A reputed fashion designer back home, she’s got Paris Hilton in the front row and her first boutique in NY
She struts into the Ivy with leg to spare and a long ponytail swinging behind her. She’s working a super short, silver polka-dot dress, which she designed herself, and some gooey lip-gloss. She’s got a makeup artist in tow, along with two publicists and a bodyguard.
Is it Paris? Miley? Ivanka?
No, it’s Kira Plastinina, a 15-year-old Russian fashion designer, and if everything goes as planned, she’s going to be the next “it” girl.
“When I was really little, people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up,” she says, “First I said a princess, then I said a fashion designer. I’m not grown up, but I am a fashion designer!”
Plastinina is a phenom in progress. She’s just in from Russia, where in the last year she opened 40 stores bankrolled by her millionaire daddy, Sergei Plastinin, one of Russia’s largest dairy producers worth of more than $500 million. Six months ago, she had a fashion show with Paris Hilton in the front row. And she’s already had three Women’s Wear Daily stories; Teen Vogue is calling her a “teen tycoon” and “the talk of the town in her homeland.”
Her first U.S. store opened in New York, recently. In the U.S., the goal is 50 Kira Plastinina stores in the next three years, and eventually 250.
Part of the first, post-Communist generation, Plastinina — who speaks almost perfect English, attends an international school and adores TV shows Gossip Girl and The Hills — represents a new fashion identity for Russia. Her clothes, with an average $48 price point, are fast fashion targeting teens that live their lives online, where image is reality and international borders are nonexistent.
... contd.