ELEVATED TAILORED FASHION
Ksenia Konovalova: Dressing and Empowering Today’s Women
When Ksenia Konovalova, 30, is not in pajamas, she’s rocking a custom wool suit. On a Saturday evening, the Vestium suit company owner and head clothier is sitting on the long gray couch of her Midtown Manhattan atelier, gently smoothing out her cerulean power suit and fluffing up her frizzy blond curls. As her videographer sets up the camera to make a small clip for the brand’s social media channels, Konovalova gently wiggles around in her seat, the purple tube socks under her black army boots innocently peeping out — a small reminder of her days as a Brooklynite. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she re-buttons her light pink dress shirt which perfectly matches her pocket square. Unlike the shirts she makes for her male customers, Konovalova’s has a row of hidden clear buttons inside to keep it from bursting open around her bust area. “This is why women come to me,” she says, turning the placket inside-out to expose the invisible buttons. “How would a guy know this?”
Konovalova was born in Ukraine and graduated from university there with a master’s in finance. Designing suits was not in her vision, but after running a series of small businesses (“mostly importing and exporting stuff,” she says) back in her country for years, she moved to New York City six years ago and found a job with clothier Ian Rios. He had the idea to open a custom suit shop for men and women, and she became his partner. Just three years into the venture, however, Rios decided to step back, and Konovalova — with little experience in styling clothes but plenty of knowledge about running a company — bought him out. Now, she takes measurements and suggests suit styles for her clients. She then sends the designs to one of her partners overseas, where the pieces are actually built. It’s cheaper and better quality, she says.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for men in suits,” she says with a laugh. “So sometimes we don’t find our profession, our profession finds us.”
Konovalova rode her bike 30 blocks to work today, as she does every day, in one of her custom suits. “You wouldn’t expect a suit to be this flexible,” she says while pulling on the stretchy, shimmery fabric of her dress pants. “But you can do squats in this!”
In many ways, she’s the face of today’s empowered, professional woman, and in many other ways, she’s just a hustling New Yorker on a bike.
As a female immigrant, Konovalova can talk for days about how the city has changed since she moved here — before Donald Trump was elected, and before women felt empowered by the #MeToo movement. In her business, the shift in the United States’ socio-political climate has been slow but evident.
While rearranging her wall of fabric books, she says that in New York City, more men wear custom clothing because they grew up knowing they could, but, “Even though we are on this wave of women empowerment and power suits, still few women know this is an option for them.” Of course, she says, seeing bosses like Hillary Clinton, Gloria Allred, Ellen DeGeneres and Blake Lively wearing suits on television makes the custom-tailored suit trend feel more accessible to everyday women — but that doesn’t mean they know where to begin.
For Konovalova, introducing a woman to the process of getting fitted and finding a suit that fits her lifestyle is as much a blessing as it is a duty to her womanhood. “What were our options before?” she asks, rolling her eyes at the camera. “Go to a department store, get a black or blue suit that’s not going to fit you and later have to go to a tailor and spend probably as much as you spent on the suit to get it fitted?”
With Vestium, Konovalova is now offering her female clientele something they’ve rarely been exposed to: equality in fashion.
“We’re a women-owned business, ladies come to us looking to feel represented and understood, and also to support female business owners,” Konovalova says. “I’m a woman. I test everything on myself first. I understand what women need.”
The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are very much to thank for Konovalova’s recent success, as is the growing acceptance of LGBTQ rights and body positivity. Now, more than ever, women feel powerful in their skin. About 30 percent of her clients are women — which is more than most other custom suit shops can say. Still, Konovalova has no doubt that number will rise in the near future. At the moment, she is focusing on marketing her brand on social media to reach potential female and male clients. Her shop runs by appointment only, and most people come to her after hearing of her services through friends or after searching the web for custom suit options for women.
“When I was just starting we had a couple of women a year, now we get dozens every month. So, you definitely see a huge trend towards more women — I would say — respecting themselves, doing their research and knowing their options,” she says, giving the camera a confident smirk. “I think this is very, very important: more women understand that they have options now.”
As for Konovalova, she’s been living and breathing the part of a custom suit shop CEO for six years now, and she knows she’ll never go back. “Fast-fashion hurts our planet. A mass-produced fashion brand would rather dump unsold clothing into landfill than oversaturate the market next season,” she says. In her eyes, buying a suit is a years-long commitment, one that changes your image and benefits the planet in the long run. That understanding, along with what’s happening in women’s rights, has impacted her style and helped her “make the switch” into a suit junkie.
“I can’t remember the last time I went to a store,” she says, adding that occasionally she will shop online, but only for underwear.
At the end of a long work day, Konovalova smooths her hair back and buttons up her bright cerulean blazer. It’s one of her first creations and she cherishes it like no other. Finally, she’s ready to bike back home, but not before throwing back a glass of the room-temperature Macallan scotch whisky she keeps on the bookshelf of her small atelier. “Budmo!” she says. “Cheers.”
