all-new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica\u00a0<\/a>that has redefined elegance in the dowdy minivan segment. Like generations of Detroit companies before it, Chrysler drew on the region\u2019s diverse immigrant community to make it happen.<\/p>\nJewish \u00e9migr\u00e9 Zavatski and her family fled religious persecution in their native, majority-Muslim Tajikistan in 1994 as the country descended into civil war after its independence from the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just 15 when we came to the United States,\u201d explains Zavatski. \u201cMy mom explained to me she wanted a better future for her children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Zavatski\u2019s design future is bright \u2014 and thanks to her innovative design, so is that of Chrysler\u2019s crucial minivan line. Typical of Fiat Chrysler minivans, the Pacifica is a Swiss Army knife of functionality, boasting innovations from hands-free sliding doors and a tri-pane moonroof, to Stow \u2019n Go seating. But it\u2019s the Pacifica\u2019s sleek exterior design that is crucial to keep customers coming back to minivans in an SUV-obsessed nation.<\/p>\n
Zavatski and her team had to think outside the boxy minivan. Yet, she knew from her own driving experience that she couldn\u2019t sacrifice function to form.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe exterior is a huge part of the story,\u201d says Zavatski, who has an 8-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. \u201cThe fact that I drive one and I knew how useful the vehicle was, for me I want to keep all of that functionality but make it look really beautiful. This is a very personal vehicle for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result is a sculpted body with brush-like chrome lines and a distinctive, lower bow-tie grille. Her efforts got raves when the production Pacifica debuted to media this month. \u201cThe Pacifica is one of the best-looking van bodies ever plopped atop four wheels,\u201d raved auto enthusiast-bible Car and Driver.<\/p>\n
Ralph Gilles, Fiat Chrysler\u2019s head of global design, said, \u201cI brought on Irina straight out of the Cleveland Institute of Arts and have watched her grow as a designer. Her vision \u2014 to make the all-new Pacifica more of a sculpture on wheels and at the same time appear to have organically grown that way \u2014 was not easy. She is a true industrial designer that, as a mom, happens to appreciate the incontestable virtues of a minivan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zavatski earned her stripes the hard way.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t speak a word of English 22 years ago when her parents and older brother arrived in Cleveland after her mother\u2019s sister \u2014 also a Russian transplant \u2014 helped them escape Tajikistan\u2019s violence-torn capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came to Cleveland (because) they have a large Jewish support system,\u201d recalls the designer. \u201cThe Jewish community center helped us settle in. They gave us loans for the first four months that we could pay off later.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she adjusted to her new surroundings in Cleveland\u2019s South Euclid suburb \u2014 learning English by watching TV and observing her classmates \u2014 she took refuge in her artwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI turned to art a lot as an escape from not knowing the language,\u201d she says. \u201cI had very good art classes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also had an older brother who loved to build model cars \u2014 models that his little sister would play with after she managed to get them down from his hiding places when he wasn\u2019t around. By college, she knew she wanted to go into automobile design \u2014 if she could convince her engineer father first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to Cleveland State first because my Dad said \u2018Artists starve, so you can\u2019t go to art school,\u2019 \u201d she says. \u201cI convinced him to take a tour of the Cleveland Institute of Art and we went into the transportation design program, and I said, \u2018This is what I want to do.\u2019 I think I convinced him I could make a living doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple design internships \u2014 including one at GM \u2014 and a degree in product design later, Chrysler recognized her talents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI brought on Irina straight out of the CIA and have watched her grow,\u201d says design chief Gilles. \u201cShe was involved in the new minivan project almost from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Pacifica, Zavatski was given a rare opportunity \u2014 designing a new product from a clean sheet. She brought her own style and background to the recipe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that as a designer all your experience in your life influences what you draw,\u201d she says. \u201cI do feel like not being from here, I bring something different to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
She describes her style as simple: sketching out a full vehicle in three or four lines then filling in the details. It suited Chrysler\u2019s elegant design language that premiered with the 2015 Chrysler 200 mid-size sedan. The 200 is rounded \u2014 free of corners \u2014 which suited Zavatski\u2019s goal of eliminating the van\u2019s mom-mobile stigma.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started working on it, I heard a lot of the stigma thing,\u201d she said. \u201cTo be perfectly honest, I really didn\u2019t get it because I didn\u2019t grow up here. But I could tell people felt like they had to give something up to own one… so I want to make this awesome because I want moms to be happy driving it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Pacifica behind her, she has moved on to a Jeep crossover project. But as she looks forward to new challenges, she hasn\u2019t forgotten her past. She reconnected with her best friend from Tajikistan in Moscow in 2012. And both her children are learning Russian so they can converse with their \u00e9migr\u00e9 grandparents when they visit them in Cleveland in mom\u2019s new minivan.<\/p>\n
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To reinvent the minivan, Chrysler turned to a mom from Tajikistan. Irina Zavatski, a 38-year old mother of two, is lead exterior designer for the striking,\u00a0all-new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica\u00a0that has redefined elegance in the dowdy minivan segment. Like generations of Detroit companies before it, Chrysler drew on the region\u2019s diverse immigrant community to make it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18339,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18338\/revisions\/18339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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