U.S. Designer: Russian Fashion On The Rise, But Rights Issues Play A Role

Moscow is gearing up for Fashion Week, a major event for the Russian design industry, at the end of March. Ahead of the Moscow festivities, RFE/RL's Russian Service spoke to Valerie Steele, a U.S. fashion historian, curator, and director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Steele praised some new trends in Russian design, but said that recent anti-homosexual initiatives in Russia are particularly harmful to the fashion industry, in which there are many prominent gay designers.