Riga Fashion week 2025: Latvian fashion faces geopolitical challenges

Riga Fashion Week, held from April 7th to 10th, 2025, in the Latvian capital, showcases the resilience of a small European nation's fashion designers who are focusing on the local market.

The overall impression left by the collections of Latvian designers at Riga Fashion Week 2025 is one of free expression. This need for creative freedom is shared by any international fashion designer. However, here in Latvia, it carries a particular weight due to the country's size, geographical location, and history.

To speak of Latvia is to evoke a context – 51 years of Soviet occupation (until 1991) with an interruption during the Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1944 – and a conjuncture: the loss of Russian clientele due to economic sanctions imposed by the European Union, of which Latvia is a member. This situation is further burdened by the menacing prospect of the Great Russian Empire, memories of which still linger whenever the subject is broached.

Thus, the work carried out by Elena Strahova, founder and CEO of Riga Fashion Week for 21 years, demonstrates an iron fist in a velvet glove. "This season was particularly challenging to organize," she confided to FashionUnited during the opening dinner (Tuesday, April 8th).

She further stated in the catalog's editorial: "Despite all the geopolitical challenges, our platform continues to grow, supporting talent and creativity in Latvia and beyond." In practice: perfect organization, eleven runway shows, three presentations, about twenty journalists, mostly from Eastern Europe, and packed houses both on Tuesday the 8th, at the Zunda Towers, iconic landmarks of the capital, and on Wednesday the 9th and Thursday the 10th of April, at Hanzas Perons, a former warehouse transformed into a cultural space.

A premium positioning in a market of approximately six million inhabitants

Unlike other cases (Paris, New York, Tokyo, London, Seoul, etc.), this fashion week has neither an ecosystem – trade shows, showrooms – to attract B2B buyers, nor a federative framework, nor even, for this year, institutional support.

In fact, the shows and presentations primarily aim to attract local clientele (some collections are directly from the Spring/Summer 2025 season). The market for the brands present is mainly concentrated in the Baltic countries: Latvia, with less than two million inhabitants, Estonia, with less than 1.5 million, and Lithuania, with nearly three million.

Therefore, the fashion proposition cannot be viewed through the lens of new seasonal trends. The aim here is to offer wearable collections for an affluent clientele. Especially since the designers design and manufacture locally, the prices of the items correspond to a premium/high-end market. The two bridal collections that were shown on the first day attest to this grounding in commercial reality (the wedding market is not part of the seasonal trend cycle, QED).

Craftsmanship as a Sign of a Baltic Clothing Tradition

Fortunately, fashion is never far away when you look for it, especially with the invited foreign brands: Berth (UK/Hong Kong), Szczygiel (Poland), and Novaliss (Spain). Szczygiel adopts a sustainable approach with the use of recycled materials. As for Novaliss, its feminine and masculine sirens, as if emerging from the aquatic depths, reflect a mastery of knitwear (crocheted mesh, lace, guipure).

Craftsmanship also confers an identity-based rootedness. Also, in addition to the crochet items seen on several collections, the Verens checks recall that this motif is commonly used in traditional Baltic textiles, especially for folk costumes. They embody a connection with nature, specific to the population, which is reflected in the custom of offering flowers to the designers who show their collections.

A Certain Idea of Femininity and a Focus on Queer Culture

The image of the sexy woman – long wavy hair, stilettos, and sexy outfits – still has a bright future ahead. Without jumping to conclusions, it seems that #metoo movement has not yet crossed the Baltic Sea. The collections of the Estonian designer, Ivo Nikkolo, and the Latvian designers, Selina Keersigne and Iveta Vecmane, explore this stereotype of the ultra-feminine woman.

Moreover, when FashionUnited asks Una Berzina if her suit jackets, inspired by the men's wardrobe, are a way of challenging the perception of feminine aesthetics, she denies it: "My inspiration comes from my grandfather. Today, women are looking for comfort. They are very busy and can no longer wear stilettos and miniskirts. But, nevertheless, when we go out, we want to shine and be pretty." The following photos testify to this dual take on being feminine.

To move away from the classic feminine/masculine dichotomy, one must turn to Lena Lumelsky and her new project: ArtisainT. Lena Lumelsky, a Ukrainian based in Belgium, is part of the second generation of the Antwerp school. She trained with Glenn Martens and Demna Gvasalia, with whom she collaborated before he created the brand Vêtements. She sold her eponymous label in the innovative concept store Ra (with Romain Brau, in Antwerp) and at La Suite (Paris), now closed, or at H. Lorenzo (Los Angeles). She presented during Paris Fashion Week via Florence Deschamps' showroom, a curriculum that designates an era that has passed since the Covid crisis.

Commercially, she now meets the needs of her private clientele, which no longer includes Russians due to the war in her country of origin, "Except for Renata Litvinova, who is starring at the Théâtre Hebertot in a costume designed by Demna, the only Russian to take a stand against the war," she tells FashionUnited. She designs in Antwerp and manufactures in Latvia, both for the cost of production and for the artisanal tradition. "With the legacy of the Soviet period, every woman knows how to sew or embroider, if only to know how to make her own clothes. In fact, I came here in 2011 in search of manufacturers."

At the same time, she is developing "ArtisainT," a project carried out in collaboration with young artists and artisans, especially those skilled in pottery (a national know-how). "ArtisainT allows them to have visibility in environments they would not otherwise have access to, such as the pop-up showrooms that I have organized in Azerbaijan or Dubai."

Her presentation in her boutique allowed us to discover a queer universe for which she herself staged. "Even in a small country, if you convey a message and you are talented, you can exist."

When contemporary art underpins the identity of a collection

The meeting of genres between contemporary art and fashion, expressed by the duo Elina Maligina and Natalija Jansone, offers an additional dimension to ready-to-wear. Prior to this, Elina Maligina organized the performance NOME, at the Museum Art Gallery, against a backdrop of rejection of a society in which algorithms dominate.

A manifesto accompanies the ideological stance of this happening combined with an exhibition: "Algorithms decide what you do, like, or think. You are data. But what happens if we withdraw from the system? If you ignore it? NOME acts to change the rules of the consumerist game. Your choice is revolution, the collapse of the algorithm. It will be perceived everywhere, not as a trend, but as an error in the system capable of building a new reality. We are not products."

The next day, Natalija Jansone's show took up the theme of robotization, and by extension Artificial Intelligence, on the screen at the back of the podium, while presenting her ready-to-wear collection. "The search for identity is all the stronger in a small country like ours," explains the designer. She sells her ready-to-wear in multi-brand stores in Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, or New York thanks to her presence on Tranoï (Armand Hadida era), her stays in Japan, and an agent who is now retired. She is also looking for a new one.

Does this mean that to strengthen the message sent by a collection, you must have a personal statement? Positions to defend? At a time when, to renew desire, fashion is looking for new terrains of expression (lifestyle, design, art, hospitality, etc.), it must be believed that yes. In Latvia as elsewhere.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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