Fashion’s Night Out

By Galina Stolyarova

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: September 5, 2012 (Issue # 1725)

Local fashionistas are set to join models, designers and bohemians on the evening of Friday, Sept. 7, as they flock to stores around the city to indulge in a bit of nocturnal retail therapy.

This year’s Fashion’s Night Out event is part of an iconic international fashion festival at which surprises, parties, product launches and discounts meet with charity.

Last year, Fashion’s Night Out spread its wings across 17 countries, and featured tens of thousands of events. In the U.S. alone, participating stores threw challenges and tempted customers with more than 4,500 parties, celebrity appearances, performances, festivals and other forms of entertainment.

This year, St. Petersburg is joining the project for the first time since Fashion’s Night Out, the brainchild of Vogue Magazine, was established in 2009.

In St. Petersburg, where the shopping extravaganza kicks off at 7 p.m., the range of participating shopping venues, which can be found in full at the website of its co-organizer, the Russian edition of Vogue magazine (www.vogue.ru), features premier jewelry stores ranging from Boucheron to Russia’s own Mikhailov Gallery to internationally renowned watchmakers such as Rado, Tag Heuer and Longines, to shoemakers and fashion designer stores including Armani Collezioni, Sonia Rykiel, Salvatore Ferragamo, Baldinini, Tommy Hilfiger, Burberry, Topshop, Missoni, Max Mara, Tru Trussardi, Massimo Dutti, Mango, Karen Millen, Intimissimi and Calzedonia.

Three Russian designers — Tatyana Parfionova, Leonid Alexeyev and Ianis Chamalidy — are also throwing parties and offering special products for their guests that evening.

In Moscow, where the event is being held on Sept. 6, it will feature Natalya Vodyanova, the model and head of The Naked Heart charitable foundation, which she established in 2004 in the wake of the Beslan tragedy, in which nearly 400 people, including many children, died after a school was taken hostage by terrorists.

Since its foundation, the charity has built 67 accessible playgrounds in nearly 50 Russian towns and cities, with some of the playgrounds located in children’s homes, pediatric hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

Three designers — Andrei Bartenev, Darya Fursei and Gabi Trinkaus — have produced original T-shirts with portraits of Vodyanova especially for Fashion’s Night Out, where they will be sold and the profit donated to The Naked Heart Foundation.

In St. Petersburg, the T-shirts will be on sale at DLT department store.

After the Russian events in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Fashion’s Night Out will travel to Spain, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, the U.K., Brazil and the U.S., and then to India, China and Taiwan. The final events will be held on Sept. 15 in Greece and Turkey.