Without a Dog but Still a Lady

Be it good or bad, people still depend on nature, more precisely on the time of year. This means that spring is accompanied not only by an upsurge in the activities of firms and brand names offering goods for the summer, vacation, the new season, but also by sharpened emotions and desires; we want to fall in love, have a good rest, change something in our life, or just get out of town.

It is precisely for those bored to remain so very businesslike and up to date, wishing to recall such decadent pastime as large family dinners or drinking tea in a summerhouse, or having a party at the dacha that the noted Ukrainian designer Viktoriya Hres offered her new spring and summer collection. She called it Anton Chekhov. Perhaps because Chekhov, like book-reading, has become so charmingly old-fashioned and half-forgotten these days.

You will not find the lady with a lap dog or the man in a case in her collection. Instead there were just young ladies wearing long white lace or cambric skirts, linen lace-trimmed basket-stitch two-pieces, embroidered and crocheted. White was the predominant color — not because it is one of the most fashionable trends of the coming season, but because white is what we usually prefer in summer, including light coats, even if the hem of the dress brushes the grass and the fringe of the weightless shawl is covered by pollen as you go for a walk.

And you need not have to wonder if you wear to the office how well this style matches that of the modern businesswoman. It does not match at all. Yet this is precisely the greatest advantage, because a beautiful woman cannot and must not remain buried in business, spending all her time at the office.