By Tara Maginnis
Where in St Petersburg can you get a touch of Russian haute couture at high street prices? A good starting point might be Dom Mody - The House of Fashion.
Conveniently located upstairs from the Petrogradskaya Metro station, Dom Mody, has in addition to departments selling Italian footwear, American lingerie, and Yugoslavian wedding gowns, a large selection of Russian-designed fashions at reasonable prices.
While the ground floor has only imported jewelry and a nice restaurant, the second has off-the-peg women's coats, suits and sportswear, that are designed and made in the studios on the premises.
On average, the prices are close to K-Mart or Marks & Spencer, but the design quality, particularly in the coats, is closer to Macy's or Harrods. Some clothes suffer from being made of less than quality materials, but many, particularly the woolens, do not.
This ready-to-wear section also periodically receives slightly used models from the couture fashion shows Dom Mody puts on, and so, if you check there often, and fit the right size, you can sometimes make off with a real treasure.
On first sight the third floor appears to have been taken over by the Italians, who have several good boutiques in men's suits, women's sportswear, and shoes, but if you curl around to the left, past all these, you can find Dom Mody's fur department.
The salesmen are unusually knowledgeable, and are happy to advise customers about the choice and care of furs. Most of the coats at Dom Mody are also designed and made on the premises, and the shop has a wide range of choices, from inexpensive imported rabbit and dog, to the Dom Mody designs done in the best mink, fox and racoon.
The fourth floor, however, is the best of all. There is a large department of imported Yugoslavian made wedding gowns dripping with good quality satin, lace and pearl embroidery. In contrast to the horrific prices you may have encountered at home, these full length creations sell for only 230,000-75,000 roubles, and can be rented for even less.
Better still, next to the gowns is the wedding veil department, where Lyudmilla Bognecheva, Dom Mody's wedding veil designer, will custom create a veil for you for from 80,000-100,000.
Also on the fourth floor is a fabric department, a custom men's suit department, and a made to order dressmaking salon. The prices in the latter are so reasonable that elderly, middle income couples come in to pick up made to order coats. For example, a standard, made to order coat is only 200,000-250,000 roubles for "the work" with the customer providing the fabric.
Dom Mody provides fabric, priced per meter, from the adjacent fabric department, should you not wish to use fabric you found elsewhere. Work on extra long coats costs 20% extra, as does work on white fabric coats. Dresses cost "for the work" from 100,000 for a rather simple dress, to 400,000 for a wedding or evening gown to order. Work takes from three to five weeks, depending on the complexity of the garments, and takes one measurement session, and one personal fitting. On collecting your garment you also get all the fabric scraps and trimmings, every single piece of fabric you paid for, which is where the old English saying "the whole nine yards" comes from.
Where do the designs come from? Well, you can view the models designed for the biannual collections of Dom Mody, or come in with a picture of a gown you covet from a magazine, or, if you like, one of the staff designers will design one especially for you. In any case, after you have been measured, you will have an appointment with a designer who will advise you about styles, colors and fabrics that will suit your figure and coloring. In short, it is a couture salon that only charges what you'd be prepared to pay for off-the rack clothes at big department stores at home.