Valentin Yudashkin, the primary Russian to be admitted to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in 1996 before being excluded in 2022 for failing to sentence his country’s attack on Ukraine, died in Moscow on Tuesday at age 59.

His death was announced by Russian news agency Tass and confirmed by an organization spokesperson.

The reason behind death was given as cancer, a condition he had been battling since 2016, in response to news reports. He’s survived by his wife and a daughter.

Together with Vyacheslav “Slava” Zaitsev, who is taken into account his mentor and who died on Sunday, Yudashkin is seen as one among the best-known Russian designers of the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras. French Russsian fashion historian Alexandre Vassiliev noted how Russia has lost its “primary and most respected fashion designers in two days.” Although Russia has 1,000 skilled designers registered, only a few of them show continuous collections and only five or so are well-known. The war in Ukraine has made getting materials akin to fabric and buttons tougher for designers, since most textile factories are specializing in war-related production, in response to Vassiliev.

Yudashkin and Zaitsev embraced a design ethos that was more harking back to the late twentieth century than the twenty first century, favoring lavish, imported fabrics, appliqués, embroidery and Asian influences. “They were very feminine with their designs, using narrow waistlines to present women as slim and tall, which is just not all the time the case in point of fact. They [envisioned] sublime women. They loved high style hair adorned with flowers, high heels and numerous long dresses. Their styles were [more] fairy tale-like than on a regular basis fashion. After all, neither of them was much like the ready-to-wear or fast fashion of today,” Vassiliev said.

Tanya Wetenhall, a professor at George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, recalled visiting the Soviet Union for the primary time in 1986 to see Zaitsev. She noted how that period in Russian history was much like the one which “we appear to be headed back into — a closed Russia.”

She noted how each designers “were on this mission to try to point out us one other side of Russia from a type of cultural diplomacy, which was fashion. Through their voices, they tried to coach us a few world that existed pre-1917 with wonderful fashion and a connection to Paris,” she said. “It’s sort of heading right into a dark period again. I hate to say it because those links at the moment are gone. It takes a generation to work out of that.”

The lack of Zaitsev and Yudashkin comes at a pivotal time for Russia, Wetenhall said. “This moment that we’re entering questions how do the humanities survive in this era and the way can we take into consideration using them in the longer term, when all of this ends to search out ways for people to come back back together.”

Born on Oct. 14, 1963, in Moscow Oblast, the region surrounding the Russian capital, Yudashkin studied garment design at Moscow Industrial College, graduating in 1986. Early on in his profession in 1988, he worked for Zaitsev as a makeup and hairstylist for the designer’s runway show that highlighted the cocoon-like collection that was inspired by Fabergé eggs runway shows. “The gathering was unwearable, because you may’t even sit in a automobile in a dress shaped liked an egg. However it was very spectacular,” the style historian said.

Yudashkin rose to prominence within the perestroika era by dressing Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and is remembered for his theatrical style. He showed his couture designs in Paris for the primary time in January 1991, catching the attention of international press and museums because of opulent cocoon designs inspired by Fabergé eggs, and opened his label in 1993.

WWD described him in 1995 during Moscow Couture Week as a designer “with elan, but additionally a wild imagination,” whose designs shown in Paris had included “thick horizontal channel quilting built into tubes which cover torso, arms and neck.”

In 1996, he became the primary Russian designer to be admitted to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and would show intermittently on Paris’ couture week schedule for plenty of years, becoming a guest member in 2016.

A 1997 feature on Yudashkin’s first store in his native country, next to his couture house on Ktuzovsky Prospect, highlighted “the entrenched position [he] occupies within the Moscow government circles” with the presence of then-mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who harbored presidential ambitions on the time.

Along with couture, ready-to-wear and a denim line, he designed uniforms for national airline, Aeroflot, and his country’s Olympic and football teams within the ’90s.

A matryoshka he designed for Russian Vogue’s tenth anniversary celebrations in 2008 became the highest lot of the evening, netting $100,000 for charity. It was also the 12 months his designs marched in Red Square, when he presented uniform designs for all branches of Russia’s armed forces.

In 2022, his digital show was deprogrammed from the Paris Couture Week platform by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode over Yudashkin’s continued silence and position as an affiliate of the Russian regime. As for the way Yudashkin’s decision to not resign the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vassiliev speculated that the designer’s business was more reliant on Russia than the West, and he was “very much frightened to lose the whole lot akin to stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg shops and a workshop.”

The Russian Fashion Blog founder Julia Dale noted that after the Iron Curtain got here down, Russians were hungry for imported goods and experiences that they’d previously been deprived. Along with being as “single-handedly chargeable for creating the primary Russian luxury brand that might be in comparison with iconic European brands along with his high fashion line,” Yudashkin also created “exquisite jewelry, accessories and fragrances,” she said. “Despite Yudashkin’s fame and success, his many friends in Russian cultural circles describe him as kind, humble and dedicated to his craft.

“He played a big role in promoting and preserving traditional Russian craftsmanship and supporting the event of a powerful fashion industry in Russia that values the work of expert artisans.”

On a more personal note, Dale said Yudashkin’s exhibition with tons of of pieces on the State Historical Museum in Moscow within the early Aughts “was very inspiring to see the extent of craft I believed had long been lost in Russia.”

Although his death “is a large blow to Russian fashion, he had done so much to pave the way in which for a recent generation of designers,” Dale said, adding that his legacy will little question proceed through his daughter Galina’s stewardship as creative director of his fashion house.

The Latest York-based Gennady Perepada of One and Only Realty, who had listed Yudashkin’s Upper East Side town house last 12 months, described him because the “the perfect couture [designer], the perfect father, best grandfather, best human being and best friend.”

Yudashkin is survived by his wife Marina, daughter and three grandchildren. His burial is being planned for a Russian cemetery where many outstanding residents are interred, in response to Vassiliev.