The renowned Russian fashion designer was scheduled to have his latest collection shown virtually on Mar. 8 as part of the event.

Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode president Ralph Toledano said the show was removed from the schedule because the designer refused to speak out against the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

”Our team wanted to verify the position of Valentin Yudashkin. If he had doubts about the war in Ukraine, it would have been hard to remove him from the program. They wanted to ... see if, like other artists, he dissociated himself. That was not the case,” Toledano told AFP.

A spokesperson for Valentin Yudashkin told BoF Toledano himself had called Yudashkin’s team in Paris to say organisers had been “forced to exclude” the designer from the calendar “due to pressure and a large number of negative comments.”

No questions were asked about Yudashkin’s politics, she added.

Yudashkin will still host a virtual show at the scheduled time on the brand’s own official social media accounts.

The 58-year-old designer was invited to be a guest member of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode in 2016 and retains that standing, according to the organisation’s website. He was also famously commissioned to design uniforms for the Russian army in 2008.

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