More Is More In Russian Retail

In most parts of the world, "well-edited" is one of the highest compliments given to a boutique. But in Russian retail, as with many other things, the less-is-more ethos is a foreign concept. Rather than fill retail spaces with a succinct selection of painstakingly chosen items, Moscow's multi-brand boutiques contain an assortment of labels more extensive than any we've seen to date and that's even with an economic crisis looming.

One of the most notable examples of this trend is Podium, a high-end unisex shop with seven locations around Moscow and a smattering of specialty shops devoted to jewelry, interiors and perfume. Each boutique houses just about every big-name luxury to up-and-coming hipster brand available, from Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga to Revillon and Zac Posen, Carol Christain Poell, Rick Owens, Rodarte, and LaRare. The same can be said of Tsum, a small department store that also carries an encyclopedic selection of high-end and contemporary brands, like Ann Demeulmeester, Doo.Ri, Alaia, Lanvin, Gucci, Vince, and YSL. There there's Aizel that's owned by Landau Fashion Group and stocks a startling selection of global brands with a strong emphasis on American labels. Some of the brands we spotted included: Libertine, Kaufman Franco, Benjamin Cho, PHI, Thakoon, Proenza Schouler, Stella McCartney, Michael Kors and Vera Wang. Concept stores also follow the more-is-more philosophy, specifically Cara & Co, which is dedicated to young and emerging designers (several from Australia and New Zealand). The shop (voted one of the world's best stores this year by The Telegraph) boasts lines from hard-to-find labels such as Akira, Tim Van Steenbergen, World, Zambesi, Cathy Pill, Josh Goot, Tom Scott and Sang A.

"Russia is stuck between a Byzantine spirit and the new influx of European thinking, with no clear idea of which one to choose," explains Anna Lebsak-Kleimans, founder of the country's Fashion Consulting Group. "Russian buyers are conscious of every new name on the global fashion map, and the younger generation is especially open to trying the newest brand."

Rozalia Kamenev, Cara & Co's managing editor agrees " The new Russian woman has come out, she was being brand washed before, explains Kamenev. "Now she has eaten all the labels and it's time for discovery. This is the time to be unique." While this attitude of inclusion may be fortuitous for shoppers and international designers, it makes it more difficult for the country's indigenous talent to get noticed. "It is difficult for Russian designers to get a share in the marketplace, since most of them work as couturiers with limited-edition collections," says Lebsak-Kleimans. "Doing business this way makes it difficult to offer competitive prices and, in effect, to compete with so many large designer brands. So far, their best chance in the luxury world is to offer a very niche product, to get a rare slice of investment or to decline the designer price point altogether and work on something that's more mass-market." It's difficult to predict the fate of such designers in a world that becomes more globalized by the day, but if they're going to take cues from anyone, there are more than enough role models to choose from right in their local shops.

—Erin Magner and Jason Campbell