LITKOVSKA Designs Resilience Through Garments Born From Blackouts and War
“I’m so proud of Ukrainians and of my team, who, despite four years of full-scale war, continue to live, love and create.”
It might sound extreme to say that fashion reflects the state of the world, but it’s true, and few brands embody this as powerfully as LITKOVSKA. The Ukrainian label puts the country’s current war-torn climate front and center, spotlighting hardship, resilience and hope through its designs.
The brand’s latest runway show at Paris Fashion Week drew direct inspiration from the war, with headlamps worn by models and a scent designed to evoke the smell of bomb shelters and sub-zero temperatures. An emotional showcase and raw evocation of situations most of us cannot even imagine, this designer is not afraid to face harsh realities. Both extremely proud of her heritage and excited by a global stage, we caught up with founder Lilia Litkovska to hear about her influences and how the ongoing war has affected her creativity.
Read on for the full interview and head to the brand’s website to check out the latest collections.
In other news, Cecilie Bahnsen and UNIQLO announced their first-ever collaboration.
Can you tell us a bit about your brand and how you started designing?
I have been a designer since secondary school, when I didn’t even know that “designer” was a profession. In my family archive, there’s a photo of me showing a dress I created for my class and teachers at an improvised fashion show. I found it fascinating to decompose the world around me, music, books, art, nature and the lives of people around me, into something that reflected my vision and taste. Clothes were the most natural way to do that.
I designed and sewed clothes for my friends, then for their friends and so on. Then I found myself making costumes for Ukrainian dancers, singers and artists. Some were stars at the time and others were just people I grew up with.
I founded LITKOVSKA in 2009 in Kyiv to create garments with depth and intention. It was never meant to be for everyone. The goal was to keep exploring and creating something I believed in, to make clothes that reflect and support the inner world of women with strong personalities. And I knew I needed to go global to share those messages.
We were included in the official Paris Fashion Week schedule in 2017 and have been there ever since. Today, we are present in over 60 retailers across 20 countries, including Dover Street Market.
You staged your first runway show at this past season of Paris Fashion Week. Can you tell us about this collection and the overall experience?
We have been on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar for nine years, but this season we put on our first full runway show, a huge milestone for the brand.
I dedicated this show and the collection to something deeply important to me: the struggle of my native Ukraine in the war. I’m so proud of Ukrainians and of my team, who, despite four years of full-scale war, continue to live, love and create. This winter was brutal. Russians destroyed the infrastructure and continued attacking civilians every night, leaving millions without electricity and heating in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. This collection was born from the hardest winter we have lived through.
Coming home to my frozen apartment, I saw people walking the streets with headlamps because there was no lighting. That image stayed with me. I wanted to bring that light to Paris, not just as a visual, but as an energy. Because this is not only about external light, it is about the inner light that people share and how that keeps hope alive.
We ended the show with black snow falling slowly. It was very emotional. When I went out for my bow and looked in the audience, I realised that the light had made the connection I was reaching for.
For the show, you had a custom scent made to capture the atmosphere. Can you describe it? What was it designed to evoke?
I had always dreamed of capturing the smell of my Kyiv. The war changed it dramatically, with beauty, love and history intertwined with elements of war and this felt like the right moment. We wanted the space to smell like Kyiv in that winter: the smell of a bomb shelter, where part of the collection was created. Cold air, concrete, dampness, generators and diesel, but with secondary notes of spring earth and the first grass, as a sign of hope.
I collaborated with my friend, the perfumer Eugen Lazarchuk, and it took us a long time to find exactly the right balance. It was important to immerse the audience in the full reality of the collection, and scent was an essential part of that.
You also take inspiration from architecture. What initially drew you to building structures?
I have always been drawn to shapes: the way they look from the outside, the way they conceal or reveal the inner life of those who inhabit them. Architecture holds the meaning of its time, and it carries an entire era within it. You can read a decade, a culture, a whole set of values simply by looking at what people chose to build. Structures that survive centuries tell you everything about the people who made them and the world they believed in. I love stopping at buildings in Paris to read the name of the architect inscribed on the facade. What a wonderful tradition!
As a Ukrainian designer, your work is deeply influenced by the ongoing war. How does this affect your creativity and process?
The war is not an abstract thing for me, it has affected me directly: my friends, my family, my team. As I answer this question, my daughter is drawing a picture with the words “Everyone proceed to the bomb shelter” and showing it to me. So, it affects me and will likely continue to do so for a long time.
The collections I create are an integral part of me. The war makes me dig deeper into what truly matters in life: love, hope, perseverance, dignity, honesty, clearly not material things, to which I said goodbye when I fled with my daughter to safety, thinking of my husband who stayed behind to defend Ukraine.
I feel an incredible responsibility to represent our people around the world, so the message matters deeply. I think the pieces have become more truthful, more direct, aimed at delivering real emotions. I have consciously kept my team and production in Ukraine. I cannot betray these people or take that hope away from them.
How has your design philosophy evolved since founding the brand?
I started as a disruptor, a rebel, if you like. I was actively finding myself, defining my style and I saw no limits. I was absorbing everything around me. I valued individuality and placed it at the centre of my work. Every woman wants to be unique, so why not help her step away from imposed trends and rules? I want her to become even stronger and more confident, while keeping her feminine fragility.
That is why the label we attach to our clothes has two layers: one with LITKOVSKA, and above it a blank white one where the wearer can write her own name. We become co-creators because a garment is only as alive and beautiful as the inner energy of the person wearing it.
I don’t like anything produced en masse; mass production kills individuality. And I value truth above everything: a piece must be thought through thoroughly, inside and out, no compromises on intention or quality. “There is no wrong side” has been my motto.
I am more refined now than I was twenty years ago. I am still exploring myself, but increasingly focused on conveying the philosophy that has taken shape within me. Do I still feel like a rebel? Honestly, yes. It is an integral part of who I am.
Can you walk us through your creative process, from initial concept to final collection?
I build my work around the most powerful emotions I am experiencing at a given time, whether that is climbing Kilimanjaro with veterans who lost limbs in the war, travelling through remote Ukrainian villages with deep-rooted traditions, visiting Japan or Nepal or living through a brutal winter in Kyiv. These experiences give me the mood and the energy. I shape them into initial messages that crystallize into the main theme of the collection as the creative process unfolds. The work does not always flow easily; I often feel incredibly nervous when we drift off course. But when eventually things come together, I experience an enormous relief.
All of this lands in a moodboard. From there, we work within the language of the brand. We begin researching materials and exploring new techniques that feel relevant to the original idea. At the same time, we develop sketches, followed by fittings. Sometimes we fit a piece three or five times and still decide not to include it in the final collection. Every piece goes through its own kind of birth. And in the end, it’s the runway that shows us what we have achieved.
With references to the contemporary nomad and technical gear designed for surviving tough conditions, how do you define the brand’s core identity today?
Today, LITKOVSKA’s identity is what I would call intellectual utilitarianism, refined tailoring that becomes armour. The contemporary nomad, for us, is not a romantic image. It is the reality of a person who carries their home and their meaning with them. The technical details in our collections are not decoration; they are tools for survival and mobility. We combine archaic codes with functional design to create a wardrobe that works as a system, with clothes as a reliable companion, something that gives you a sense of protection and affirms that even in turbulent times, you can maintain your inner architecture and keep building.
We have never seen function and beauty as opposites. For thousands of years, people made functional objects and added elements of design, a personal touch, to find more satisfaction in owning and using them. That is true of many traditional crafts, and we carry that approach forward.
Has your relationship to home and heritage shifted over the past few years?
Yes, very much. Before, heritage was a source and something I drew from creatively: Ukrainian craft, Baroque architecture and the tailoring tradition in my family.
Now, a sense of responsibility has been added. I work internationally and draw inspiration from many places in the world. But I feel a duty to carry the most important messages from my country, the incredible resilience, the will to live and to win, the preservation of values and the heroism. Ukraine continues to create, that is how we survive and how we will ultimately prevail.
Heritage for us is not a museum. It is a living force that must be tended. That is also what our ARTISANAL line is about, a demi-couture and upcycling line we launched in 2018. We collect fabric scraps, vintage garments and leftovers from previous collections, tear them back into threads and send them to rural areas of Ukraine, where they are rewoven on hundred-year-old looms using traditional techniques. A single jacket can take over 37 hours of handwork. Each piece is unique, traceable and entirely made by hand.
It is an ode to generational continuity and the idea that nothing is truly old or new, that things transform and carry memory forward. That philosophy runs through everything we make. And right now, keeping those craft traditions alive feels more important than ever.
What is next for LITKOVSKA?
I don’t want to plan. The moment I start planning, I become less honest with myself, and how can I create from that place? I am overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts that I want to share with the world. We move forward, and I am glad that with every year, more people find our philosophy close to their own.
