Larysa Volkov

With nearly a decade of formal education in women’s clothing design and a lifetime of dressmaking experience, Larysa has been dazzling our clients since 2013. Born and raised in Simferopol, Ukraine, she had an innate aptitude for making clothes since 15 years old, sewing skirts for herself using her mother’s fabric and pattern books. Like many Ukrainian women at the time, Larysa’s mother knew how to sew, made clothes for her daughters and ultimately provided the perfect learning environment for an aspiring fashion designer. “If you wanted to be in style back then, you had to make your own clothes,” Larysa says. “That was the life.” And she loved it. Signing up for a two-year introductory sewing program after high school, Larysa graduated at the top of her class and pursued higher education in fashion at the university. She honed her artistic talent and learned all the technical aspects of the trade, such as working with garment manufacturing technology, apparel construction methods and textile science. Completely immersing herself in work and studies, Larysa quickly became a fit expert in the industry and a sought-after professional pattern maker. While earning a bachelor’s in fashion design, she worked in a college fashion department, coaching students as they prepared collections for the runway. She graduated with honors and enrolled in a master’s program. Having developed a keen understanding of fit and style, Larysa was offered diverse career opportunities in alterations shops and sewed custom clothes for private clients. In 2006, she helped open a high-end alteration and custom dressmaking boutique in Ukraine, where she worked exclusively on luxury brand garments and created custom couture for affluent socialites in the region.

At Old Country Tailor, she is our premier fit expert and custom dressmaker, known for her masterful creativity, obsession with details and magical ability to create any dress simply from a picture. Whether it’s making a copy of Valentino haute couture for a celebrity’s mother, refashioning complex evening gowns or creating an elaborate custom wedding dress, Larysa has done it all. “The best part of my job is having the opportunity to work on a range of different projects,” she says. ”There ‘s never a boring day.” She works with clients individually to achieve the style and fit they want and offers skillful design solutions. Meticulously cut and stitched, her exceptionally made attire has been attracting clients from the Bay Area and beyond since the day she joined our team.