The fashion designer is trying to make his own vision of fashion in line with his impression of Russian beauty.

Russian designers have been trying to create it big on foreign cat walks for many years but have never achieved world fame. Russian fashion designer Max Chernitsov says the solution to global success is for the country’s fashion to go back to its Russian roots.

To get big in the West there are two extremely vital rules you have to follow. The first is to be understood by anyone on the planet; the second is to create your own, individual, authentic mark, Chernitsov said.

This individual mark comes from a range of places: the artist’s personality and style, their ethnicity and the age they live in. Ethnicity is just as significant as style.

He says Russian designers follow all the rules of internationally recognized fashion but this will not assist their brands to make it big.

CHICAGO (AP) — after making her mark on fashion by making clothing for first lady Michelle Obama and other celebrities, designer Maria Pinto says she’s closing her Chicago boutique because of the poor economy.

Signs situated this week in the window of Pinto’s store read “Closeout” and “Final Sale” as the designer hosts a liquidation sale through Saturday. Pinto focused the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and launched her own label in 1991. She has said she builds her clothes for real women, not trends.

Pinto says her time-off plans contain traveling, painting and drawing. And she says she desires to study the fashion industry to see where I want to fit myself into it.

Michelle Obama wore Pinto’s clothes on the campaign trace and then at the White House.