Ukrainian designer in Vilnius: Collections created in bomb shelters became our resistance

For Ukrainian designers, a completed collection now represents more than a finished product. It can be a personal victory, a sign of endurance and proof that Ukrainian culture cannot be stopped, says Kateryna Petrykovych, a Ukrainian jewelry entrepreneur and model living in Vilnius.

The war has transformed Ukraine’s fashion industry into what Petrykovych calls a powerful instrument of cultural resistance. Designers have worked through destroyed factories, urgent evacuations, electricity shortages and logistical crises. Some collections were created in bomb shelters without power.

“Fashion is no longer only a beauty business. It has become our symbolic armor and a form of cultural diplomacy,” Petrykovych said. Clothing and jewelry now serve as expressions of resilience and national identity, carrying a distinct Ukrainian voice to an international audience.

The change is documented in Tonya Noyabrova’s documentary film “Spring-Summer,” which draws on the firsthand testimonies of 18 Ukrainian designers. Petrykovych says forced emigration has not weakened the industry. Designers and models working abroad have instead become cultural ambassadors, keeping international attention on Ukrainian culture and helping finance teams in their homeland through overseas orders.

She says wartime design has also grown more subtle. In the first months of the war, direct patriotic symbols dominated. Today, designers often communicate through associations and visual codes that preserve the nation’s collective memory without stating everything openly. Traditional symbolism, she adds, has always been part of Ukraine’s cultural DNA, but the war has given it renewed force.

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Fashion is no longer only a beauty business. It has become our symbolic armor and a form of cultural diplomacy.