The Russian clothes designer Igor Chapurin knows what it’s like to live through a crisis. He opened his first Moscow boutique in 1998, in the wake of the country’s financial collapse, when Russia defaulted on its sovereign debt and sent the rouble into a tailspin, wiping out the savings of millions. “In 1998 [it felt as if] the world opened up and everything fell in,” says Chapurin. “Today it’s not like that – things are slowing down but no one yet knows what is really happening.”
The sense of uncertainty is, however, pervasive and the figures are daunting. In the past six months the rouble has tumbled 30 per cent against the dollar, Russia’s reserves have been slashed by one third to under £291bn, and an estimated £200bn has fled the country. “Today is just another drama. We had Soviet drama, the drama of perestroika, of 1998 and now today. This is our fate,” Chapurin says.
