Just before the New Year, when her compatriots were busy mixing up the olivye, 16-year-old fashion designer Kira Plastinina was filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. Plastinina, whose fashion empire was financed entirely by her dairy-magnate father, Sergei, has spent the last two years setting the world aflame with magenta tutus, nylon jumpsuits, and frilly lingerie—that you wear on top of your clothes—to the accolades of… uh, we'll get back to you on that one. Today, we salute the fallen princess, now prudently shifting her focus from L.A. to Kazakhstan, with a retrospective of her short time on U.S. soil.

February 2007: Kira's label launches in Russia. 12 stores open in Moscow before September of the same year.

May 2, 2008: The tycoonager bursts onto the U.S. fashion scene with a (literally) star-studded, sparkly store-launch in SoHo. Coast-to-coast parties follow. A plan to open 50 U.S. stores in three years, and 250 U.S. stores total, is unveiled.

December 19, 2008: All twelve Kira Plastinina stores in the U.S. close.

December 31, 2008: Los Angeles-based KP Fashion Co. files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in New York.

January 3, 2009: The L.A. Times reports that a certain somebody owes $54.5 million to over 100 creditors (including both the Glendale and Santa Monica Police Departments), and that Pacific Sunwear has brought a trademark infringement suit upon the head of KP Fashion.

January 21: We secretly check out Plastinina's Russian website, noting that she sees her style as "art-glamour-sporty."

January 21: We find that we can no longer return our purchases to the American online store, but can still order zebra galoshes and newspaper print stretch pants there at low, low, bankruptcy prices.

Teen designer Kira Plastinina's U.S. store chain files for bankruptcy [L.A. Times]
Kira Plastinina Files for Bankruptcy–U.S. Firm Owes Creditors More Than $54 Million [The Wall Street Journal]

Photo courtesy of The L.A. Times