One day in February 2024, the interior designer Maksym Iuriichuk got a call from an unknown number. He assumed it was a spam call—until he heard the voice on the other end speaking Ukrainian.
The call turned out to be from a US-based employee of the Ukrainian bridal brand Milla Nova, who wanted to hire Iuriichuk’s architecture and interior design firm, Sivak+Partners—which has offices in Brooklyn, Odesa, and Kyiv—to design a small space in Chicago. That initial collaboration led to the firm’s biggest project yet: Milla Nova’s flagship showroom in SoHo, Manhattan, which opened in April.
For Iuriichuk and his collaborator Serhii Molchanov, creating a bridal retail space was unlike anything they’d done. It took seven designs before they arrived at the final version: At first, Iuriichuk was focusing on bold interiors, but he eventually realized he would need to take a different approach.
“Because this is a bridal showroom, the main person there is the bride, and the dress,” he tells Vogue. The design vision shifted to focus on softness, curves, and sculptural architecture that lets each bride—and each gown—be the main event.
For Milla Nova, which was founded in 2002 by sisters Zoryana and Iryna Senyshyn as a small atelier in Lviv, the New York store is a major milestone. In 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Milla Nova’s headquarters shifted to producing protective and medical supplies for the army.
That same year, the brand became the first Ukrainian brand to show at New York Bridal Fashion Week. Today, they have a flagship in Warsaw, and their designs are sold in over 50 countries around the world.
For the founders, it was important to work with fellow Ukrainians on this landmark moment.
“Ukraine is part of everything we do. It felt right that our New York store was also created by Ukrainians,” founder Zoryana Senyshyn told Vogue over email. “Ukrainian design today is strong and confident, and we want the world to see it. With Maksym’s team, we understood each other from the first meeting. We didn’t need to explain who we are.”
For Sivak+Partners, designing a New York showroom meant contending with the quirks of the city, the historic building, and the neighborhood. “This was the narrowest space I ever designed in my life,” Iuriichuk says.
The showroom, which occupies an entire floor at 597 Broadway, only has natural light at the perimeter, which meant that the team needed to get creative with light design. Color-wise, they chose pink, cream, and sandy colors to accentuate the striking white color and delicate designs of the gowns.
Iuriichuk’s favorite element of the design is the large, ten-foot sculptural mirrors that seem to emerge from the walls, finished in handcrafted plaster. Some of the furnishings (like the curtains) came from Ukraine, and the project involved extensive video meetings between team members in Ukraine and New York.
About two weeks before opening, Iuriichuk went with Zoryana to the showroom. The elevator wasn’t working (another New York moment). They walked up the stairs to the second-floor space. “I just saw her climbing step by step, and then she came inside, and it was just wow. She was just totally amazed.”
“Honestly, I almost cried,” Zoryana said. “For months you see drawings and samples, but it's different when you finally walk inside. It felt like home. The shapes, the light, the textures: it was clearly Milla Nova, but also very New York. I thought about our team in Lviv, who make every dress by hand, and how far their work has come.”