Celebrating UKRAINE’S 22nd year of Independence!

Independence Day of Ukraine (Ukrainian: День незалежності України) is the main state holiday in modern Ukraine,[nb 1] celebrated on August 24 in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence of 1991.

The holiday was first celebrated on 16 July 1991, as the first anniversary of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine passed by the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) in 1990. Since the Declaration of Independence was issued later, and confirmed by the referendum of 1 December 1991, the date of the holiday was changed. (In December 1991 many Ukrainian Canadians expected that 1 December would become Ukraine’s official independence day.)

Beginning with 2004, 23 August is celebrated as the Day of the National Flag.

Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Toronto invites you to celebrate the 22nd Ukrainian Independence Day at Centennial Park!

More than 200 cultural events are scheduled in Kiev on August 23 and 24 to commemorate the day when Ukraine was relieved of Soviet rule.

Meet the Women Putting Ukraine On the Fashion Map

22nd year of Ukrainian Independence. Coincidently, the country has been making quite a name for itself in the fashion industry for its features on Style.com and own Fashion Week. We spoke with a stylish Slavic trinity to see why this post-Soviet country should be celebrated as the next big fashion destination.

It is 2006 in Ukraine: I’m 17, smoking a cigarette with my friend who is wearing a shirt with a suspicious-looking “Channel” logo. I’m crushing on the guy next to me in knock-off Adidas track pants and Matrix-style sunglasses. A woman briskly walks by wearing shiny white leather boots with sky-high heels, zebra-printed leggings, and a cheetah-pattern coat with silver embellishments. It seems like this country has an obsession with brand names and shiny objects: even our thin cigarette packs read “Glamour”.

Fast forward six years later to October 2012, when I found myself in a very different Ukraine than the one I experienced while chain-smoking next to a provincial bazaar: I was at Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days, photographing street style for Women’s Wear Daily. Surveying the attendees dressed in a mix of Ukrainian and Western designers, it seemed as if the influence of pallid Soviet Union uniforms and the animal print combinations from the influx of Western culture in the early ’90s had faded. Out with the glitz, it was apparent that a new generation was conquering the fashion scene and making Kiev, Ukraine a fashion capital in Eastern Europe. I snapped away.

The “little country that could” is now a force to be reckoned with in the fashion industry. Over the years, the country has been loosely translated to mean “on the edge of something big [Russia]” and has been overshadowed by Russian culture. Yet, Ukraine has been successfully cultivating its own identity in the fashion world since the late 2000s. READ MORE – FASHIONISTA

LIST OF EVENTS