- Source: Kachorovska Alina
Kachorovska (Ocheretyana) Alina Genadivna (Ukrainian: Качоровська Аліна Генадівна), is a Ukrainian designer of shoes and accessories, co-founder and CEO of the Kacho Group holding and creative director of the Kachorovska brand.
Biography
She was born and raised in Zhytomyr. Since childhood, she was familiar with the craft of shoemaking because her grandmother and mother worked in shoe factories. The family also had its small workshop located on the territory of their house in Zhytomyr. In 2005, she moved to Kyiv to study at the law faculty of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In 2010, in Kyiv, she accepted the first order to produce individual shoes at the family production. Alina's husband, Ruslan Ocheretyany, joined the family business the same year. The first collection of shoes and bags was released under the Kachorovska brand in 2013. In the first week, they sold almost everything prepared for the previous six months, and Forbes, AIN, and other business publications in Ukraine immediately started writing about the company.
Brand history
Kachorovska is a Ukrainian fashion shoe brand that has mastered the design, craftsmanship, and production of shoes since 1957, already in the third generation of a family of shoemakers. Alina Kachorovska's grandmother, Leonida Sigismundivna, was the first in the family to start making shoes. She worked for many years at a shoe factory and fulfilled individual orders. Alina's mother, Olena Leonidivna Kachorovska, also worked at the factory, and later in the 1990s, she founded her home shoe factory in Zhytomyr. From 2010 to 2013, the Kachorovska brand existed in the format of a small family production studio in Kyiv, where Alina worked with her husband Ruslan Ocheretyan, as well as a workshop of seven people, headed by Alina's mother, in Zhytomyr. During the atelier's work, the brand created shoes according to the measurements of more than 40,000 customers, which now makes it possible to manufacture anatomical shoes that take into account people's real problems.
2015 the brand's first store opened in Podil area, on Borychiv Tick Street. The store combined a space where you could buy shoes and accessories, as well as a cafe, which became a meeting place for many years to come for fans of the brand and ordinary citizens. In the following years, another location in Kyiv and a store in Odesa opened with the same concept.
In 2018, Alina Kachorovska was nominated for the title of "Woman of Ukraine" in the category "Fashion and Beauty" by the magazine Edynstvennaya.
In August 2019, the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, appeared at the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine wearing Kachorovska shoes. During the brand's existence, Kachorovska shoes and accessories were worn by Ukrainian show business and television stars, such as Nadia Dorofeeva, Jamala, Tina Karol, and Kateryna Osadcha.
In March 2020, Kachorovska launched a powerful WomanX2 campaign dedicated to modern Ukrainian women. The campaign consisted of a video manifesto and a flash mob with the tag #womanx2. The heroines of the project were real successful women: lawyer Natalia Mykolska, founder of the Bohdan Gavrylyshyn family foundation Patricia Shmorgun Gavrylyshyn, designer Katya Silchenko and Alina Kachorovska.
After several years of steady growth, the brand experienced some transformations during the brutal 2020. The Kachorovska factory in Zhytomyr stopped working during the quarantine in March. But shortly before that, in a rush to fulfill individual orders, the brand's artisans produced 150 pieces to order in three days - an incredibly short time for such a volume of work. The crisis inspired Alina Kachorovska to optimize production and prefer making shoes to individual orders. Kachorovska produced about 600 special orders per month. In addition, during the year, the brand launched a collection of shoes for the home, considering the change in people's lifestyles due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December 2020, the first joint collection of the famous Ukrainian singer Tina Karol, developed with Kachorovska, was released. Shoes and bags immediately became popular among fans of the artist and the brand.
The most significant changes in the company took place in January 2021. From a small business - the Kachorovska shoe brand, the company grew into the Kacho Group holding, which unites the Kachorovska and Melly shoe brands. The brand launched several powerful collaborations with Ukrainian brands and show business stars in the same year. One was a joint collection of evening shoes with The COAT brand and designer Katya Silchenko. The collection of wedding shoes created with the Milla Nova brand has also become popular among the audience of the Kachorovska brand. And a unique collaboration with the Ukrainian brand Ksenia Schnaider.
In November 2021, Alina Kachorovska was included in the list of 30 Ukrainian women with the most stunning successes in business, according to the magazine Novy Chas.
In 2022, the day before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the brand took part in the Ukrainian Fashion exhibition of Ukrainian brands in New York, which was opened with the support of the USAID fund.
Despite the martial law in the country, Kachorovska did not stop production, despite the proximity to the front line in the north of the country in the first weeks of the full-scale war. Production was adjusted to meet the army's needs on the fifth day of the invasion. 1,698 pairs of berets were sewn for the military. Donations for $25,000 were also collected through the brand's social networks. Kachorovska also produced leather belts for the military. Those actions made it possible to employ all 117 enterprise employees during the country's most anxious and uncertain period.
In December 2022, Kachorovska launched a showroom for Ukrainian buyers and the press, similar to Western fashion weeks. Showroom was launched with the idea of building in Ukraine as the next fashion hub for all countries of the Eastern European region.
During the United 24 summit in Kyiv, ambassadors of the charity fund, actress and director Katheryne Winnick, and actress Ivanna Sakhno, chose Kachorovska shoes for the event.
In May 2023, Kachorovska created four unique pairs of shoes for the leader of the band The Hardkiss, Julia Sanina, who was the host of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Liverpool. For every semi-final and final broadcast, Julia Sanina went on stage wearing the brand's shoes.
