As Western businesses fled Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Kira Dikhtyar, a 33-year-old model in New York City, traveled in the opposite direction.
Leaving behind a decade-long modeling career in the United States, the dual U.S.-Russian national returned to her hometown of Moscow this spring to launch a new clothing line in sanctions-hit Russia while declaring her support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The concept of the company, which she says is still under development, is inexpensive replicas of Western brand apparel to fill the shelves of Zara, H&M and other retailers that shuttered their Russian locations in the aftermath of the Feb. 24 invasion.
“We change the design a little bit in order not to get sued by the companies,” Dikhtyar said in a phone interview from her home in Moscow.
The project provides a glimpse into the ragtag reorientation of the Russian economy under Western sanctions. One of the best-known examples is the recreation of McDonald’s without the Golden Arches and Big Macs, but otherwise offering what its new backer — a Siberian oil tycoon who bought all 840 stores — says will be largely indistinguishable fare under a new name — “Tasty and that’s it.”
On Friday, at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said the adaptation of the Russian economy was succeeding. “Russian enterprises and government authorities worked in a composed and professional manner,” he said. “We’re normalizing the economic situation. We stabilized the financial markets, the banking system, the trade system.”
The effects of sanctions have for now also been blunted by soaring oil and gas revenue, allowing the Kremlin to continue to fund the war effort and stimulate the economy.
Dikhtyar sees herself at the vanguard of this economic reinvention and expresses no regret about pursuing business in wartime Russia. “What’s wrong with it?" she said. “It’s an amazing opportunity here in Moscow.”
In the United States, Dikhtyar is best-known for her stint on the reality TV show “The Face” and a subsequent tabloid feud with former supermodel Naomi Campbell. Over the last decade, she worked as a fashion model with her image featured in the pages of FHM and the foreign editions of L’Officiel and Playboy.
“People are so brainwashed by media — It’s insane,” she said, blaming the United States for prolonging a war in Ukraine that has brought the Kremlin international condemnation.
“There is no more peace and this is the fault of the United States of America,” she said. “If they would not support the military in Ukraine, they would achieve peace ... but since they brought military equipment to Ukraine, to give lots of money to Ukraine, it means Russia has to now bring more soldiers and more equipment, which can lead to more death and longer conflict.”
In returning to Moscow, Dikhtyar joined a small cohort of Russians with ties to the West who refused to condemn the invasion despite the reputational risk. Valery Gergiev, the chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and a close ally of Putin, was fired from his position in Germany. Actor Vladimir Mashkov — known in the West for his roles in “Mission Impossible” and “Behind Enemy Lines” — strongly endorsed the war only to have his daughter refute him on U.S. television. Pianist Boris Berezovsky was dropped by his agent in March after urging Russian forces to cut off the electricity in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
In the fashion world, Burberry, Chanel, H&M and Hermès all closed stores and online sales in Russia, joining the nearly 1,000 companies that have curtailed operations in the country, according to a Yale University project.
But in their race to the exits, Dikhtyar sees opportunity.
“The market is huge,” she said. “Think about it: 150 million people have nothing to wear because all the brands pull out.”
Those who have worked with Dikhtyar say her attempt to do business in Moscow while championing the war in Ukraine is provocative but not surprising.
“She likes to be controversial and start scandals,” said Ivan Bitton, the owner of a fashion house in Los Angeles who produced several photo shoots with Dikhtyar between 2015 and 2018.
Bitton pointed to her televised fight with a Black model on “The Face” over Dikhtyar’s statement that darker-skinned models would not succeed on the show. Dikhtyar said her remarks were misunderstood.”
Her comments about the war touch on sensitivities in a fashion industry that is home to both Ukrainians and Russians working side-by-side as models, photographers and designers.
Evgeny Milkovich, a Ukrainian photographer working in New York City, has photographed Dikhtyar on multiple occasions. His family home in Kyiv is a 10-minute drive from the city of Bucha, where Ukrainians were massacred in March. Milkovich said he was dismayed by how Kremlin “propaganda” has taken the “humanity” from some of the Russians in the fashion industry.
“People like Kira wage their own wars with their controversies,” he said. “We made several successful photo projects, but the essence of the people I work with is also important to me. So unfortunately, cooperation can easily end here.”
Born in Moscow, Dikhtyar showed early promise as a rhythmic gymnast, competing on Russia’s national junior team before being recruited as a model in her early teens. Tall and thin with blue-green eyes, Dikhtyar was represented by MC2, a modeling agency founded by Jean-Luc Brunel with backing from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
.jpg)
.jpg)
