Hope by Hope: Efrosyniia Turns Family Memory Into Fashion

This September, Nadiia Dobrovolska presented Efrosyniia, her new collection for the conceptual brand hope by hope. Through this collection, the designer and founder honours a young girl who disappeared from her family’s records in 1918.

The story began in March. While searching digitised parish birth registries on FamilySearch, Dobrovolska stumbled upon Efrosyniia. Her great-aunt entered the world in 1915, during the First World War. However, by 1918, at just three years old, all records of her existence had faded. Subsequent generations knew nothing of the little girl.

“This little girl appeared and vanished like a ghost,” reflects Dobrovolska. The cruelty of this young life’s disappearance moved her. Through Efrosyniia, she attempts to restore that lost presence: “I am her descendant. I am restoring her right to life, beauty, and a voice, because every life, no matter how brief it was or how tragically it ended, counts.”

Deconstruction and symbolism

That silence in the family archive inspired Efrosyniia, the brand’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection. At Ukrainian Fashion Week, Dobrovolska brought this intimate investigation of ancestry and loss into contemporary fashion.

Efrosyniia means joy and merriment. Yet hope by hope balances soft, pastoral motifs with distinctly masculine tones. Dobrovolska upcycles vintage men’s jackets and structured shirts. Traditionally, these garments evoke authority, patriarchal constraints and militarism. Here, however, their rigid forms become fluid, feminine silhouettes that wrap around the body. As a result, for the designer, they offer protective enclosures of safety.

Each piece carries layers of symbolism. For example, the opening look features a sculpted handbag in the shape of a horse’s head. In this way, it honours the Cossack lineage that the designer shares with her lost great-aunt. Meanwhile, empty, gilded picture frames hang directly from garments. Thus, they mark Efrosyniia’s absence from family albums. Cascading strands of glass beads, in turn, represent unshed tears.

Furthermore, to ground this story in physical reality, Dobrovolska collected fallen oak leaves from parks in Kyiv. She then used them as natural stencils across the fabrics. “No two leaves are ever identical,” she notes. “The oak represents the family tree, our enduring roots, continuity, and perseverance through centuries of turbulence.”

Dobrovolska also styled the collection, bringing the narrative full circle. Glitter sits beneath the eyes, while black handprints cover the mouths. Together, these details evoke enforced historical silence, suppressed memory, and the prohibition of truth.

History and modern reality

Although Efrosyniia draws on a century-old mystery, it also reflects the realities of contemporary Ukraine. This collection marks Dobrovolska’s second showing at Ukrainian Fashion Week. Previously, she won the Grand Prix at the prestigious Look into the Future young designers contest in 2025. Her debut collection explored archival artefacts from Kyiv’s Khanenko Museum. It honoured Infanta Margarita and her tragic destiny. In addition, it paid tribute to Oleksandra “Yalta” Ryazantseva. The stylist and military volunteer died on the frontline in 2024.

For Dobrovolska, historical trauma and current sacrifice intertwine. Her own brother died in action in the Donetsk region in 2023. Meanwhile, Howard G. Buffett’s photography exhibition Courage of a Nation helped inspire her Look into the Future collection. It featured images from the Donetsk frontline. Through these photographs, Dobrovolska sought to understand a soldier’s life. “Even now, I hold onto the hope that his face might catch the light in a war correspondent’s photo someday,” the designer comments.

Similarly, she speaks of deliberately dressing her models in combat boots, as though attempting to step into someone else’s footsteps.

“When a wave of absolute solitude and despair hit me, a realization emerged,” Dobrovolska shares. “I am not an isolated individual; I am the culmination of the skills, talents, victories, and enduring resilience of my ancestors. I am sustained by the people who believed in me, even if they are no longer here.”

Hope by Hope & fashion as remembrance

One of the collection’s most striking accessories takes the form of a sharp, structured bag. Dobrovolska created it from cardboard milk cartons cut into oak leaves. In fact, she developed the design during early mornings in her studio, often as air raid sirens rang across the city.

Milk also carries a specific symbolic meaning here. It references Operation “MoLoChKa” (Milk), a Ukrainian military campaign. Its acronym stands for “Moscow Will Fall Via Crimea.” “This piece was born from a mixture of gratitude and the desire for justice, a quiet act of retribution for the innocent life taken from my family,” Dobrovolska underlines.

By exploring personal genealogies, hope by hope joins a broader cultural investigation. Here, a single family archive offers a way to examine national history. “Ukrainian history is defined not only by the richness of traditional arts or beautiful folk attire,” Dobrovolska emphasizes. “It is also marked by deep grief, tragedy, and forced silence. Unrecognised evil is destined to repeat itself.”

Ultimately, Dobrovolska’s personal storytelling reveals fashion’s political power. By bringing ancestral traumas to light, hope by hope transforms grief into remembrance. In turn, remembrance becomes a civic manifesto.

Credits:
Brand & Designer: hope by hope (@hope.by.hope_) / Nadiia Dobrovolska (@nadiiadobro_volska)
Photos: Serhiy Khandusenko (@ikwydln), Andriy Sokolov (@sokol.andrew), Volodymyr Bosak (@volodymyr_bosak).