang says. "There's kind of a provocative way that she wears the clothes, and everything is just believable on her. She's very blasé. She came and met with me and was just, like, 'OK? Can I go now?'"
Wang first saw a photo of Kravchenko two months before the show, when her agent showed him one on his smartphone while out one night. He has occasionally complained that his much-remarked-upon love of models has been overstated—"pigeonholed" is his word—but the way he speaks about models can seem like a religion, complete with icons and idols. "I was like, 'Oh, my gosh! You have to send her to me tomorrow,'" he recalls of speaking with Kravchenko's agent. "I knew from that one photo. I knew that I loved her and needed her." If there's a decisive moment in the career of Irina Kravchenko, it may be that one—at which she wasn't even present. "He had that in his head," Bitton confirmed. "I want to say that he might have captured that face and worked around it, because the minute he saw her, he was like, 'Oh, I love her.'"
Had Wang carried the image of Irina in his mind for months as he'd worked on and styled the collection? "Definitely," he said.
Saturday afternoon at the pier-side space where Alexander Wang shows his collection, the 43 models who will walk in the show are gathered in the hangarlike backstage area, having their makeup done, their hair blown flat, strips of tape applied to their heads. Liberty Ross, the English model-turned-tabloid-fixture, is among them. So is Alex's old friend, the model Erin Wasson, who has graduated from runway regular to a kind of emerita position, and now designs jewelry and, occasionally, clothing collections.
But the opening spot is going to Irina Kravchenko. She has been held back from all prior shows to make her grand debut here; before now, she has walked precisely one local fashion show in her entire life, back in the Ukraine. Wang's Spring collection is a dark, largely black-and-white riff on sportswear: padded sweatshirts, baseball jerseys, and dresses, riddled with cutouts and threaded together with iridescent wires that look like tiny fish bones. Kravchenko is wearing a black zippered jacket with a pull the size of a silver dollar, tailored shorts, and knee-high piecemeal boots that reveal slats of skin between their leather strips. After this show, she will go on to do several more in New York (Marc Jacobs, Victoria Beckham) and a handful of the best in Milan (Prada, Jil Sander, Marni, Bottega Veneta), then graduate to fixture status in Paris (Balenciaga, Givenchy, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Valentino…). Kravchenko takes the key closing spot at Versus in Milan and opens Haider Ackermann and Viktor & Rolf as well. She is—model agents at rival agencies grudgingly admit—the new girl of the season.
But on Saturday afternoon in New York, that's all still ahead of her. Does she like her outfit? "Yes, very much. It's beautiful," she says haltingly. ("My English is very bad.") She's nervous, she admits. What will she think about just before she takes that first big step? "My legs are so angry," she says, with warrior logic. Forward march.
youtube.com/fashiontvWORLD- FashionTV highlights Ukrainian model Irina Kravchenko from the Fall/Winter 2013-2014 season. Her modeling agency is MONSTER Milan. In the Fall/Winter 2013-2014 season she walked in shows like Louis Vuitton and Paul and Joe.
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