Ksenia Schnaider

Ksenia Schnaider is a Kyiv label founded in 2011 by Ksenia and Anton Schnaider. It rests on a single technical idea: take denim that already exists, cut it apart, and make from it something that could not have been cut from a roll.

The best known result is the demi-denim, introduced in 2016, which reads as slim jeans from behind and as culottes layered over jeans from the front. The second is what the studio calls denim fur, in which strips of salvaged denim are worked into a pile that behaves like shearling and is not. The house puts a number on its own reworking: about five hundred pairs of jeans a month, some five tons a year, across the denim fur and the patchwork together.

Ksenia Schnaider at W Department

What we carry is women’s, and it is mostly cotton made in Ukraine, with one bag in polyurethane at the other end of it. The denim fur is here, in a charcoal grey jacket with a denim fur collar. So is the reworked line: wide jeans in dark, medium, and rust washes, flare jeans in dark grey, and the Vika jeans with fringed cutouts. Beyond the denim there is a maxi dress and a matching maxi skirt in white with ruffles, a denim dress with fringe in faded black, a strapless denim overall, a melange knit dress with fringe, a mesh drape dress, a red velour denim jacket, and a platform bag.

What holds our attention is that the sustainability is not a claim printed on a hangtag. It is visible in the seam. You can see where two pairs of jeans met, and the garment does not pretend otherwise. Very little clothing at any price is willing to show its own construction that plainly.

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Continue Exploring

• All Ksenia Schnaider. The women’s pieces, denim and beyond it.
• Denim at W Department. Every jean, jacket, and denim piece we carry.
• Dresses. Every dress we carry.
• The Library. Our writing on the houses we buy, plus the monthly playlist.
• Visit W Department. 54½ Lincoln Avenue on The Plaza, open daily, 11 to 5.

Shop Ksenia Schnaider