Viktor Anisimov, one of Ukraine’s top fashion designers, first worked with the future president of Ukraine about 20 years ago. That was when Volodymyr Zelensky was part of a comedy troupe whose members all dressed in T-shirts and leather pants. Mr. Anisimov coaxed them into trying classic suits.
So in January, when Mr. Zelensky’s wife wanted a new look for her husband, and her office reached out to Mr. Anisimov, he had a familiar thought. Suits.
It didn’t matter to him that Mr. Zelensky had repeatedly said he would not wear a suit until the war with Russia was over, and that he had worn only military garb in solidarity with his troops. Nor did it matter that the designer knew Mr. Zelensky did not care about clothing.
“He dressed for comfort,” Mr. Anisimov said in an interview in his workshop, surrounded by clothing racks. But, he added, “they thought he might listen to me.”
Mr. Anisimov, 61, never expected to end up in the fashion world. He had planned to be a military man for the Soviet Union.
But these days, he not only has his own successful design business, he is also the fashion consultant for Mr. Zelensky, fielding questions about what Ukraine’s leader planned to wear for his next meeting with President Trump, set for Friday.
His answer: He just designs the clothes. As to whether Mr. Zelensky might wear a new suit, Mr. Anisimov did not know. The president picks what he wants to wear.
Mr. Anisimov was born in a small town about 120 miles northwest of Kyiv, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. He graduated from a military institute in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia, and then joined the Soviet military.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he started a construction company in Donetsk, an industrial city in Ukraine’s east known for metallurgy and coal mining that would later become the heart of the war. It is now occupied by Russia.
One day, in the summer of 1997, an acquaintance who owned a beauty salon there asked him to work on a new project. Knowing he was creative with metalwork and that he often sketched intricate designs, she wondered if he could make clothing hangers as a backdrop for a hairdressing contest. He ended up designing elaborate metal hangers with black fabric that resembled dresses.
A woman hunting for talent for a new event, Ukrainian Fashion Week, spotted the hangers. She loved them.
She invited Mr. Anisimov to come to the first fashion week that year. He was skeptical, but she insisted. And so he designed his first collection, featuring black form-fitting dresses held up by structured silver metal pieces resembling chunky avant-garde jewelry. The line was a smash. He decided to forego construction for fashion.
“It’s very rare to find designers who, without a professional education, reach the level he has,” said Iryna Danylevska, who founded Ukrainian Fashion Week and first noticed Mr. Anisimov’s hangers. “Everything he does is very complex. There’s a deep philosophy in each of his pieces.”
The war sent Mr. Anisimov into a sadness, he said. He could not believe that the Russian Army — the legacy of the Soviet military that he once served — had invaded Ukraine. For a time after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, fashion seemed irrelevant to him, and he instead made clothing for local defense units.
“The Soviet Union no longer existed, but I was still a Soviet officer,” he said. “I never thought this would happen. And when it did, it was such a shock that it killed the sense of beauty in me.”
But as Ukrainians got used to life during war, fashion seemed to matter again. Mr. Anisimov started sketching new designs, including clothing for the country’s national Paralympic team, which competed in Paris last year.
If he had a favorite color, it would probably be black. If he had a favorite shoe, it would likely be his off-white Nike Air Jordans. His workshop, about 45 minutes from the center of Kyiv, the capital, is filled with a mixture of his clothes — almost all black, obviously — and more colorful clothes designed by his wife, Tetyana Chumak, who also has a fashion label.
His latest collection features utilitarian black outfits, wide-legged pants, boxy jackets and cropped turtlenecks, most of which can be worn by men or women. At this year’s fashion week, in early September, the unisex clothes were paired with socks and flip-flops.
Igor Zyrianov, Mr. Anisimov’s hairdresser, said this new collection seemed more playful and cheerful than others. But he said he did not wear Mr. Anisimov’s clothes.
“He makes clothes for when you need to dress and express yourself, and I don’t like that,” said Mr. Zyrianov, 61, adding that Mr. Anisimov was a deep thinker who often quoted classic literature.
“Viktor loves to talk,” Mr. Zyrianov explained. “If you ask him something, he will tell you everything, even about his mother.”
Among Mr. Anisimov’s opinions is this: Mr. Zelensky was the coolest guy he had ever met and practically had no flaws, “a master of sport in men’s all-around.”
He added that most people are not that curious about the clothing of Ukraine’s president. Instead, people want to know when the war will end.
“My mother always says, ‘Ask him when,’” he said. He added that he had never asked Mr. Zelensky the question.
The offices of both Mr. Zelensky and his wife, Olena Zelenska, declined to comment for this article.
When Mr. Anisimov got the call in January about changing up Mr. Zelensky’s style, he planned to inch the president in a more suity direction, step by step. But then came the disastrous February meeting in the White House, when Mr. Zelensky was criticized for his clothing.
Suddenly, Mr. Anisimov’s mission became tricky. If Mr. Zelensky abandoned his traditional military fashion after being dressed down in Washington, he would look as if he had caved to the suits in the United States.
So Mr. Anisimov went slow. For Step 1, he created a black jacket with straight hems, the corners cut at 90 degrees. It conjured a military vibe, close to Mr. Zelensky’s style. Mr. Zelensky wore it for his first meeting with Mr. Trump since the debacle, on the sidelines of the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican in late April.
Mr. Anisimov then moved to Step 2. He made a new black blazer with rounded corners instead of straight ones. Mr. Zelensky wore it to the NATO summit in late June.
“People even placed bets on whether Zelensky would wear a suit or not, and when he would,” Mr. Anisimov recalled. “Everyone was calling me: ‘You’re the designer, tell us, is this a suit?’”
He moved on to Step 3: Operation Suitish.
He wanted to shake up Mr. Zelensky’s color scheme. So he designed a military-style formal jacket and matching pants in dark blue. He added a yellow boutonniere of wheat stalks so the suit had the colors of Ukraine’s flag.
On a Friday in mid-August, Mr. Anisimov took the suit, and an identical one in black, to Mr. Zelensky. He hoped the president would pick one to wear for the country’s Independence Day in nine days.
Mr. Zelensky rejected the blue suit. “He said, ‘This looks too fashionable,’” Mr. Anisimov said.
But Mr. Zelensky took the black one.
The designer asked Mr. Zelensky to sign the blue jacket. “Glory to Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky scrawled in black marker on the back, along with the date: Aug. 15, 2025.
Mr. Zelensky again met Mr. Trump in the White House on Aug. 18. He wore the black suit, pairing it with a black collared button-up shirt and no tie.
“I cannot believe it,” Mr. Trump said, giving Mr. Zelensky the once-over. “I love it. Look at you.”
Mr. Zelensky wore the same suit to the United Nations General Assembly in September. Mr. Anisimov was pleased with how the Ukrainian president looked in the outfit, but he was already envisioning a Step 4.
“A classic suit,” the designer said, almost dreamily. “I hope that happens soon.”
Kim Barker is a Times reporter writing in-depth stories about the war in Ukraine.
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