Ukrainian fashion designer Oksana Karavanska has presented a new artistic project, Birds Sing Even During War: Vyshyvanka Couture of the Third Millennium by Oksana Karavanska. The initiative aims to send a message to a foreign audience about the eternal and beautiful Ukrainian spirituality and aesthetics which stand against Russia’s war.
The event took place in Rome and gathered diplomats, public figures, and fashion enthusiasts. Nataliya Polovynka, a Ukrainian singer, theater and film actress, and Shevchenko Prize laureate, directed the show. Karavanska and Polovynka also participated in a general audience with Pope Francis. During their conversation with the pontiff, the artists spoke about the war in Ukraine, presented a colorful cushion depicting Ukrainian children, and thanked him for his help in returning Ukrainian children to Ukraine.
For over 10 years, Oksana Karavanska has been creating Haute Couture collections and conducting cultural diplomacy for Ukraine at the highest level worldwide. The show in Rome was complemented by an exhibition of paintings by renowned Ukrainian artists, father and son Viktor and Makar Moskalyuk, as well as jewelry art.
“The importance of cultural diplomacy is that it serves as a non-military reminder in high circles about us. About what we are fighting for and what we could lose, and what Europe could lose. Today, the Ukrainian people are resisting a horde that wants to appropriate our roots, our history, our national code, to erase us as a nation from the face of the earth. Art and fashion are powerful tools of influence, a ‘soft power,’ through which we have the opportunity to tell about our uniqueness, authenticity, the antiquity of our culture, and at the same time show Ukraine as a modern, fashionable, creative state, as an integral part of Europe – historically and in the present,” says Karavanska.
