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Belenkaya is a sample maker who has worked with numerous fashion designers. Her most recent work has been with Calvin Klein. While designers create the blueprint, it is up to her to bring those ideas to life.
“The drawing ends up in the hands of the constructor, who then makes the pattern on paper. After that, the fabric is cut and it ends up in my hands. My job is to make this picture come alive,” she said.
The Ukrainian seamstress has already made five dresses for three collections, including Spring 2019. Belenkaya meticulously works on every seam, as though sculpting the item bit-by-bit.
“Calvin Klein’s creative director is very much into movies, and the last collection was dedicated to the films Jaws and The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman. The dresses that I sewed were cocktail dresses specifically taken from The Graduate. It’s a kind of a nod to the film. But, of course, we didn’t know this while sewing, because the general idea is kept secret until the last moment,” Belenkaya said.
Before Calvin Klein, Belenkaya made red carpet dresses for Lebanese designer Reem Acra.
Journalist Tetiana Zakharova, who has known Belenkaya for over 15 years.
“Iryna has gold hands. The way she sews is a sight to behold. She worked for the first lady, she made that inauguration attire for Melania Trump. She worked with famous fashion designers and now she works for such a famous company. I’m blown away by what she managed to achieve in just a couple of years after coming to this country,” Zakharova said.
Belenkaya came to the United States with nothing but her skills. Being able to speak English really helped, she says. She began speaking the language at the age of 45. Now she is 59.
“There’s no ageism here. Nobody looks at your age. Nobody cares about it. It’s all about your professionalism and your attitude, of course. Another thing that I learned from the people I work with is the kind of freedom you get by speaking a foreign language,” Belenkaya said.
On the side, Belenkaya designs her own clothing and jewelry. She began working on this collection during Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution in 2014. Hence the name “Ukraine.”
“Some of my clothes was made from a Ukrainian towel with handmade embroidery. And I put organza on top of it. It’s made from two halves of a towel. It’s quite old. There were even a few holes in it that I had to fix and restore the embroidery,” Belenkaya said.
Right now Belenkaya is working on a concept for a new collection of accessories. But she’s not ready to talk about it just yet.
