The first fashion designer of Russia has died

MOSCOW — Russia’s most famous fashion designer, Vyacheslav Zaitsev, who dressed the first lady, has died at the age of 85, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday.

An obituary published by the TASS news agency said he died after a long illness but did not say when.

According to other Russian media reports, he was taken to a hospital in the Moscow region with stomach bleeding and died in intensive care.

Zaitsev was born March 2, 1938 in Ivanovo, the center of the textile industry, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northeast of Moscow in the Soviet Union where most standard clothing was grey, out of date and unimaginative. He rocketed to fame in his homeland and to some extent the world when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s wife Raisa wore his creations in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Thanks to the visibility of the Soviet couple, the reform program known as perestroika, and a hopeful economic and political program, Zaitsev continued to flaunt his fashions in Paris, Tokyo, and other world capitals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wife Lyudmila wore one of Zaitsev’s dresses and accessories for a state visit to Great Britain in June 2003, which included an audience with Queen Elizabeth II.

Among Zaitsev’s other accomplishments were his 1988 costume design for the revue Sophisticated Ladies, based on the music of jazz composer and big bandleader Duke Ellington, in New York City.

She founded her own fashion house in Russia, winning numerous awards in her home country and elsewhere.