Alla Verber Instagram official. Alla Verber: “I did everything so that my daughter would have a mother
Text: Martha Baumgertner
Example Hollywood star Angelina Jolie turned out to be infectious. After the actress announced to the whole world that she had her breasts removed due to the threat of cancer, women around the world began to openly talk about their illness.
The episode of the program “Let Them Talk,” called “Angelina Jolie’s New Breasts,” was dedicated to women who know what oncology is. Famous and successful heroines of the program told Andrei Malakhov about how they managed to cope with the disease.
One of the most successful businesswomen in the country, fashion director of TSUM, vice-president of Mercury, Alla Verber, does not like to give interviews or share details of her personal life. However, this time Verber considered it her duty to speak out.
“I want to tell people why I did this interview. So that everyone understands that when you sit down opposite a doctor and the doctor says that you have cancer, this does not mean that this is the end and your life is over.<...>At the very beginning, you think only about yourself - just to survive. Now that everything is over, I really want to help people. As you wish. It’s not always possible to help only with money,” Verber explained her decision.
Five years ago, on the eve of her 50th birthday, Alla Verber learned that she had stage 3 blood cancer. For a long time she felt unwell, but was afraid to undergo examination. “When the diagnosis was made, the depression was terrible. I cried. Everyone is crying. It’s impossible not to cry...” admitted Alla.
Having learned about the disease, Alla Verber prepared to die, but then decided to fight - for the sake of her daughter Katya, who was then 24 years old. Verber herself lost her father, who died of cancer at the age of 57, and still remembers the pain of this loss.
“I wanted to live for only one reason. When parents die and leave behind children who cannot yet fend for themselves, it is terribly painful. I remember when my dad died, young, and I was left without him... I remember this pain. And even to this day - I’m 55 years old - this pain does not go away... Therefore, I wanted to do everything so that my daughter would have a mother. I decided for myself that I would fight, I would live and do everything that depended on me,” Verber said.
Alla Verber had to fight cancer for five long years. Due to chemotherapy, she lost her hair and gained 20 kilograms. But having decided for herself that she must recover at all costs, Verber did not allow herself to give up: “I went to chemotherapy as if it were a holiday - well dressed, made up, put in order. I was waiting for the medicine like manna from heaven, because 30 years ago it didn’t exist yet. I've always been in good mood».
Werber admitted that five years ago she might have condemned Angelina Jolie. Why perform an operation when the diagnosis has not even been made, and then tell the whole world about it? But now she has changed her mind.
“When we look at Angelina Jolie and think whether she did the right thing, we must understand that a person who was not sick, is not sick and does not have such a chance cannot feel it.<...>She experienced the death of her mother, and she feels what an insane pain it is. And she is ready to give up her organs in her body in order to save her life, see her children and give them happiness,” Werber commented on Jolie’s act.
Now Verber is healthy, but she regrets that she started the disease out of fear, although she felt that her body was not in order. She calls on all women not to hide and not suffer from the “ostrich disease”, to find time to see a doctor and get examined.
You, dear readers, still have a little time to vote for Alla Verber on our website.
The posts of the Instagram diva, vice president of Mercury and fashion director of TSUM and DLT Alla Verber, are followed by three hundred thousand subscribers, and her tags #I buy everything here and #findmoney we endlessly quote inappropriately and inappropriately. We returned for a day with Alla Konstantinovna, a native Leningrader, to a city that we knew to the point of tears, but we spent it without Mandelstam’s anguish, but with Verber’s positivity.
#gessverayem?
Leningrad time
What remains in today's St. Petersburg from the Leningrad of your childhood? What instantly immerses you in warm memories even now? What, on the contrary, did not survive?
Forty-two years after I left Leningrad, first to emigrate, and then to Moscow, every time I drive up to St. Isaac's Cathedral, my breath catches. I definitely take a photo on St. Isaac's Square and post it on Instagram - it has become my tradition. It seems like photography runs in our family. Mom loved to gather the whole family and take them to the photo studio on the corner of Nevsky and Sadovaya - at least four times a year. It was a whole story: my sister and I were combed, dressed, selected shoes, handbags, bracelets, brooches, beads, hats. And we went to celebrate a new photo at the Sever cafe with meringues, potato cakes and eclairs, or to the ice cream parlor on Nevsky, 24, which everyone called the “Fading Pool” because of the green color of the walls and velvet sofas - here it is, to unfortunately, it has not survived. Someone had to save him! If I had been in the country when the premises were put up for sale, I would definitely have bought it. Of course it's impossible to forget christmas tree and shining shop windows in DLT! There was the largest Christmas tree - up to the ceiling, I remember its sparkling peak and toys. Children's masquerades also took place there: I dressed up as a bunny, and a wolf was chasing me! I was sure that he would catch me and eat me. In addition, of course, the pyshechnaya one - we more often went not to the one that has survived to this day on Bolshaya Konyushennaya, but on Teatralnaya Square. We lived next door, in a house on Glinka Street, opposite Mariinsky Theater. This was my area! We walked in the large courtyard until late; opposite the house there was a wonderful school, and on the other side of the Conservatory there was a music school named after Glinka. You know, my childhood was the best in the world, and I had no problems, except for a terrible music teacher.
I wonder if at least one person in this world had a normal music teacher?
I was the least fortunate of all, because they allegedly discovered that I had absolute pitch. Therefore, I needed to practice something other than the piano, like my older sister, and on the violin: a heavy violin in a case and a folder with sheet music three times a week. I always repeat: if parents have ambitions to make their child a musician, then he should study every day of the week and want to study music, and not music and twenty other subjects. Mom and grandmother sat for hours at school, waiting for my sister and me. And my sister still graduated not only from music school, but also from college. I didn’t turn out to be a violinist; I only developed scoliosis.
What other places in St. Petersburg are your childhood memories associated with?
We spent the summer at the dacha in Holguin, where we owned a huge plot of land with a luxurious house, which still stands there today. We rode bicycles all day long, went to the station for watermelons and ice cream. This was my world until I was thirteen, when I realized that there was also Nevsky Prospekt! I took a taxi for a ruble and went to Nevsky, where all my friends were gathering. They were already seventeen or eighteen years old, and for some reason no one realized that I was five years younger than everyone else. We found each other without any mobile phones, walked, went to lunch at the Evropeyskaya Hotel - we had enough pocket money for all this. A lot of emotions are associated with the Astoria Hotel: we often went for lunch and dinner with the whole family to the restaurant there; lunch cost two fifty and dinner cost five rubles. And since 1972 we have celebrated every New Year! But the most an important event happened in Astoria in May 1974: we celebrated my father’s fiftieth birthday and my sixteenth birthday with a bang. When my parents decided to combine these dates, I caused a terrible scandal! I screamed that they ruined my whole life: naturally, I wanted to go out with my friends (by the way, I carried my relationship with them throughout my whole life), and not sit with my dad’s friends - surgeons, gynecologists, dentists. Imagine, I am still ashamed of my behavior at that time.
So you gave your parents concerts as a teenager?
I arranged them for poor parents not only at this age. And you know what's the worst thing - adolescence I still haven't finished it. A terrible trait character! The word “no” was like a red rag to a bull for me. Apparently I was born this way. My Native sister, the eldest, completely different: feminine, beautiful, the best student in the class, she was created for the family. My parents didn’t have a son, my grandmothers didn’t have a grandson, and so they decided to raise me to be strong. And I was born obstinate and uncontrollable. Dad said that if they throw me out of a plane in the middle of nowhere at night and tell me to be in Leningrad at St. Isaac's Cathedral at three o'clock in the afternoon, I will stand there in right time. I really do have that kind of power. So, back to the celebration: it was an impossibly wonderful birthday! We walked like that! Until the morning, old and young people drank and danced, I was on stage in a luxurious yellow dress and in yellow and black patent leather shoes on the platform. By the way, this dress went into exile with me, and it is still remembered in New York, Chicago, Boston, Toronto. Then, in the 1970s, this color was very fashionable in Leningrad, just like now - I tell everyone this season: “Buy yellow!”
So the myth about the dullness of St. Petersburg was invented?
Certainly! It has always been the most fashionable city and not at all monochromatic! In the summer, everyone wore snow-white shoes, sandals, and knee socks. They loved red and blue - I remember very well my Crimplene suit, pale blue. Apart from patent leather shoes, I didn’t have any black clothes at all; only when I was seventeen did I get a dress that I wore with a white lace collar and a brooch given by my grandparents - I still have it. I really loved dressing beautifully; this has been very important to me since childhood. I had my own taste and my own habits. There were separate looks for going out with dad so that he wouldn’t get angry - such a preppy look: good shoes, tights, a square jacket and a skirt. There were, of course, moments when, on occasion, it was necessary to dress up in a heavy mink coat, and I shouted: “I won’t, I want to wear a sheepskin coat!” I always came up with something original and dressed all my friends. Ever since early childhood, as my mother says, I loved to comb everyone’s hair. I stole cosmetics from my mother - she, of course, was torn about this, because all this was very difficult to get. I still remember the smell of her Coty powder and powder puff. My dad once bought Climat perfume from Lancome for all the women in the family - my mother, me, my sister, my grandmother. He believed that a woman should have one scent, and not change them constantly, as is customary today. And on March 8th we always gave my mother “Red Moscow” perfume.
Did she like them that much?
No, but where could we children find something else? Fifty years passed, and she gave me a bottle of “Red Moscow”. And one day she suddenly pulled out black mascara with a brush on which was written “45 kopecks” - that’s what they called it in Soviet times. Do you know? Which brush should you have spat on? I say: “Mom, why did you keep this for so many years?!” - and she told me: “This is a rarity!”
This, of course, is very Leningrad - to save things, you don’t know why, but let it be. How did you find clothes and shoes in total shortage?
My dad, a dentist, was a famous man in the city and was very fond of everything beautiful. All the black marketeers brought things to Kostya Verber, because our house was full of fashionistas. Grandma followed the dress code around the clock, so she was a real fashionista. Our mother is exceptionally beautiful, just like a star from an old Hollywood movie: black hair parted in the middle, a braid, red lipstick from ear to ear. We are a little different - neither me nor my sister. Grandma always said that dad ruined our breed, because he was completely red, covered in freckles. How did you meet mom and dad? After the war, he went to study to become a dental technician, then at the age of twenty-eight he entered the institute to become a dentist and met a first-year medical school student there - she was sitting in a chair during class, and she was shown to students as an example of what truly beautiful teeth are. Dad, of course, instantly fell in love with her.
Surely your parents believed that you should continue the medical dynasty?
Well, of course. Dad believed that there was only one worthy profession - a doctor. Despite the lack of interest in medicine, I went to study and, if it had not been for leaving to emigrate in 1976, naturally I would have graduated from medical school.
But things turned out differently?
All the will of God. Grandfather and father died in a very early age- the first at sixty-one, when we were all living in Leningrad, and the second at fifty-seven, already in exile. Of course, Soviet life was very difficult for both of them - they were afraid of the OBKhSS, they were afraid to sit down. As a child, I asked: “Grandfather, how did you become rich? How did you buy such a big dacha?” And he always told me.
Was your grandfather also a doctor?
Yes, grandfather on my mother's side. Dad's father was taken away in 1939, and we saw him only in 1972. That is, he was rehabilitated in 1955, but he remained to live in Kolyma, where he already had a second family. Therefore, in my childhood I had one grandfather - Abram Iosifovich Fleisher. And he had one hobby - antiques, which he simply adored. He gave my mother a set of Faberge works for her fifteenth wedding anniversary - a teapot and a sugar bowl made of gilded silver and ivory. And this sugar bowl is on my table today, although now I don’t consume sugar. On my table I have a silver bread box and a heavy decanter from which we, as children, painfully poured ourselves compote. I remember the day when grandfather came home and said to his wife: “Oh my God, Lisa, give me some gefilte fish urgently! They'll come for me today! This idiot bought himself a Volga!” This meant my dad, who bought himself a Volga GAZ-21 for 18 thousand rubles - by the way, it’s in my garage, and I drive it once a year, on his birthday. My grandparents thought that we should behave more modestly. I remember how we were going to a celebration in Astoria and, before leaving the entrance, I had to put on a scarf so that the earrings would not be visible. But dad needed to get it for the family mink coats, diamonds and most importantly - to give children an education.
Where did your father get the desire for a “beautiful” life, as they said then?
When his father was taken away birth mother gave my fourteen-year-old dad to Orphanage in Sestroretsk because she could not feed him. He remembered this for the rest of his life. In 1941, in the very first days of the war, at the age of seventeen, my father volunteered for the front, was seriously wounded and therefore suffered from terrible pain in his spine all his life, reached Berlin, returned to Leningrad and found his mother here. He always repeated: “I didn’t eat my fill, I didn’t sleep on anything warm, I was always undernourished and that’s how I survived.” He told us a lot about the war. My grandmother and mother spent the entire blockade in Leningrad. And so it turned out that my sister and I are children of the war and the blockade, although we were born years later. We grew up with the thought: the main thing is that there is no war. May 9 was like a common birthday for us. Dad was born on May 14, and grandmother on the 15th, but both celebrated them on May 9. On this day, the table had to be elegantly set for sixty people and laden with food, the women had to be beautiful and well-groomed. Because everyone who remains alive should experience joy every day.
Now I understand where you get such love for life. After all, people in Soviet times in many families were taught to live differently - to keep a low profile.
You know, I’m actually Jewish. In those years, many Jewish families hid their nationality. In our family, on the contrary, every day I was reminded that I was Jewish, I never hid it and was proud of it. And as for beautiful things, dad said: “If people see you well dressed for the first time, it will be a shock for them, and then it will become familiar to them.”
Emigration and return
It seemed to me that it was emigration that switched you to the ability to enjoy life - this is a purely American approach.
No, on the contrary. Emigration is a terrible thing, like divorce. A person, like a tree from the soil, is torn out of his usual environment. It is very difficult to settle down somewhere; psychologists say that mastering a new environment takes at least three years. I lived for the first year on the proceeds from the sale of Mikhail Shemyakin’s painting. Dad sold Shishkin's painting in 1975 and brought home two others - Oleg Tselkov and Mikhail Shemyakin. There was a scandal in the house, I still remember how my mother and grandmother reacted. I really love Shemyakin’s works and much later I bought them myself. And recently I met the artist in person! In Leningrad we had an apartment with large windows, wide window sills, stunning stucco on the ceiling, a beautiful stove, and parquet floors that were polished twice a year. And I lost it all. I didn’t feel at home for a long time, I moved around a lot: Italy, Canada, America. But I always and everywhere tried to create a semblance of our Leningrad apartment. In any of my houses, wherever I moved, I laid parquet. I loved and love chandeliers; I absolutely cannot live without light. I need to get dressed, stand on my heels, walk on the polished parquet floor, turn on the chandelier, reflect myself in the mirror... full height- and only then am I ready to go out.
How much time do you spend getting dressed and leaving the house?
All my life I get dressed in ten minutes. It takes no more than half an hour to wash, get dressed, put on makeup and go out to a big celebration. But my daughter thinks differently: in her opinion, a woman should think through her image in advance.
Did you return to Russia in 1989?
And the next two years, 1990 and 1991, were the most difficult for the country. It was not the right time to be involved in fashion, especially for a then-Americanized person like me. But nevertheless, we built our entire business, the Mercury company, on the luxury segment. I didn’t know anything else, so I couldn’t build anything else.
What did emigration give you?
A breadth of views, including fashion. For example, when buying things in one country, you must understand that they will not always be acceptable in another. And not only because climatic conditions. Even lighting affects how the bow looks. St. Petersburg, for example, is such a museum city, where every building is so beautiful that it disciplines you. Just go out into the street - you already have a holiday. That's why I live in Russia.
Fashion is work
The fashion industry is changing all the time, adapting to new conditions: the media space, the growth of the mass market, social topics. Is heavy luxury still relevant today?
Lux will never die! All processes in fashion, and not only in fashion, change radically every seven years. But luxury as a way of life has always been and will remain. Russian people today are spoiled: everything is there, everything is available, you can buy the latest and the best, not like thirty years ago, when they “gave” everything and ran to buy it, and you also had to know the sellers in order to get the coveted item. under the floors. Now you can buy everything in this life, so people began to buy more calmly, think about it, combine premium brands with more affordable ones. Important role the combination of many details began to play at once: service, emotions, breadth of assortment, price, quality, brand.
How do tastes change? In rather patriarchal Russia, for example, Celine by Phoebe Philo, which removes the status of a sexual object from a woman, unexpectedly became popular. What do you, as a specialist, think about the future of the brand?
Designer Hedi Slimane came to the fashion house, who has a certain recognizable style that he broadcasts wherever he works. He was given carte blanche to completely change everything. But at the same time they suggested making not their own brand, namely Celine. And we must admit that he created all the accessories, bags and shoes from the archives of the house. As for clothes, he decided: the old woman died, long live the new one! This being his first season, he needed to shake things up. Everyone is unhappy, but believe me, the moment will come and everyone will run to buy Celine again.
How do you manage to get around the rough edges on Instagram? Have there been times when you had to delete a post?
At the very beginning, I didn’t fully understand how careful I needed to be with my opinions and statements, how quickly they spread and sometimes become distorted. Having seen from the example of others that people do not always understand everything the way you broadcast it and interpret thoughts in their own way, I always think about it before writing a post. You need to realize whether he might accidentally offend someone. As for me, several times I removed the post just because I didn’t like myself in the photo: either my stomach was big, or my chin was ugly, or my arms were fat. If you delete the signature, it means that you admit your mistake. If I inadvertently offend someone, I will not delete the text, but will apologize.
Any person should dress - they greet you based on their clothes anyway. There will be more democracy: now black tie can also meet the dress code Nice dress for fifty euros, if you have a wonderful figure and appearance, you can decorate it with jewelry and you will look chic. But my company and I took a different path. In our department stores in St. Petersburg and Moscow, we offer the main must-haves of the world of high, catwalk fashion, something that becomes a subject of discussion or a source of inspiration for everyone who is in love with fashion or is interested in it. And these can be not only professional stylists and heroes of social events, but also people whose professions and personal lives are far from the podium.
What does “dressing like St. Petersburg” mean to you?
When I come to St. Petersburg at DLT, I always enjoy watching big amount young stylish people - this is a whole show. St. Petersburg residents are distinguished by a special talent for choosing the most fashionable from all the items presented, combining classics and trends, with restraint, with dignity and at the same time very expressively.
text: Ksenia Goshchitskaya
photo: Danil Yaroshchuk, from the personal archive of A. K. Verber, press service archives
creative director: Ksenia Goshchitskaya
producers: Ksenia Zheludova, Alexandra Afanasyeva
style: Elmira Tulebaeva
hairstyle: Yuri Noskov Assistant
stylist: Ulyana Malikova
post-production: Zhanna Galai
We would like to thank the roller skating rink “Nogam dorogo” for providing the props for filming.
It’s painful to believe: Alla Verber, the legendary woman, vice president of Mercury and fashion director of TSUM and DLT, has died. The BeautyHack editors express their condolences to their family and colleagues. We remember the conversation with this incredible woman: “the queen of Russian retail,” a first-class specialist and a sincere, responsive person.
About family
All the women in my family are beautiful. And this is not only the merit of genes - mother and grandmother always took care of themselves. They compensated for the lack of skincare products with cucumber and strawberry masks. A the best remedy for hair, a mixture of sour milk or kefir was considered, which was applied to the strands two hours before taking a bath. Then they were rinsed with vinegar and water - and they became shiny. When I was young, we didn't know much. If people wanted to lose weight, they simply switched to kefir.
Mom went every week to the hairdresser on Tolmacheva Street in St. Petersburg - a famous place at that time. When her grandmother wanted to offend her, she always said: “What do you know in this life? Only the road to Tolmachev!”
There was a real cult among the men in my family female beauty. The ladies around them had to be well-groomed and smart. Only knee-length hair, fresh manicure, well-groomed legs were accepted, and blue eye shadow, for example, was taboo. Few people would pay attention to a woman with size 38. Curvy figures were held in high esteem.
By the way, something happened to my hair interesting story. My sister and I always braided them, and only started taking them out when we were 14 years old. Around this time, I met my father's hairdresser on the street, who suggested that I do gavroche haircut(actually he just wanted to sell his cut hair). Without a moment’s doubt, I had lost a good part of my precious curls and didn’t know how to go home. So I waited for my dad on Teatralnaya. I will never forget his reaction: he was offended for a long time. I had to re-grow my hair, putting it in a ponytail every day.
About raising a daughter
Girls from childhood should understand how important it is to have well-groomed hair, hands, velvety skin, and to be clean. I told my daughter and my granddaughters about this. Who, if not your mother or grandmother, will explain how to look decent and take care of yourself.
About female beauty
At the age of 30-40, women blossom and gain inner confidence, which they have been achieving for decades. And then time begins to work against us. Sophia Loren said that beautiful woman dies twice. I agree with this: at a certain age, only a surgeon can help.
About the first cosmetics
Only my sister knew about my first experiments with cosmetics at the age of 13. It was she who told her mother about them. But my mother acted very tactfully: she took all the cosmetics she could find and offered to buy new, good ones. We went to Sadovaya, where at that time the products that all Soviet women dreamed of were sold right in the passage. This is how I got Coty perfume and powder (the latter, by the way, can still be found in my house - its smell cannot be confused with anything else), and also Lancôme powder. Only the mascara was Soviet, so it was impossible to cry with it.
I grew up watching films with Barbra Streisand and Sophia Loren, so I always had eye and lip pencils in my makeup bag. Abroad, I first visited the Pupa cosmetics store, where my first purchase was a pink gloss lipstick. Previously, it was not customary to apply foundation; it was more than replaced by powder. The procedure of tinting lips using a mirror in a powder compact was a special ritual for every girl.
About your favorite beauty rituals
I love taking a bath with dry oils. I can devote a whole hour to this in the morning. Then I apply the cream to my face and body. I prefer La Mer cosmetics. Since I was 18, I have spent a lot of time on airplanes. During the flight, I like to try new products that come to us at TSUM: I put a mask on my face and neck and calmly fly to New York, for example.
About self-love
I was seriously ill for several years. Fighting cancer has fundamentally changed the way I view myself. I learned to love.
You need to be careful about your health and not neglect doctors in favor of cosmetologists. And also eat right, drink a lot of water, swim, walk and don’t neglect yourself, no matter how many children and businesses you have.
About makeup
I've been wearing makeup a lot over the past few years. It’s a matter of inner confidence: I feel more comfortable with makeup on my face. But I won’t put on bright makeup in the morning if there’s an event in the evening.
You need to feel the line between daytime and in the evening. During interviews, for example, I am put off by flashy makeup and overly expressive eyebrows. Even if a woman looks fashionable, she should know when to stop.
About the figure
I have been working in the fashion industry for many years, so my beauty canon is height 180 cm and clothing size 38-40. And in principle, completeness - a clear sign health and nutrition problems. Psychological addiction to food, like any other addiction, does not bring anything good. We need to fight it. It is important for a person to find his golden mean so as not to torment himself by starvation or, conversely, give up on his figure. Education is important here: parents should guide their children from childhood, explain to them what is beautiful and what is not. One of my assistants once said: there is no point in waiting for a miracle from nature, you need to take everything into your own hands and act. By the way, the effectiveness of this theory has been proven in practice.
About nutrition
My mother and grandmother went through the blockade, so in the post-war period food was a great joy for them. The way you ate determined your status in society. No one thought about it then healthy eating. On our table we had borscht, dumplings, roast, mashed potatoes, croutons, tea with sugar. Breakfast consisted of cheesecakes, pancakes, dumplings with cherries. And on Sunday morning on the table you could find herring, potatoes, fish and salads - this is the traditional Jewish breakfast. Now no one in my family cooks like that: soups with potatoes and cutlets with mashed potatoes have been replaced by steamed dishes, vegetables, and fruits. I practically don’t eat meat (I prefer fish); once every couple of months I can go to a restaurant to order a steak.
About determination
When I brought the Chanel and Gucci brands to Moscow in the 1990s, I was full of determination. I think people are born with this quality. But my experience working in the West also helped me: in 1976 I left Russia, traveled a lot in Europe, knew all the brands. Then in New York there was a whole street called Delancey Street, where for five years the most fashionable clothing stores were opened with big discounts, the so-called discount price. They were popular among Russian emigrants. Even then you could find things there from famous brands for half the price, unlike the same Bergdorf Goodman and Saks. After working in several such stores, I decided to get an education at Macel Ely University of Tennessee, and then open my own stores in Toronto.
In any business there should be a place for courage, thoughtful decisions and common sense. You need to take risks very carefully in order to be able to stop at right moment. Risk is a noble cause if you are not burdened with a family and can take a step back without any problems.
Behind long years in business I have become tougher and more organized, I cannot forgive stupidity, but I treat young people with understanding, I am ready to give advice and help, because they also helped me at one time.
About the daily routine
I used to have chronic sleep deprivation, it took ten hours to recover after a working day. The morning climbs were the hardest. Now my routine has changed: in the evening I have difficulty falling asleep, and in the morning I wake up early. Therefore, I can solve work issues even after midnight.
About the differences between Muscovites and St. Petersburg women
I am from St. Petersburg and I clearly see the difference between the girls from the two cities. For those who live in St. Petersburg, the city leaves its mark already at birth. People are really proud of the city, they look different and don’t try to speed up their pace of life, like Muscovites. This can be seen in the style. Muscovites are more confident, while St. Petersburg women have good classic taste. At the same time, when I select clothes for DLT, I rely on more fashionable collections, because St. Petersburg also has its own audience.
Interview: Katya Domankova
Text: Yulia Kozoliy
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Bayer Date of birth May 21 (Taurus) 1958 (61) Place of birth Leningrad Instagram @verberalla
Who do you think is the season's trendsetter? Not bloggers and journalists who write about fashion. In practice, this is done by buyers who select current toiletries for stores and fashion boutiques. In the capital, the most famous buyer is Alla Konstantinovna Verber. This unique woman is a buyer, Fashion Director of the Moscow Central Department Store, Vice President of a large jewelry company Mercury. They know about it not only in our country, but also abroad.
Biography of Alla Verber
The future businesswoman was born in St. Petersburg, then still Leningrad, on May 21, 1958. The girl’s family was very wealthy by Soviet standards, so the father’s decision to go abroad was very surprising. In 1976, the family emigrated to Austria. The parents saw their daughter’s future in medicine, so even before leaving, Alla entered medical school.
The family's plans included going to Vienna and then to Israel. Once in Austria, the girl was supposed to board a plane to Tel Aviv, but she flew to Italy instead. Verber ended up in Rome, where her new life began.
Her attractive appearance impressed the owner of the clothing store where she was hired. Here she showed herself at her best.
Later, the father and the whole family decided to move to Canada. The family settled in Montreal. Alla already had work experience and was hired at a fashion boutique. Here her talents did not go unnoticed.
Having acquired connections, she began to open her own stores one after another. One day she received an invitation to K-mart. The owner invited her to head the towel production. Alla agreed, but this work seemed boring to her, and when a new offer came from Mercury, she accepted it.
Alla Konstantinovna Verber was born on May 21, 1958 in Leningrad into an intelligent family of hereditary St. Petersburg residents. Her maternal grandfather, Abram Iosifovich Fleisher, was the director of a large meat processing plant, headed the children's department of the Leningrad Trade House, and was a famous collector of antiques.
He passed the Great Patriotic War, his wife and daughter (Alla’s mother) survived the blockade. My paternal grandfather was repressed in the 1930s and returned to Leningrad from the camps and exile only in the 1970s, soon emigrating to Israel.
Alla's father, Konstantin Verber, ended up in an orphanage as a teenager. In 1941, at the age of 17, he went to war and reached Berlin. Later, Konstantin became a successful dentist, then the head physician of the dental prosthetic department of the prestigious LOMO hospital (Thrice Order of Lenin Leningrad Optical-Mechanical Association named after V.I. Lenin).
The father did everything so that his beloved daughters (Alla’s sister Irina, lives in Canada) had a happy and prosperous childhood. The girls were pampered, dad bought them beautiful things, and grandmother, who was well versed in fashion, taught them to dress properly. Grandfather taught Alla to appreciate real painting and beautiful antiques. My mother, a dentist, devoted herself to her family after the birth of her daughters.
Irina professionally studied ballet and played the piano, Alla also completed a seven-year music school in violin class.
Alla Verber: “My sister Irina graduated from a ten-year music school in piano class, and studied ballet from the age of five; I was not accepted into the ballet - the selection was very strict, but I could not avoid studying music: I studied the violin for seven years. Be that as it may, from early childhood we were taken to circles, driven, dragged, carried... Our parents themselves adored music, art, and they wanted to instill all this in us.”
Future star with early years she adored outfits, noticed beautifully and unusually dressed people: foreigners who visited Leningrad in large numbers, heroes and heroines of her favorite Italian films. However, her parents insisted that after finishing school she enter a medical school, where Alla studied to become a doctor.
At the age of 18, Alla’s life changed completely: her father’s father sent the family an invitation to travel to Israel, and they got ready to leave the USSR (the family later settled in Canada). She was the first to be released from the country, and in 1976 she ended up alone in Vienna, and then lived for a year in Rome: a Russian friend got her a job in a prestigious boutique on the famous Via Veneto, and Verber found herself in the center of fashion for the first time, “among the most stylish things" (Gucci, Hermes).
In the late 1970s, Alla and her family lived in Montreal (Canada), studied management, worked in a large clothing store, and continued to be interested in fashion, painting and interior design. Then she became a buyer: she went to fashion shows to Paris, London, Rome and Milan, selected and purchased samples of clothing collections for the season and launched them into production in factories.
In the early 1980s, Alla Verber moved to live in New York. There she actively communicated with artists, successfully traded paintings, organized exhibitions, and promoted the works of young artists.
It was in New York, the world capital of the fashion industry, that a colossal fashion boom began at this time, reaching its peak in the 1990s. By this time, Alla Verber already knew for sure that she wanted to create a chain of stores.
Alla Verber: “Already in New York, I finally understood what I wanted to do, a dream appeared, which in Toronto I began to energetically implement. Now I knew for sure that I wanted to be in the fashion business, I wanted to create a network of my own stores.”
Quote taken from the magazine “Caravan of Stories”, No. 5 (May 2012)
In 1984, she opened her first fashion boutique, Katia of Italy, in Toronto, named after her favorite Italian clothing brands. Although professionals and business consultants considered her undertaking extremely risky, she successfully began selling clothes from the world's best brands in provincial Toronto, and then created a whole network of boutiques. One of her clients was a functionary of the world's largest discount trade company, K-mart, and he invited her to cooperate.
In 1989, Alla was asked to become a representative of the company in Russia; she returned to her homeland and managed to organize the production of textile goods and clothing in idle Russian factories.
Since 1990, she was also the first in the country to create high fashion boutiques (Dolce&Gabbana, Gucci, Prada, Brioni, etc.) in the Moskva trading house on Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow.
Since 1993, Verber has been collaborating with Mercury and is currently its vice president; since 2003, he has also worked as fashion director of TSUM.
Alla Verber: “Later Mercury was bought by TSUM. I was invited to work as a fashion director for them, then I didn’t know to what extent the business alliance with the Leonids would be successful, how well we would suit each other and work well together. We have been together for 17 years and continue to successfully cooperate, respecting and appreciating each other. I am very grateful to them for their long collaboration.”
Quote taken from the magazine “Caravan of Stories”, No. 5 (May 2012)
The company was engaged in the supply and sale of luxury goods, exclusive furniture and services, Verber began to develop a fashion direction. At first, Alla Konstantinovna was involved in contacts with fashion houses and purchasing clothing collections, then she began to create a line of boutiques fashionable clothes in the capital's largest trading houses.
In the first 8 years of her work at TSUM alone, Verber presented one and a half thousand clothing brands from all over the world and managed to accustom wealthy Russian fashionistas to shopping top class in Russia. American fashion experts have repeatedly called her “the most powerful clothing buyer in the world.”
For the outstanding promotion of clothing from Italian brands in Russia, Verber was awarded the Order of Merit for the Italian Republic (Cnight, 2011).
Among the latest megaprojects of the Mercury company is the reconstruction of the Leningrad Trade House (opened in September 2012).
Currently, Alla Verber is the most influential person in the domestic fashion industry, she actively participates in the formation of collections of world brands for Russia, supports the developments of emerging domestic fashion designers (Kira Plastinina, Inna Honour, Tegin, etc.).
Events in the capital's life include traditional fashion shows at TSUM (Fashion's Night Out). Alla Verber is an active social life, appearing at all events related to the world of fashion, modeling business, at presentations of leading fashion magazines.
Alla Konstantinovna’s appearance in the program “Let Them Talk” (05/23/2013, Channel One, hosted by A. Malakhov) caused a great public outcry, where she openly spoke about her struggle with cancer.
Alla Verber: “Of course, I was also worried Hard times. Four years ago I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and I had to mobilize all my strength to fight the disease. But I persevered and overcame this terrible illness. Having gone through such a test, you understand that God has given you another chance; all previous values are subjected to a thorough re-evaluation, and life is divided into “before” and “after”. After going through this, it was like starting my life from scratch.”
Quote taken from the magazine “Caravan of Stories”, No. 5 (May 2012)
Since June 2013, Alla Konstantinovna has led the popular “Fashion” column in the “7 Days” magazine.
Awards
▪ Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2011)
▪ World Fashion Awards in the category “Person of the Year in the Fashion Industry” (2012)
▪ “Brand Awards” as a representative of the “best department store of the year” (2013)
