Biography 

Alexandre Vassiliev is an internationally acclaimed French costume and set designer as well as being a fashion historian. He was born in Moscow in 1958 into a celebrated family of artists. His late father designed for the Bolshoi Theatre, his mother was an actress.

At the age of five he designed his first costumes and sets for a puppet show, and starred in childrens programs for Soviet Television. He graduated from the Moscow Arts Theatre Studio at the age of twenty-two. He then designed for the prestigious Moscow Dramatic Theatre.

In 1982 he moved to Paris where he immediately started to design for the French theatre. There he worked for the Theatre du Rond Point des Champs Elyses, the Studio of the Bastille Opera, the Lucernaire, the Cartoucherie, the Festival of Avignon, the Ballet du Nord, the Jeune Ballet de France and the Royal Opera of Versilles amongst others.

Alexandre Vassiliev designs for operas, plays, films and ballets for reknowned companies all aroung the world. For more detailed information about his work, click on either one of the following links: Ballet  Opera

Alexandre Vassiliev tours the principal art colleges of the world as a guest lecturer in the history of fashion and stage design.  For a listing of institutions he has taught at, click here.

Futhermore, he has one of the world’s largest private collections of Russian period costumes and has showed it many times in France and abroad. He is author of the book Beauty In Exile, prized as the best illustrated book of the year 1998 as well as the feature editor of VOGUE and Harper's Bazaar magazines, Russian editions. He hosts his own television show on Russian Culture TV, entitled "Breath of the Century." Alexandre Vassiliev has been honored with the Diaghiliev Medal in Paris and twice the TOBAV Prize in Turkey.