Celebrating the Russian Giraffe - NYTimes.com THE photographers who hang around outside fashion shows sometimes call her Little Gio. Though Natalia Alaverdian, a budding face on street-style blogs, bears a passing resemblance to a petite version of the popular stylist Giovanna Battaglia (hence the nickname), she would like to be known for a look of her own making. As a fashion director for the Russian edition of Harper's Bazaar, Ms. Alaverdian is part of a pack of young women from that country who have made a big impression on the industry in recent years. So now, naturally, comes her own collection. "I know how clothes are supposed to fit, and I have a very precise idea of what I want," Ms. Alaverdian, 31 and 5-foot-2, said on a recent visit to New York, where she showed her spring collection in a room in the Bowery Hotel. Her boldest look for the season is a graphic giraffe print, seen on flared pants, prim coats and karate-style shorts, which were inspired roughly by the clothes she had seen in a famous 1960s portfolio of Veruschka in Japan, photographed for Vogue by Richard Avedon. Her label is called Awake, an acronym for "All Wonderful Adventures Kindle Enthusiasm," which is basically Ms. Alaverdian's way of saying strike while the iron's hot. Born in Moscow and raised in Belgium, and having worked briefly for Russian magazines, she was essentially unknown before the style blogs picked up on her outside the shows. Her profile got a boost last month when Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist posted images of both Little Gio and the big one, seen on the streets wearing unrelated giraffe prints. With all the attention that is focused on the people who go to fashion shows, and the global expansion of Russian designers like Ulyana Sergeenko and Vika Gazinskaya, Ms. Alaverdian reasoned it was an opportune moment to go into business for herself. The response so far has been encouraging. Moda Operandi is taking advance orders for Awake through Thursday, and the collection was picked up by Net-a-Porter and Browns in London, where Ms. Alaverdian is partly based. Giraffe print pants cost around $600; a pink canvas jacket is $1,000. Given the reaction, animal motifs might even become Ms. Alaverdian's signature. "Next season will be sheep," she said.