If it weren't January you would think this was the perfect piece of news for April Fool's Day – Hussein Chalayan going to Vionnet. No, let me rephrase this. It's not the "Chalayan going to Vionnet" part of the story that sounds like a joke, but the fact that Chalayan is going to Goga Ashkenazi's Vionnet. Makes you feel like shivering and makes you wonder a lot.
But let's start from the beginning: a press release sent out yesterday spread the news that Chalayan has been hired as Vionnet's demi-couture designer (a line was launched in 2012 to mark the house's 100th birthday) and that the first collection will be unveiled on 21st January, during Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris.
Chalayan is known for his conceptual and avant-garde creations and he may be perfect for the role; Ashkenazi is known for being a successful entrepreneur and socialite. Her name is linked to oil, money and rich men with bad taste (read former Formula One boss Flavio Briatore and Fiat heir Lapo Elkann).
In May 2012, Ashkenazi took a majority stake in Vionnet; six months later her holding company, GoTo Enterprises Sarl, gained full control of the Milan-based brand.
Collections received mixed reviews and despite the brand appearing every now and then on the red carpet, the label remained a luxury toy in the hands of a billionaire businesswoman, socialite and entrepreneur with an often tacky fashion taste and a penchant for hunting wolves.
From Ashkenazi's biograpphy on the Vionnet site ("Born in Kazakhstan, raised in Moscow, and educated in the United Kingdom since childhood, Ashkenazi is a successful entrepreneur whose business experience spans across a myriad of diversified industries from finance, oil and gas, to real estate, engineering and most recently high fashion...") you get indeed the impression that, in her mind, leading a historical fashion house or brokering mining deals in East Kazakhstan is exactly the same - you just inject a lot of cash in both of them and you get amazing results. Yet, in her case, it becomes quite interesting investigating the sources of her money and how she acquired her vast wealth.
Gaukhar 'Goga' Erkinova Berkaliev was born in 1980 in Southern Kazakhstan. Her father Erkin Berkaliev was an irrigation engineer and the head of the Economics and Trade Department of the Communist Party in Kazakhstan and later the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Berkaliev family was well off and lived in an apartment block in central Moscow, where young Goga also attended an exclusive state school. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, her father exploited the privatisation of former state assets and took control of a number of factories in Kazakhstan.
While the family returned to Kazakhstan, young Goga was sent to school in England, attending Buckswood Grange, and then Stowe School in Buckingham. In 1998 Goga enrolled at Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied history and economics. Spending more time partying in London than studying meant she she made her first useful contacts during these years. When she graduated (with a third class degree since partying proved more important than studying) in 2001, she had indeed already met and started a relationship with Dino Lalvani, the son of the Indian-born founder of electronics giant Binatone.
Through Lalvani he met many influential people including former Formula One chief Briatore. In 2003, while working as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, she met American hotel heir Stefan Ashkenazy. The couple married and went to live in the States, divorcing in 2006.
While she was still married, during a trip home, an opportunity emerged for her family - a tender to supply lines and pumping stations.
The powerful connections of Goga and her sister - co-owners of oil and gas company MunaiGaz Engineering Group - helped a lot. Their financial fortune started from there, but with money also the detractors arrived. Ashkenazi had indeed started a relationship with Timur Kulibayev, son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan, becoming her mistress and her critics say Kulibayev is behind her success, since he has held several positions in state-owned enterprises managing Kazakhstan’s natural resources.
Raised amid privilege and ambition, our exotic tabloid heroine gifted with "a sharp intelligence" according to her friends (but if you're gifted with a sharp intelligence why would you hang around with Briatore and Elkann?), Ashkenazi rose to fame in the UK as a friend of Prince Andrew. She allegedly helped him selling his country house in Berkshire for £4 million more than the asking price to Kulibayev. One of her most famous statements pronounced on British grounds remains "I am the richest girl in the world!" announced to her guests at her 30th birthday party.
Frankly, there doesn't seem to be much in common between Chalayan's conceptual ideas and Ashkenazi's background made of royals, oligarchs, and rich playboys. It is extremely difficult to picture in your mind Chalayan and Ashkenazi working together on a collection (please, tell us it didn't happen, also considering that she herself admitted she lacked the experience to design the first two collections, but she did them all the same). The temptation to close your eyes to avoid seeing disaster coming is great, but, at the same time, this is exactly what fashion is about at the moment: acquiring companies, accumulating assets and, hopefully, finding somebody talented enough to make you rich and richer.
This may be the final sad truth of the fashion industry - you need a glamorous tycoon with a disgusting amount of money and a talented designer to make a fashion house in 2014. Though you can of course read this strange collaboration also from another point of view: Chalayan will obviously (hopefully) be using his wage at Vionnet to fund his own conceptual collections.
Time will tell, in the meantime, if you're wondering what's that noise in the background, it may as well be Madame Vionnet rolling in her grave...
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