Kazakhstan strengthens its fashion diplomacy with visa fashion week Almaty

Stephan Rabimov

Almaty: For the world’s largest landlocked country, Kazakhstan is making some big waves in geopolitics. Ancient trade routes between China, India, Russia and “the West” positioned this nation as a keystone puzzle piece on the map of Central Asia.

Now its intermediary prowess is stronger than ever. The last weeks saw visits from the French President Emmanuel Macron, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and the US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu, three stakeholders in ongoing European security negotiations.

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has also just welcomed the tenth anniversary summit of the Organization of Turkic States, a crucial alliance in the region. Beyond politics, Kazakhstan has been successfully branding itself as an economic and cultural hub with innovative initiatives like building its capital Astana as a smart city or hosting the World Expo focused on Future Energy. The country understands the power of design as a tool of global advocacy as well. As early as 2015, as part of my ongoing research on emerging markets, Kazakhstan rose as a prominent case study on the successful application of fashion diplomacy tools.

Since 2019, Visa Fashion Week Almaty has been growing as a creative business platform to showcase domestic talent for foreign buyers and media as well as to connect local market with international trends and trendsetters. The latest edition had a theme fitting the zeitgeist: Metamorphosis. “It’s hard to imagine something more constant, and more changeable, than fashion. In fact, variability is exactly what defines fashion today. We invited our participants to reflect on the topic of variability, cyclicality, and tireless development,” notes Bauyrzhan Shadibekov, event’s General Director and Producer.

Out of ten designers presenting spring-summer 2024 collections on the runway, seven were Kazakh brands and three invited from Ukraine, Turkey, and the neighboring Kyrgyzstan. The Ritz Carlton Ballroom was redesigned exclusively for the special occasion to resemble a vast white cocoon within which artistic and social transformation could safely take place.