jukka gronow and sergey zhuravlev

Fashion Meets
Socialism
Fashion industry in the Soviet Union after the Second World War

Studia Fennica
Historica
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Jukka Gronow & Sergey Zhuravlev

Fashion Meets Socialism

Fashion industry in the Soviet Union
after the Second World War

Finnish Literature Society • SKS • Helsinki

Studia Fennica Historica 20

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© 2016 Jukka Gronow, Sergey Zhuravlev and SKS

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Contents

Acknowledgements 8

1. Introduction 10
Fashion and Soviet modernity 10
Fashion in a centrally planned economy 13
The founding of the Soviet Houses of Fashion 15
Fashion propaganda and the propaganda for fashion 18
Fashion and the satisfaction of human needs 20
Fashion and Soviet decency 23
Inspirations and restrictions 27
Previous studies of fashion under socialism 30
The plan of the book 33

2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry:

from the Russian Revolution to the end of Stalin’s Rule 38
The Revolutionary Background of Soviet Fashion and
Anti-Fashion 38
The 1930s: The Reanimation of Traditional Fashion 50
The Impact of War on the Soviet Fashion Design and Industry 55

3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR

after the Second World War: A Consumer’s Perspective 57
Economic growth and consumption 57
Economic-administrative reforms 67
The main peculiarities of the Soviet consumer society 73

4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House 78

5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion: The System of Clothing

Design and Fashion Organizations in the USSR (1960–1980) 92
Four Parallel Organizations 92
The General Structure of the Design Organizations at the Ministry of
Light Industry 96

5
The Center point of Soviet fashion: The All-Union House of Fashion
Design, ODMO 100
Standardizing Soviet Clothing Sizes: TsNIIShP and Other Scientific
Research and Construction Organizations at the Ministry of Light
Industry 108
The Highest Authority of Soviet Fashion: All-Union Institute of
Product Assortment and Culture of Dress under the Ministry
of Light Industry, VIALegprom 110
Fashion Design in the Garment Enterprises 113
Fashion Design in the Houses of Everyday Services 116
Fashion Designers in the Factories of Everyday Services 122
Special Units of Fashion Design for Centers of Everyday Services 123
The Law Giver of Fashion for the Service Centers: The Experimental
Center of Clothing Design, TsOTShL 125
Closer to the Customer: Fashion Design in the Organizations
of the Ministry of Local Industry 129
The Differentiation of Soviet Economic Administration 131

6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow 133

Fashion under the Ministry of Trade 133
The opening of GUM 134
The Fashion Atelier 137
The Establishment of the Department of Fashion Design in GUM 141
GUM in Search of Its House Style 146
Working Days at the Department of Fashion Design at GUM 153
Publishing Activities at GUM 157
In the Demonstration Hall at GUM 160
The Models: “The Most Difficult Part of the Work” 164
The Call from Abroad 170

7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West 173

The Founding of the Tallinn House 173
New Designs and the Artistic Council 177
The Design Practice of the Tallinn House 180
The Economy and Basic Tasks of the House 182
The Siluett Fashion Journal 185
Contacts with the Other Soviet Fashion Houses 187
Fashion Shows and Exhibitions 188
An Almost European House of Fashion 190

8. Fashion in People’s Minds: The Public Discussion of the Culture

of Dress in the Soviet Press 192
Fashion in the Press 192
News and Reports on Seasonal Fashion 199
Vyacheslav Zaitsev – A Celebrity among the Soviet Fashion
Designers 202

6
News about the Fashion Events: From the Domestic Exhibitions and
Shows to the Great Achievements of Soviet Fashion
in the International Arena 207
Fashion and Customers’ Complaints 211
The Question of the Small Series and firmennye magaziny 215
The Rules of Decency and the Proper Soviet Dress Code 218
The Everlasting Campaign against Bad Taste 222
The Soviet Ideology of Fashion 230
Street Fashion and Youth Fashion 238
Fashion: For or Against 240
The Unanimity and the Diversity of the Public Discussion
on Soviet Fashion 242

9. Conclusion 244

Notes 253
Appendices 279
Abstract 284
References 286
Index of Names 296
Index of Subjects 299

7
Acknowledgements

D uring the work on this book we have received valuable help from many
persons, all of whom played active and central roles in the Soviet system
of fashion as designers, pattern makers, models, engineers, economists,
and editors, to name a few. We met and interviewed them in Moscow and
Tallinn in 2007–2009. Many of them had followed the development of the
fashion institutions for a very long time starting in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s
until the end of the Soviet Union. They all generously shared their first-hand
knowledge and interesting memories with us. They also gave us photos to be
published in the book from their private family archives. Without their help
this book would not have been possible at all. All their names are mentioned
in our list of sources.
Our special thanks go to Anu Ojavee, associate professor at the Estonian
Academy of Arts, Tallinn, who helped us locate relevant persons to interview
as well as to find the central archival sources in Tallinn, Estonia. She always
had time for us when we needed help and generously shared with us her great
knowledge of the history of Estonian fashion.
We would also like to thank all our colleagues and friends active in
Soviet history and sociology who have on various occasions helped us in
our work. We particularly appreciate the support that we have received from
the scholars at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences
for their valuable comments and suggestions in private discussions or in
workshops, seminars and conferences. The Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki
Collegium of Advanced Studies, and the Institute of World Cultures, all
part of the University of Helsinki, have supported our work by inviting us
to present papers at seminars and by making Sergey Zhuravlev’s regular
working visits to Helsinki possible.
The financial support from the Scandinavian Institutes of Administrative
Studies, SIAR, which we received for several years, has been indispensable to
the accomplishment of our project. It allowed the two authors to regularly
visit each other and work together in Moscow and Helsinki as well as to
spend time in the archives and libraries. Without this valuable support the
project would not have been possible at all. We would like to express our
gratitude particularly to the director of the SIAR Foundation, Christian
Junnelius, who believed in the importance of our project and encouraged us
to finish it in time.

8
Sergey Zhuravlev has also received support for his research work from
the Programme of Fundamental Research of OIFN of the Russian Academy
of Sciences as part of the research project “Everyday Life, Consumption and
Soviet Man.“
Ursa Dykstra checked, in a highly professional manner, the language
of the manuscript of two non-native English speakers and made all the
necessary corrections to make the book readable and fluent English. We are
also grateful to Sue Scott for her valuable help in editing our English during
the last stages of preparing the book to print.
Janne Hiipakka helped us in the last stages of submitting our manuscript
to the publisher by editing the text and pictures technically.
A previous version of the book was published in Russian in 2014 (Moda
po planu. Istoriya mody i modelirovaniya odezhdy v SSSR 1917–1991.
Moskva: Rossiyskaya akademiya nauk. Institut rossiyskoi istorii).

15.6.2015
Jukka Gronow and Sergey Zjuravlev

9
1. Introduction

Fashion and Soviet modernity

Fashion and design would, in the West, commonly be seen as antithetical

to the values of Soviet society. Awareness was, and is, high in relation to
the accomplishments of the Soviet Union in the area of scientific progress
in the late 1950s and early 1960s and even the leading powers in the West
looked on sputniks and cosmonauts with envy and admiration. At that time
overall economic growth in the USSR was quite impressive, and its leaders’
pompous statements about overcoming the production levels of the USA in
many basic industrial products and food-stuffs did not seem at all farfetched.
What was less generally known however was that, during this period, the
Soviet Union made major investments in fashion design. Promoting fashion
and improving the standards of clothing was as important as the general
politics of material culture in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union has certainly never enjoyed a high reputation in the
world of fashion. The standardized, industrially mass-produced clothes
were held in low esteem by both Soviet consumers and foreign visitors. If
anything, Soviet citizens were generally dissatisfied with the domestic supply
of clothing. To foreign visitors, street fashion in Moscow, not to mention
smaller provincial towns or the countryside, looked rather dull, uniform
and grey. Interestingly at this time, the Soviet Union had one of the world’s
largest organizations of fashion design, all planned, financed and supported
by the state. Thousands of professional, well-educated designers worked in
the various Soviet institutions of fashion. They designed according to the
annual plan thousands of new fashionable garments and accessories both
for industrial mass production and for smaller fashion ateliers that sewed
custom made clothes for their customers.
By the early 1960s, these institutions of fashion design had many
accomplishments to be proud of. They promoted Soviet fashion by increasing
the variety of industrially produced clothing as well as with their spectacular
fashion shows, which were well received both at home and abroad. Thus,
Soviet fashion contributed to the Soviet effort to nurture peaceful competition
between the two world systems, socialism and capitalism. It became obvious
during the 1970s that, in the end not even fashion and fashion design,

10
1. Introduction

despite at times almost heroic efforts, could overcome the economic and
bureaucratic limitations and inherent rigidity of the planned economy.
This book is the story of the emergence and establishment of the post-
war Soviet culture of dress, the great expectations attached to it, its great
achievements and the limitations that prevented it from revolutionizing
the Soviet style of dress and culture of consumption in general. The reasons
for the discrepancy between the ‘input’ and ‘output’ in the Soviet system
of fashion provide an intriguing question to which we shall devote much
attention in what follows. The serious shortages, issues of quality and limited
variety of items regularly on sale in the Soviet shops were problems that
plagued not only the fashion industry in the USSR but the production of
consumer goods in general.1 However, these problems probably beleaguered
the clothes industry to a greater extent than other fields of consumption. The
rapid, seasonal changes of fashion just did not fit into the planned economy.
Since the collapse of Communism historians have discussed to what
extent the Eastern European socialist societies were modern. On the one
hand, the ‘modernists’ like Stephen Kotkin, the author of the famous work
Magnetic Mountain,2 have emphasized that the building of socialism in the
1920s and 1930s shared many of the tendencies and aspirations essential
to the project of modernity such as economic and scientific progress,
urbanization, etc. On the other hand, the ‘Neo-Traditionalists,’ such as Sheila
Fitzpatrick,3 have repeatedly pointed out that despite some of its seemingly
modern features, the Soviet Union was more traditional than modern. She
emphasizes for example the role of clientism and the importance of ascribed
social statuses, both ethnic and professional, as well as the privileges and
corruption following from them. The answer to the question undoubtedly
depends on what one means by a modern society or modernity. One
should distinguish on the one hand the process of modernization typically
associated with social and economic progress based on the strong belief in
science and progress and on the other hand the experience of modernity,
closely associated with the individualization and detraditionalization of the
society, which received its expression in the various forms of modern art at
the turn of the 20thcentury. Michael David-Fox,4 commenting on the dispute
between the modernists and the traditionalists, suggested that we should
pay more attention to the concrete forms of cultural transfer between the
capitalist West and the socialist East and to the various ways in which they
were adapted and modified in their countries of destination.
In this book, we shall follow his suggestion by describing and analyzing
one specific, important field of Soviet consumption: garment fashion. The
above mentioned authors have mainly studied the pre-war years, which
could be called the first peak of modernization. The second peak in the
1950s and 1960s coincided with de-Stalinization, Khrushchev’s years in
power. The second period has however so far received much less attention
from historians of the Soviet Union than the pre-war period. Both periods
were characterized by rapid industrial and technological progress as well as
rapid urbanization. The Communist Party and the Soviet government also
had a cultural mission, and the authorities made great efforts to educate
the population in order to create a new cultured person better able to meet

11
1. Introduction

the new demands of urban and industrial life. The establishment of the
Soviet fashion institutions and the pro good taste propaganda in which
they engaged was an integral part of the process of modernization led from
above. The Soviet authorities thought rational and scientific economic
planning inherent to socialism, would inevitably lead to the greater material
abundance and human wellbeing as well as to the general beautification of
human life. Progress in beauty would take place parallel to technical progress
as an integral part of a modern socialist society.
If we are to believe Georg Simmel, the great sociologist of modernity,
fashion, with its rapid and almost constant changes is perhaps more key
to our experience of modernity than anything else.5 Fashion is always
fleeting, rapidly changing, almost ineffable. It is also arbitrary: there is no
fundamental reason why something should be in fashion other than the very
fact that it is in fashion and is so as a result of appealing to people’s taste at
that moment.
As Simmel suggested, fashion can be compared to Charles Baudelaire's
modern artist whose task it was to catch the moment of eternity in a world
that was in a permanent flux without any steady focus point. Fashion
had the honor of standing for the fundamental experience of ambivalence
which in Simmel’s opinion was typical of modern society in general. The
very moment something became fashionable and popular among the mass
of the population it disappeared and gave way to something else equally
fashionable and novel.
Despite its seeming frivolousness fashion was to Simmel an extremely
important social phenomenon worthy of the serious attention of the social
scientist. In his interpretation it had an important social and cultural
function – fashion could teach people in a relatively harmless way, and
without giving rise to too much anxiety, how to live in a ‘modern’ world in
which nothing was stable or taken for granted. Simmel claimed that fashion
satisfies two basic human drives which are both equally strong, seemingly
contradictory and operate simultaneously. The first is the drive to identify
with others by imitating them as closely as possible and the second is the
drive to distinguish ourselves from others and it thus emphasized our own
taste and individuality. The distinctions can be large or small and sometimes
they are almost unnoticeable to those who are not real connoisseurs of the
relevant matters of taste.6
As we will see, fashion with its search for novelties for the novelty’s sake
and eternally repeated fashion cycles, caused quite a lot of anxiety among
common Soviet people and worried the authorities almost continuously. It
was quite difficult to see any real progress in the eternally changing fashion.
Fashion was definitely not meant to be the primary social mechanism of
collective identification in a socialist society where the expressions of one’s
individuality were expected to be directed to other areas of social life. In
Russian just as in many other European languages, the word fashion usually
refers to clothing. We talk about fashionable clothing referring both to its
novelty and attractiveness.7 More generally fashion refers to the cyclical
stylistic changes in almost any social and cultural phenomenon, discernible
particularly in most fields of consumer goods. As a social form, fashion is

12
1. Introduction

a matter of pure taste.8 It is always presented and experienced as something

new and gets its special value and appeal from the very novelty which makes
it desirable. Fashion in dress often stands for fashion in general for good
reason, since the transformation of fashion with its regular seasonal cycles
was institutionalized early in the history of European clothes manufacturing
and trade. Simmel suggested that in order to decide whether it is possible
to identify similar cyclical-slower or faster-changes in other fields of culture
or consumption we should ask ourselves if things could just as well be
otherwise. What is in fashion at any one time is arbitrary. The inspiration
for fashionable designs or collections can sometimes come from some
important historical events or parallel developments in other fields of art or
culture. Fashion is a Zeitgeist phenomenon and as such it has no other reason
for existence than its immediate appeal to the taste of those concerned, both
fashion designers and customers.

Fashion in a centrally planned economy

The ideal of rapid economic, social and cultural change and progress was
a central part of the doctrine of building socialism in the Soviet Union. The
centrally planned economy aimed at modernizing the foundations of the
whole society as quickly as possible. This rapid and continuous social change
would not cease until the final stage of social development, communism, had
been reached. Soviet citizens were therefore expected to adjust to this process
of change which would create the conditions for a higher form of society.
They were also expected to adapt to a new way of life that would fit into
these new social conditions. This had serious consequences for the everyday
behavior of ordinary people. The Soviet ideologists faced the important task
of educating their fellow citizens in proper socialist manners and etiquette
as well as higher standards of cultivated taste. It is understandable, that the
dress code and the standards of sartorial taste were very important in this
respect, clothes are, after all, the most visible exterior sign that ordinary
people use in deciphering and interpreting the social status of their fellow
citizens. Many Soviet citizens had quite recently moved from Russian
villages, with traditional modes of behavior and values, to the new urban
and industrial centers which presented quite new social demands. Instead
of their close village neighbors and relatives they had to deal every day
with numerous anonymous others. Because of its extremely rapid growth
David Hoffmann9 called Moscow in the 1930s a peasant metropolis. Soviet
urbanization continued intensively even in the 1950s and 1960s.
To the Soviet mind, modernization was closely connected to progress,
which could best be promoted by rational planning and scientific-technical
developments. In this respect it was antithetical to almost everything that
the social phenomenon of fashion, with its contingent and irrational nature,
represented. The Soviet authorities and ideologists, however, soon found
through experience that they had to pay attention to fashion in planning
clothing production and distribution. They thought that it was something
that women in particular could not live without even under socialism. It

13
1. Introduction

was also an important part of the Soviet post-war peaceful competition

with the West which had a strong legitimating function inside the country.
Fashionable clothing came as if into the bargain with other technical
innovations that were considered progressive and copied from the West.
Fashion was like a natural force that the socialist planning agencies
could not avoid and had to take into account in their calculations even
if they would rather have forgotten about it altogether. Fashion brought
a complicating element of unpredictability to both their annual and long-term
plans. Despite repeated efforts they could not regulate fashion effectively,
but instead had to try to learn how to live with it. Most often fashion was
legitimated simply by the fact that it existed. Some Soviet theorists argued
that in the same way in which there is progress in science and technology
there is a progress of beauty in fashion. But even they had to acknowledge
that this analogy did not really work. Last year’s fashion was not necessarily
less beautiful than this year’s. It was rejected simply because it was not in
fashion any more.
One can, with good reason, wonder to what extent the fashion of to-day
is really in any way a genuine expression of the customers’ taste. How much
real choice does a customer have in markets dominated by a couple of big
producers and trade chains with their own trademarks which they promote
aggressively through worldwide marketing and advertising? The alternatives
on offer in the Soviet clothing shops and ateliers were often admittedly even
more restricted leaving the customers the choice of either buying whatever was
available, regardless of whether they liked it or not, or to buy nothing in which
case they could sew their own clothes or rely on the services of private tailors.
We shall describe both the establishment of the major social institutions
and organizations of fashion and the development of the professional
aesthetic and moral discourse around it as well as analyzed the etiquette
which regulated and guided the ordinary Soviet men and women in their
everyday relations with these institutions.
The Soviet authorities copied, often quite openly and without reservations,
but always selectively, many of the basic social institutions and organizations
from what they thought to be the most advanced countries in the West. This
process started in Stalin’s time and continued long into the Brezhnev era. In
fashion, Paris haute couture and Christian Dior in particular acted as the
absolute points of excellence.10 Their status remained largely unthreatened
even though such ‘harmful’ Western influences were the target of political
campaigns from time to time. Fashion was, however, by no means the
only area of consumption where Western models played an important
role, the most popular Soviet private cars produced on a mass scale, like
Volga, Zhiguli and Moskvich, originated in the West too and had German,
American or Italian cars as their models.11 In culinary culture it is not as easy
to name any such specific influences, but it is quite clear that French and
continental ‘haute cuisine’ were the main sources of inspiration for the Soviet
specialists, even though at the same time American fast food and snack bars
(Amerikanki) also played a role.12 Because Soviet luxury was ideally there for
the people, everything was mass produced in millions of copies and available
to all from the very start.

14
1. Introduction

The founding of the Soviet Houses of Fashion

At the beginning of 1944, while the Second World War was still being
fought on all fronts, the Soviet government and the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union decided to open the House of Fashion Design of Clothes
in Moscow (Moskovskii dom modelei odezhdy).13 Soon after the war, several
similar fashion houses were founded in the capitals of the Soviet Republics
and other big cities of the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1960s, their
number had reached almost twenty. The Moscow House of Fashion Design
of Clothes became the All-Union House of Fashion Design of Clothes in
Moscow (Obshchesoyuznyi dom modelei odezhdy), that is, the central and
leading fashion house in the country, soon after its founding in 1948. These
fashion houses were by no means the only ones, with leather wear, shoes
and knitwear all having their own specialized houses of fashion design from
the 1960s onward as well as the majority of big department stores having
their own ateliers and design units. The flagship of Soviet department stores,
GUM, situated opposite the Kremlin on the Red Square, in Moscow had
a huge department of fashion design, founded in 1953, which could almost
compete with the All-Union House in size and significance. (Fig. 1.1.)
However, these two chains of organizations, the houses of fashion design
at the Ministry of Light or Consumer Goods Industry and the fashion
departments at the department stores, were not the only ones active in
Soviet fashion. In addition, thousands of local fashion ateliers belonged to
the system of Indposhiv (sewing customized clothes to order for individuals)
and had their own fashion designers or at least pattern constructors who
remade and modified existing clothing designs to make them more practical
for sewing under the prevailing conditions. Often they designed their own
clothes too. In the 1960s and 1970s, big centers of everyday services (Doma
byta) were built all over the Soviet Union in all the Soviet cities as well as
bigger regional, rural centers. They worked under their own administrative
unit, the Ministry of Everyday Services. They were an important step in the
modernization of Soviet domestic life and reduction of the burden of house-
work on women. In addition to a hairdresser, a laundry, and a beauty parlor,
centers of everyday services also had, as a rule, a fashion atelier at which the
local citizens could order individually made clothing. In the Soviet Union,
fashion ateliers had as a rule several tailors and dressmakers on their payroll
who made all kinds of clothes to order, from male and female outerwear to
underwear, from everyday clothes to formal suits and dresses, as well as all
kinds of garments for children and adolescents. Their sizes varied greatly,
from large buildings in the great cities with dozens or even hundreds of
employees to smaller provincial ones with only a couple of dressmakers and
tailors. These fashion ateliers were classified in hierarchy of quality and price
with ‘de luxe’ ateliers at the top. Finally, a fourth ministry, the Ministry of
Local Industry also had its own institutes of fashion design and ateliers.
As if this were not enough, at the end of the 1950s the Ministry of Light
Industry opened a new central, experimental fashion institute in Moscow,
the All-Union Institute of the Assortments of the Products of Light Industry
and the Culture of Dress (VIALegprom) in a new nine-story building with

15
1. Introduction

Fig. 1.1. An evening gown of synthetic silk

designed at the Department of Fashion Design
of the State Department Store at Moscow,
GUM, 1965 (designer Ivanova).

hundreds of employees. Its main task was the general planning of future
fashion trends (perspektivy) and the coordination of the work of the houses
of fashion design under their ministry. In other words, VIALegprom engaged
itself in trendsetting. Moreover, it coordinated the efforts of the other fashion
institutes each working in their own field or branch of administration.
VIALegprom had the important task of designing ensembles of dress, from
accessories and textiles to shoes and hats.
In practice, three huge parallel organizations of fashion design thus
existed in the Soviet Union from the 1960s onward. They belonged to
different administrative branches and organizations which worked under
different ministries. The houses of fashion design were under the Ministry of
Light Industry; the fashion ateliers and their design units under the Ministry
of Trade; and finally, the ateliers of custom made clothes (Indposhiv) at the
houses of everyday services under the Ministry of Everyday Services. Some
fashion houses and ateliers also designed shoes and other kinds of leather
goods as well as millinery and lingerie, but separate design organizations also
existed which specialized in these areas of dress.

16
1. Introduction

Fig. 1.2. A boy modeling children’s

clothes designed by the All–Union
House of fashion Design of
Clothes, ODMO, 1970s.

In principle, a rather strict division of labor reigned between these

numerous fashion organizations. Whereas the fashion houses designed
clothes to be mass produced in bigger factories, the ateliers at the department
stores as well as those belonging to the system of Indposhiv designed clothes to
be individually sewn in their own ateliers. But this division of responsibilities
did not quite hold. In fact, all the organizations took care of three main tasks,
each to a varying degree. Both the fashion designers at the department stores
and at the houses of design at Indposhiv often cherished ambitions to sell
new designs for industrial production. Their clients were often factories of
local industry or small cooperative manufacturers. All the fashion design
units had an interest in designing, and attempted, at least at times, to design
clothes in order to produce them in more experimental small series either
in their own workshops or in cooperation with local industry. They also
preferred to sell them in their own local shops. These series were usually very
small, mostly consisting of a couple of hundred items and never exceeding
two thousand. The houses of fashion design all over the Soviet Union were
expected to serve the factories of their own republics or regions but other
factories in other parts of the country could also order their designs-at least
this was true of the more famous and successful ones. (Fig. 1.2.)

17
1. Introduction

Fashion propaganda and the propaganda for fashion

The second important task of all these institutions was the propagation
of fashion to ordinary Soviet citizens as well as general education in good
taste and proper etiquette of dress. To make more fashionable and beautiful
clothes available to the public at large was, of course, the most effective
way of promoting the approved way of dressing among the citizens. But
in addition, and often even more intensively, these fashion institutions
propagated fashion in their numerous publications, fashion journals and
albums, and in the fashion shows and exhibitions they regularly organized
both on their own premises or by visiting their customers in their home
towns, factories or kolkhozes. Both the central, regional and local press as
well as the numerous Soviet journals, women’s magazines in particular, with
editions of millions of copies, followed and reported regularly and with great
interest on both new fashionable items of dress and fashion trends. All these
publications and fashion shows served an educational and entertaining as
well as a very practical function. In addition to offering many delights to
their numerous readers and spectators, the designs from journals or fashion
shows could also be copied and sewn at home. Soviet women could also
follow the instructions of the patterns published on separate sheets or in
fashion albums, or order them from the local ateliers. Their neighbors,
colleagues and friends who were particularly experienced and talented in
sewing were also an important source of better and fashionable clothing.
Almost all fashion institutes designed clothing patterns published and sold
as attachments to fashion journals and albums as well as on individual sheets
that served the practical purpose of fashion education even more directly.
Many families considered these patterns to be their most valuable family
possessions.
As already mentioned, the Moscow VIALegprom had, as its main task,
to follow the international developments of fashion and set general trends
in Soviet fashion. In modern terms, it would come closest to a fashion
trendsetting agency, which became common in the West starting in the
1960s at about the time of the establishment of VIAlegprom.14
Despite its importance, the production of new designs for industry was
often both economically and technically problematic and difficult for the
fashion houses and institutions. First of all, the big factories had as a rule
no incentives to regularly adopt the new and technically more complicated
designs which the fashion designers offered to them. It was more comfortable
and easier for the industry directors to fulfill their quotas by producing the
same old standardized goods than to experiment with new, more expensive
and complicated ones. Therefore they constantly simplified the designs
sent to them from the houses of fashion design, which lead to regular
complaints from designers. Since the factories were, as a rule, not very eager
to produce more advanced and complicated models, to design industrially
mass produced clothes could be a frustrating experience for any ambitious
and creative fashion designer. Economically, the terms of trade were also
unprofitable for both the factory and the fashion house. The Ministry
decided the prices of all goods centrally according to a strict formula. The

18
1. Introduction

price the factories received for their new models was not good enough to
encourage taking them into the product nomenklatura. This followed from
the general policy of keeping the prices of consumer goods as stable as
possible. Therefore, introducing new clothes into the product assortment of
a factory was not economically encouraged. Since the fashion houses worked
according to a centrally approved plan, each year they had to produce and
sell a certain preordained number of designs of certain categories whether
they wanted to or not. In the 1980s, a new system of pricing was approved
for the first time, after which the factories could sell their new, better quality
more fashionable products for higher prices.
Partly because of the difficulties inherent in the design of industrially
produced clothes, the houses of fashion design and many other fashion
institutes concentrated their efforts on the general propagation of fashion.
In their fashion journals and fashion shows, they could, relatively free from
the economic and technical restrictions of industrial production, create more
innovative and complicated clothing as well designs for special occasions.
As a consequence, the gap between what was shown in the exhibitions and
on the pages of the more advanced and popular fashion journals and what
was in fact for sale in the local shops tended to increase with time.15 This
frustrated the customers and was problematic for the authorities. What was
the use of creating a demand, by propagating fashion, for a more advanced,
varied and beautiful style of dress if such clothes were not available to the
ordinary consumer? The fantastic creations in fashion shows would just
lead to increasing frustration and general dissatisfaction among Soviet
consumers and Soviet women in particular. The same problems were keenly
felt in other fields of consumption, such as automobiles,16 but they did not
have to try to follow the rapid changes of frivolous fashion to such an extent.
By the end of the 1960s at the latest, the Soviet system of fashion design
had reached impressive dimensions, with hundreds of fashion institutes
on different administrative levels under different ministries employing
thousands of professional fashion designers and pattern makers. It is almost
impossible to make any systematic comparisons in this respect with Western
leaders in fashion design, like France and the USA. In the Soviet Union
fashion designers were, like all other professionals, civil servants, and almost
all the fashion institutes were financed and run by the state. Already quite
early in the history of the institutes, most of their employees had formal
educational qualifications, either from the state academies of art or from
various technical institutes and universities. In the West, in contrast, fashion
designers worked in private fashion houses or luxurious ateliers, or designed
for big clothing and textile factories. The biggest Parisian fashion houses
were, however – even by Soviet standards – enormous. In their best inter-war
years, a single house could employ thousands of people.17 They had the whole
international clientele of haute couture as their customers.
The professional qualifications and tasks of the main fashion industry
occupations, like the designer and the pattern maker, probably differed
to some extent in the Soviet Union from what was common in the West.
The Soviet fashion institutions, fashion houses and ateliers all functioned
continuously without any interruptions from their founding to the end of

19
1. Introduction

the Soviet Union. Likewise, many of their employees and fashion specialists
stayed in the same institution all their working lives, in many cases as long
as forty years. In other words, the Soviet fashion system was very stable and
continuous. Soviet labor law guaranteed fashion designers a permanent
position just as it did all other professionals and workers. It was almost
impossible to get rid of a worker even on grounds of incompetence unless
he or she was guilty of serious breaches of work discipline. Designers and
pattern makers very seldom changed their workplace geographically or
between the institutes on the different administrative levels or in different
departmental units. In the West, leading designers could establish their
own fashion houses, but such private entrepreneurship was forbidden in
the USSR. Leading designers became acquainted with high Soviet officials,
including Leonid Brezhnev, for whom they designed and sewed clothes. This
created possibilities for informal influence and status in the Soviet hierarchy,
which designers could use to promote both themselves and the interests of
their institutes.18

Fashion and the satisfaction of human needs

Despite the great efforts invested in fashion design, fashion remained an

anomaly in the Soviet Union. It did not really fit into the centrally planned
economy. In the Soviet economy everything down to the smallest detail,
from buttons to the color of textiles was, at least in principle, planned years
in advance. The government of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party
promised its citizens increasing material well-being and gradual but steady
rise in the standard of living. It quickly became clear that the more the
economy produced, the faster the demands of the population rose. What
was even more problematic was that the demand gradually became more
individualistic and varied. No state or ruling party could possibly gratify all
these eternally increasing and multiplying needs of its population. However
well the socialist economy performed, its workers and employees were not
satisfied.
The ideological solution to this problem was the concept of rational needs.
The satisfaction of any possible need was not guaranteed automatically. Only
those needs that were rational had the right to be satisfied. The state norms
gave detailed instructions regarding, for instance, how many pairs of trousers
or socks a man, woman or a child could reasonably expect to consume every
year. These were by no means dictated by any existential minimum but did
include a social and cultural element which had varied throughout history
and was expected to increase with the gradually but steadily increasing
demands of the Soviet person. Of course, the state and its planning organs
and ideologists reserved for themselves the right to have the final say on
which particular needs and in which order they should be satisfied. In doing
so, they were certainly sensitive – at times, and in some respects almost
oversensitive – to the various responses, complaints and wishes of the great
masses of people as well as vulnerable to the “pressure groups” of experts
and professionals. In most areas of consumption, however, the real levels

20
1. Introduction

of production lagged seriously behind these officially accepted rational

standards of consumption. For instance, in 1970, the per capita production
of underwear, stockings and socks did not come near these standards.19
It would have been problematic to claim that people had a need for
fashion, the seasonal change of styles and designs, in the same sense that they
needed food, shelter and clothing. It was even more problematic to claim that
such a need was totally rational. Was not fashion frivolous by its very nature?
Fashion most certainly does not serve any practical purpose at all and as
such is the very antithesis of functionality. As all Soviet economists and good
Marxists knew, fashion makes perfectly usable clothing obsolete. From the
standpoint of economic rationality and the satisfaction of needs, fashion
was thus a total waste. Didn’t it just make people throw away otherwise
perfectly good clothes simply because they were no longer in style? Because
they might just be the wrong color, be too wide in the legs or too long in
the hem? As the Soviet Marxists knew, fashion was an essential part of the
capitalist economic system. If anything, it only served the interests of profit
by artificially creating the need for consumers to buy new clothes and spend
their hard-earned money for no real purpose at all, thus creating an ever-
expanding market for their products and brands. The Soviet economy which
came into being in the 1920s and 1930s was the total opposite of all this. It
did not serve the interests of the profit-hungry capitalists but the “real” needs
of the working masses. Fashion should, therefore, have become obsolete
under socialism.
The artistic vanguard movements of the 1920s in the newly founded
Soviet Union reacted accordingly. They created anti-fashion, clothes that were
functional and practical, in principle eternal once their perfect functional
and aesthetic form and texture were found. These clothes were ideally
unisex. In other words, they were uniforms for the workers and professionals
adapted to the various fields of their work and even to celebrations. Many of
these artistically ambitious experiments in clothing design have remained
as highly appreciated artistic achievements in the history of applied art,20
but they had little impact on how people actually dressed or wanted to dress
themselves. Neither did they change the practice of the industrial production
of clothes. They were forgotten in the Soviet Union soon after the 1920s, to
be rediscovered by art historians later on.21
By the mid-1930s at the latest, the Soviet authorities and ideologists
of culture took the existence of and the need for fashion, that is, regularly
and seasonally changing clothing designs, for granted and no longer
seriously questioned its inherent rationality. From time to time, some
eager, overzealous propagandist or ideologist of Communist manners and
morals might remind people of fashion’s inherent folly. Otherwise, everyone
seemed to acknowledge that women, in particular, needed fashion and
were expecting new designs every season. Fashion was thus regarded as an
external force of nature that the Soviet system could not possibly abolish or
successfully fight against. Therefore, it had to be lived with. Male fashion
changed more slowly and was thus easier to cope with within the conditions
of the planned economy but even it demanded increasing attention and
resources over time.

21
1. Introduction

Even after the necessity of fashion was acknowledged, at least implicitly,

many serious questions and problems remained: how much fashion, what
kind and how rapidly should it change? In a centrally planned economy,
these questions could not be left to the action of the market and individual
consumers. Fashion, like all other issues relating to private consumption, was
a state affair. Therefore, these and similar questions were repeatedly raised
and discussed in various public fora and committees and, in particular,
between the various experts in the field of fashion. These discussions
were more common and heated in the 1950s and early 1960s, the years of
Khrushchev’s thaw after destalinization, than in the decades that followed22
It seems that, by the end of the 1960s, the discussions lost some of their
urgency, or perhaps the answers just kept on repeating themselves. The
system of fashion had become firmly rooted in Soviet society with all its
ambivalences and contradictions.
The consensus that was reached early among the Soviet theorists of
fashion was that, fashion in socialism might be necessary but, did and should
differ quite clearly and distinctly, from its form under capitalism. The famous
Soviet sociologist, Bestuzhev-Lada warned his audience at the All-Union
scientific conference of fashion as late as 1979 that following the seasonal
changes of Western fashion could provoke crisis-like phenomena in the
Soviet planned economy. Therefore they should be avoided as far as possible.
In Bestuzhev-Lada’s opinion such problems inherent in fashion could be
solved best by educating popular taste and by increasing the general cultural
standards of the Soviet population.23 When studied more closely, however,
this difference between Western and Soviet fashion often proved to be less a
qualitative difference than one of degree. The majority of the experts seemed
to acknowledge at least implicitly that Soviet fashion more or less followed
the bourgeois fashion of the West with its regular, seasonal changes. It also
possessed the same self-motivating and mysterious dynamic force that the
planners had to take into account and adjust their activities to. In contrast
to capitalist fashion, however, Soviet fashion changed more slowly and was
more restrained. As the Soviet experts claimed it was democratic by its
nature and aimed at serving ordinary people, and therefore extravagance
was totally alien to it. Soviet fashion was more practical and functional than
fashion under capitalism. It was also important that fashion fulfilled the
standards of modern hygiene and was medically approved. To sum up: the
difference between Soviet and bourgeois fashion was, after all, only one of
degree. Soviet fashion was a slowed-down -fashion.
It is difficult to say whether this solution to the problem of socialist
fashion was only dictated by practical necessity. As the economic planners
readily admitted, it took at least two years for a new fashionable design to
reach Soviet consumers from the planning table of the fashion designer. The
production of small experimental collections often proposed as a solution
to make designing more flexible, did not fit into the planned economy
either. Instead the Soviet system favored big units: the bigger the better. This
meant large production units, huge firms with multiple functions which
had almost a total monopoly in their own fields with large standardized
production series. It was possible to speak of Soviet megalomania. Therefore,

22
1. Introduction

the repeated experiments with small series always remained restricted in

their scope before Gorbachev’s perestroika in the 1980s.

Fashion and Soviet decency

To the extent that spontaneous changes of fashion took place in the Soviet
Union, they were more prone to disturb the ordinary functioning of the system
and were pushed to its periphery, towards the private or illegal economy.
The general ideological stance emphasizing moderation and carefulness in
fashion fitted well into the stoic morale expected from Soviet citizens in other
respects also: one should absolutely not submit oneself to basic instincts or
blindly follow the whimsical dictates of fashion. A mature citizen living under
socialism should by all means follow and even enjoy fashion, but always with
great moderation and reserve, strictly preserving his or her own personal
style. She or he should not be a slave to fashion but instead make it serve his
or her own socially accepted and personally approved rules of attractiveness
and decency. This kind of advice, regularly found in the fashion columns of
the popular Soviet press, had its parallels in the West where similar advice,
advocating reserve, could be found in women’s journals offering instructions
on proper dress. In the Soviet Union and in the socialist economy such
rules also helped to legitimate the shortcomings of the planned economy in
satisfying the demand for fashionable clothing. They also undoubtedly had
a restraining effect on the creativity of the fashion designers.
In the Soviet discussions of fashion stiliagis played an exceptional role.
The word stiliagi referred originally to the young men who after the war in
the end of the 1940s could be seen strolling the main streets of Moscow and
Leningrad dressed in a style that their compatriots were not used to.24 These
stiliagis were said to dress in extremely narrow trousers and pointed shoes.
Later they might be presented in trousers with extremely broad legs and a
broad shouldered suit coat. Gradually, the word started to refer to all kinds
of expressions of excessive or overly extravagant dress among Soviet youth,
often claimed to have been adopted from the capitalist West and mostly
associated with an extravagant urban life-style.
One of the common accusations directed towards them was that they
copied their ideals from America, which should have been totally alien
to any real Soviet Komsomol youth. Because the figure of stiliagi quickly
acquired almost mythical dimensions in Soviet public discourse and was
often pictured in a stereotypical outfit it is difficult to reconstruct what the
real and early stiliagis really looked like and to what extent they shared
a more or less uniform style and taste.25 From the late 1940s to the mid-1960s
the style underwent many transformations. Thus one can identify several
generations of stiliagis. Moreover stiliagies living in different Soviet regions
and cities could dress quite differently. It is likely that youngsters adapted
the style and behavior publicly associated with stiliagis to varying degrees.
In some cases we could probably speak of youth subcultures but in others it
might have just been a case of dressing in a style that differed more or less
radically from the officially approved. In the public propaganda they were

23
1. Introduction

definitely treated as a subculture that was not restricted to dress style but also
likely to give rise to many kinds of dangerous, anti-social behavior.
Some stiliagis have written memoirs.26 In the absence of any more
systematic evidence it would be daring to say anything definitive about
how widely spread this stylistic innovation, or its later variations, were both
socially and geographically among Soviet youth. Some scholars identify the
origins of this movement among the rather narrow circle of the “golden
youth” of the Stalinist elite in the Soviet capital27 whereas others point out
that stiliagis could evidently come from among the ordinary working class
and had counterparts in some provincial towns too.28 Stiliagis were usually
male and while they had female counterparts these women, for some reason,
never became as notorious or reached such stereotypical contours in the
public imagination or press as their male counterparts.
More interesting to our purposes than the real history of this spontaneous
Soviet sub-cultural phenomenon is however that the stiliagis had the
questionable honor of standing all through the post-Second World War
period as the prime example of bad taste. They represented the antitheses of
Soviet good taste. The history of this stereotypical public figure is interesting.
The Soviet journalists and educators of good taste raised their warning
finger almost endlessly to remind their young readers that they should
avoid everything that the stiliagis represented. The stiliagi came to stand for
everything that was suspect and condemnable, both in the outer appearance
and public behavior of a young man. Just as in many similar cases in the post-
war West when a youth culture challenged the traditional norms of dress the
confrontation did not restrict itself to aesthetics but also had a strong moral
dimension. A deviant appearance was often in the post war years in the
Soviet Union as well as in the capitalist West interpreted as a sign of moral
depravity of character.
One of the last heated ideological discussions which the Soviet officials
openly initiated about the appropriate style of dress went on in the Soviet
press in the late 1950s and early 1960s.29 In a manner typical of Soviet
investigative journalism, these articles usually took the form of a report
about an alarming event or a question directed to the editors concerning
some particular feature of dress or a character trait associated with anti-
social behavior. These reports often took up two concrete details in relation
to clothing: the proper width of trouser legs for men and the issue of women
wearing trousers in public.
The general advice given in these discussions was typical of all Soviet
directives relating to fashion: one should always avoid extremes and all kinds
of extravagance and dress oneself instead with moderation and harmony.
Neither too narrow nor too wide trouser legs were to be recommended.
You should learn to judge what best suited you, but within the confines
of respectability. At the same time, Soviet etiquette also became gradually
more liberal and informal. While wearing trousers in public was absolutely
forbidden for women on all festive or official occasions like going to the city
as late as the late 1950s, they were gradually tolerated starting from the early
1960s, though still not recommended on more formal occasions like going
to the theater, the cinema or a concert, not to speak of a dinner or a ball.30

24
1. Introduction

These Soviet discussions about proper dress and its ethical connotations
were reminiscent in many ways of the vehement debates about boys’ long
hair or girls’ short skirts in the West at almost the same time. Contrary to the
official ideals of increasing homogenization of aesthetic standards and living
styles of Homo soveticus, the mores and manners of proper dress of different
age groups, people in different social categories and religious communities as
well as in urban and rural populations in fact probably varied even more in
the Soviet Union than in the capitalist West in the 1950s and 1960s. Regional
differences were also great between the Baltic republics in the European part
of the country and its Central Asian republics. The pace of social change was
also extremely rapid in the Soviet Union in the post-war decades. The eager
Soviet propagators of taste faced an extremely important and demanding
task in trying to consolidate all the different ideals and standards of taste.
As this Soviet debate on style of dress and its moral connotations illustrated,
a more tolerant and individualistic style gradually gained ground in Soviet
culture as an important sign of the modernization of society.
Unfortunately, we do not have much systematic information about how
the traditional conceptions of masculinity and femininity changed in Soviet
society compared to the developments in the West or how such changes
transformed fashion or influenced other tendencies in the culture of dress.
We do not really know to what extent public opinion supported the official
norms of decency in fashion design, or to what extent common opinion
and attitudes played an independent role as opposed to being regulated
by the Soviet state. In Dan Healey’s opinion, the history of sexuality and
homosexuality are both white spots in Russian history.31 These themes
are even today marginal in Russian historiography.32 The lack of good
representative sources certainly has a part in this. Many important documents
are not available to researchers at all because many archival sources are
secret. It is therefore very difficult to draw any general conclusion about the
sexual morals and behavior of Soviet people. Our knowledge is so far mainly
based on case studies, individual interviews and personal memoirs.33
In order to understand the basic nature of the sexual culture in the
USSR one has to bear in mind that it resembled in many ways that of pre-
revolutionary Russia. At the turn of the century, when Russia started to
modernize, it went through a stage of sexual emancipation which was,
however, limited to urban, educated, middle class intellectuals.34 After the
Revolution, the general search for everything that was new and progressive
in culture caused a sexual revolt as well. All kinds of experimentation in art
and morality were typical and this unsettled traditional gender relations. In
the early 1930s the tables turned.
Igor Kon has called the time which continued into the 1960s and more
or less coincided with Stalin’s reign, the period of sexual counterrevolution.
Sexuality disappeared totally from public discussions and was referred only
in narrow professional circles, in criminological, medical, and pedagogical-
psychological literature. Paying attention to the contradictory nature of
Stalin’s times, S. I. Golod argued that new atheistic beliefs were promoted
alongside Russian Orthodox religious principles, such as the need for
sexual purity, the amorality of cross-dressing, and the legal repression of

25
1. Introduction

homosexuality.35 Tightening censorship, attempts to control private life and

repress sexuality, and restrictions in sexual education for young people all
drove sexual discourse underground and perpetuated double standards in
morality.
The early 1960s marked a new period which Golod has called the
sexual renaissance. It coincided with Khrushchev’s thaw and the gradual
liberalization of culture but continued until Gorbachev’s perestroika in the
second half of the 1980s. The 1960s saw the first sociological studies of Soviet
sexuality since the 1920s. They showed that despite all the prohibitions and
taboos the sexual behavior and morality of Soviet people did not differ much
from the West. Even in the USSR sexual morality had become more liberal,
sexual behavior more individualized, and women more sexually active. The
ethical norms typical of a traditional society were weakening. Compared to
the sexual revolution in the West in the 1960s this took place both with some
delay and in more modest or restricted forms. The most significant difference
was, however, that in the Soviet Union sex was never openly displayed or
discussed. Nevertheless, many Soviet citizens experienced these processes
negatively, as an irreversible decline in public morality.
Until the end of the 1980s the very word “sex” was associated with
amorality not only in the official literature but also in public opinion of the
USSR. Sex was understood to be purely physiological, antithetical to real
love which was based on romantic feelings and the close relation between
spiritual and intimate life within the walls of a family.36 Despite the gradual
liberalization of manners in the 1960s and 1970s, in many Soviet homes
children were socialized into puritanical values typical of the traditional
society. These emphasized the principle of modesty in external appearance
and dress. The mass media, among them fashion and women’s journals,
contributed to the formation of a positive picture of a Soviet woman whose
main occupation was the care of her husband, her children and her home. In
this canonic ideal of a Soviet woman there was no place for sexuality. Sexual
pleasure was not regarded as important in the marriage, and it enjoyed hardly
any legitimacy at all within extra-marital relations. The norms of Soviet
morality applied particularly strictly to the members of the Communist
Party, who were supposed to act as positive role models to other Soviet
citizens. In real life, among the youth in particular, it was common to break
these official rules which again led to double standards in morality and
behavior.37
The 1960s witnessed the beginning of a radical break between the
traditional sexual morals of the older citizens and the more liberal behavior
of Soviet youth.38 Since clothes are the most visible representation of sexuality
it is no wonder that the Soviet discussion of fashion and culture of dress was
quite heated at the same time. Fashion became legitimate in the USSR at the
same time. However, a fashionable dress that fitted a woman, emphasizing
her individuality and making her sexually more attractive, continued to raise
many doubts in the Soviet society. Many experienced individual taste in
dress, as well as the propaganda for bodily hygiene (regular physical activity,
care of the hair, and complexion, etc.) as a radical break with the traditional
norms previously sanctioned by state power. This led to sharpening of

26
1. Introduction

generational conflict. Nevertheless, the liberalization of fashion opened

a way for the liberalization of sexuality by encouraging its public presentation.
The moral debate about the miniskirt, which conquered Soviet fashion in the
1970s, is a good example.
In the USSR, just as in pre-revolutionary Russia, sexuality referred
exclusively to heterosexuality. Everything else was regarded both as deviant
and unnatural. Both in Tsarist Russia and the USSR after 1944 sodomy
between males was criminalized. The law was abolished first after the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993. In the USSR, homosexual behavior was
interpreted either as a psychological deviance or a sign of moral deprivation
typical of the man of the world who sought only after bodily pleasures. It
could also be connected to the specific conditions of a life lived exclusively
among males (e.g.in prison or monastery) Members of sexual minorities
who undoubtedly existed within the fashion world in the USSR as elsewhere
understandably did not advertise their sexual orientation for fear of social
ostracism, and, in the case of homosexuals, of serious legal consequences.
This is not matters that can be openly discussed even today. Therefore no
reliable and systematic information is available about the role of lesbians, gay
men and other sexual minorities, in the creation of Soviet fashion. The same
is true of the question of whether gays or lesbians had any special fashion
or style of their own in the USSR. If they did, it was entirely clandestine. It
could not act as an inspiration to mainstream fashion as was sometimes the
case in the West after the 1960s.

Inspirations and restrictions

Overall, three major factors influenced the development of Soviet fashion:

1) political ideology, 2) the centrally planned economy and 3) public opinion,
which in many cases was quite traditional as far as proper dress code was
concerned. Soviet fashion did show some general stylistic trends or traits
that differed from its Western counterparts, including relative moderation,
conservatism and adherence to the classical ideals of harmony and color
scales. Sexual decency was also generally emphasized. Traditional strict
gender roles preserved their value longer in the USSR than in the West.
Miniskirts, women’s trousers and bikinis, which the older generations met
with disapproval everywhere, entered Soviet dress culture somewhat later
than in the West. (Fig. 1.3.). From the 1960s onwards political and ideological
issues did not play a very prominent role in Soviet fashion design. Fashion
had to be politically correct but only in the limited sense that some motifs
and colors with obvious nationalistic or religious connotations were strictly
forbidden. These restrictions were relatively insignificant to the creativity of
the fashion world, and fashion designers usually had no problems complying
with them. The other side of the coin was that the ideology did not include
any direct positive guidelines that could be followed.39
In the end, Soviet fashion theorists named the same three sources of
inspiration that were often referred to by their Western colleagues.40 In
order to create new fashionable clothes, the designers had to either study

27
1. Introduction

Fig. 1.3. Designers at ODMO discuss a new design of a mini skirt in the beginning of
the 1970s (Liudmila Turchanovskaya, the head designer of ODMO, second from left).

the history of fashion, its highlights in particular, or follow the trends of

international fashion, or, finally, to study the ethnographic collections of
clothes and dress styles. The use of folk styles was, in fact, often mentioned
as the main source of inspiration for Soviet fashion and referred to repeatedly
by fashion theorists from the 1920s onwards. Using folk styles was said to
make fashion closer to the ordinary people. (Fig.1.4.) However, international
fashion, and in particular Parisian fashion, was in practice often the main
source of inspiration for Soviet designers. Many times they simply copied
models from the French or other famous international fashion journals
and slightly modified them to better suit the available raw materials as well
as the more limited capacities of the Soviet garment industry. Designs that
borrowed elements from folk dress and used them as their inspiration were
definitely more original. They quite soon became an obligatory, even if only
a minor, part of any Soviet collection of fashion put on display at home or
abroad. This allowed and even encouraged the houses of fashion design of
the Soviet republics and national regions, which otherwise followed the
general stylistic guidelines and international trends modified and codified
in Moscow’s central fashion institutions, to distinguish themselves from
each other by using the designs of the local folk dress-sometimes still

28
1. Introduction

Fig. 1.4. A dress

designed for the
Soviet Collection
demonstrated as
a part of the Soviet
Exhibition of Trade
and Industry,
London, August
1968.

in use in remote villages-collected in the ethnographic museums. It should

be remembered, however, that folk dress became an international trend in
fashion in the aftermath of hippie culture and ‘flower power’ almost at the
same time that the Soviet fashion system reached its full maturity.
Because of the wide publicity which fashion received in the Soviet
Union, through numerous fashion shows, exhibitions, journals and other
publications, many fashion designers and models became national and local
celebrities almost like movie stars or popular singers and performers. The
name of the “author” of a design was, as a rule, conscientiously published
in the journals or mentioned during the shows. Many designers, like
Viacheslav (Slava) Zaitsev, became quite famous at home and even enjoyed
an international reputation. The profession of a Soviet fashion model was
quite ambiguous. On the one hand, a certain degree of glamor was associated
with it. Their faces became familiar to everyone on the pages of journals or
during fashion shows. They often socialized in artistic circles and could be
seen in the company of famous actors, filmmakers, journalists and diplomats
in the more luxurious restaurants and official receptions of all kinds. They
also had personal access to fashionable clothing and could thus dress
themselves fashionably in private too. The most famous models regularly
traveled abroad with the fashion collections, a special and rare privilege
for a Soviet citizen. (Fig. 1.6) This privilege also made them-along with the

29
1. Introduction

Fig. 1.5. Soviet top models sightseeing in Montreal during the EXPO–67.

fashion designers-vulnerable to extra control and recruitment attempts by

the KGB, whose representatives monitored all such foreign exchange. On
the other hand, the work was hard and not very well paid. What was even
more problematic was that the modeling profession was stigmatized: Party
functionaries worried continuously about the decency of models’ manners
and mores. As in the rest of the world, only a small percentage of Soviet
models were regularly employed by fashion houses and institutes; many
more freelanced. Some stayed in the profession for the best part of their lives,
some only for a short period of time. Several leading models emigrated after
marrying a Soviet Jew or a foreigner. Even though Soviet ideals of a good
model followed the international trends with some delay and moderation, it
is obvious that the Soviet fashion houses used a wider spectrum of different
types of models than Western fashion houses, representing the ‘typical Soviet
woman,’ for instance heavier or older women.

Previous studies of fashion under socialism

Soviet fashion and its history did not generate much interest among scholars
beyond the Soviet Union before the 1980s. The same is true to a large extent
of Soviet historians. Most of the early and rather rare studies published in
English were dedicated to the Soviet revolutionary avant-garde art of the
1920s, well-known in the history of art and design in general for its many
remarkable artistic achievements. These works examined fashion as only

30
1. Introduction

a minor part of the incredibly rich and innovative part of the production
of all kinds of art in the 1920s. I. Yasinskaya’s Soviet Textile Design of the
Revolutionary Period41 as well as Alexander Lavrentiev’s ‘Varvara Stepanova’,
a portrait of one of the most famous textile designers of the 1920s, originally
appeared in English as museum catalogues to exhibitions of early Soviet
revolutionary art. Some works dedicated solely to Soviet fashion design
and industry appeared in English: in 1989 an edited collection called
Revolutionary Costume: Soviet Clothing and Textiles of the 1920s42, and
in 1991 Tatiana Strizhenova’s Soviet Costumes and Textiles 1917–194543
provided the first comprehensive history of the Soviet Fashion industry in
English. Strizhenova ends her history with the Second World War and does
not cover the post-war period. Recently Alexander Vasiliev has published two
books, Beauty in exile (in Russian and English) about Russian immigrants’
contribution to the Parisian fashion industry and Russkaia moda: 150 let
v fotografiiakh in Russian (Russian fashion: 150 years in photographs).44
Vasiliev’s book Russkaia moda is a highly informative work on the history
of prerevolutionary and Soviet fashion. It introduces the reader to the main
Russian and Soviet fashion designers and their achievements. However, even
though it provides useful commentary on various aspects of Soviet dress and
fashion it is mostly a book of photographs. Christine Ruane’s comprehensive
work on Russian clothing and textile industry covers the imperial period up
to the Russian Revolution.45
Larissa Zakharova46 has studied many aspects of Soviet fashion – for
instance, fashion as an important part of the cultural change occurring after
Stalin’s death as well as the Soviet-French cultural relations in the post-
war world of fashion, in particular the important role that Christian Dior’s
Fashion House played for the Soviet fashion professionals. Ol’ga Vainshtein’s47
works on the ideology and inner tensions of the Soviet fashion industry
– that is, the widely spread domestic production of clothes in a country which
officially idealized industrial mass production – are also worth mentioning as
is her book on the “universal” history of dandies which includes a chapter on
the Russian and Soviet dandies.48 Vainshtein places the legendary and almost
mythical figure of Soviet stiliagi into the world-wide tradition of dandy.
Nataliya Chernyshova’s monograph on the Soviet consumer culture
during Brezhnev’s times includes an interesting chapter on Soviet fashion
and the consumption of clothes from the 1960s to the early 1980s49 Olga
Gurova has studied the impact of the Soviet past on the attitudes to fashion
and practices of clothing in contemporary Russia.50
The single work that comes closest to our own is Djurdja Bartlett’s
FashionEast. The Spectre that Haunted Socialism.51 The first part of Bartlett’s
work is an impressive study of the pre-war fashion industry in the Soviet
Union. Its second half is dedicated to the post-war developments in the
Eastern European socialist bloc as a whole. In fact, it pays more attention
to five other East European socialist countries, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Poland, GDR and Yugoslavia, than to the Soviet Union. With regard to the
Soviet Union it covers mostly the main achievements of the two central
Moscow fashion institutions, ODMO and VIALegprom of the Ministry of
Light Industry in an East European comparative context and does not pay

31
1. Introduction

much attention to the wider Soviet system of fashion. We can find many
similarities in all the Eastern European socialist countries both in their
aesthetic principles and in the education of taste as well as in the officially
declared ambitions to regulate and plan fashion centrally. All these socialist
countries copied, to varying degrees, the Soviet system of fashion in the
late 1940s and early 1950s while preserving many of their own national
features in their fashion system. However, in one respect they all differed
from the almost totally centralized state-led Soviet model. In all these
Eastern European countries, private entrepreneurs and fashion salons, and
in some cases even small scale manufacturers, continued to operate during
the post war years. They were also more open to the West, both through
importing clothes and textiles and by allowing their citizens to travel, and
even to emigrate, to the West in large numbers. The Western influence
was thus felt much more directly and concretely in these countries which
had become socialist after the Second World War, some 20 years after the
Russian Revolution. East Germany was a particular case: as a part of divided
Germany it faced competition from the capitalist West in consumer goods
production and standards of living even more concretely and directly than
the rest of the socialist bloc.
Stitziel’s monograph52 on the history of fashion in East Germany should
also be mentioned as a predecessor to our own work. Stitziel’s research covers
the whole post-war period or the “life span” of the GDR. Our books are
similar in many ways, for example, in closely recording the emergence and
development of the new socialist fashion industry as well as in analyzing in
detail the almost continuous administrative discussions about the aesthetics
of dress appropriate to the new socialist society. Stitziel pays relatively less
attention to the practice of fashion design and the emergence of fashion
designers and other fashion professionals and concentrates more on the
economic and political conditions under which the system as a whole
operated. The rather complicated and many-faceted state-owned fashion
system of the Soviet Union was, however, quite unique even within the
socialist world in the post war years.
During recent years the historical scholarship on socialist fashion has
received an interesting new complement. There has been an increasing
interest in the history of Chinese fashion which has already resulted in the
publication of several monographs.53 In the early years of the new Chinese
People’s Republic, before the schism between Mao and Khrushchev isolated
China almost totally from the rest of the Soviet bloc, the Soviet system
influenced the Chinese fashion industry. The cultural exchange and trade
between these countries was quite significant. Soviet influence on Chinese
fashion remained, however, short lived reaching its peak in 1956 when
fashion shows and exhibitions widely demonstrated the new achievements
and aesthetic ideals of Chinese fashion designers. The Chinese sartorial
culture differed from the Soviet one because the old tension between the
European and more traditional Chinese dress was quite acute in the new
People’s Republic. With the Chinese Cultural Revolution at the latest the
Chinese fashion industry took a totally different turn, a direction which the
Soviet Union might have taken too if its own cultural revolution of the 1920s

32
1. Introduction

had been politically as dominating and long lasting. China actually realized
in fashion design and industry what the Soviet radical designers of the 1920s
only dreamed of. Following the principles of anti-fashion, they designed
and produced industrially on a mass scale a few standard designs of male
and female dress which used as their examples both military uniforms and
national dress, and which remained more or less static over time. They were
in practice the only garments available to the population on mass scale.
As the new Chinese fashion historians have concluded, this strict demand
for uniformity and functionality of dress did not totally prevent individuals
from distinguishing themselves and inventing their own small tokens of
decoration by changing or adding some details to their dress, wearing
scarves or turning their blouse collars over the collar of their coats. Thus, not
even Mao’s uniforms, well known from the numerous published portraits of
Chairman Mao, could totally stand against the fashion cycles, even though
these stylistic changes and innovations were extremely modest and hardly
noticeable to an outsider.
The history of Western European and North American fashion has
received much more attention and interest from historians and social
scientists than Eastern European socialist fashion. This is particularly true
of the leading nations of fashion design, like France, Italy and the USA. There
are numerous books dedicated both to their haute couture as well as to the
styles of dress of various sub cultures and their influence on street fashion.
Numerous monographs analyze the works of famous designers or fashion
houses.54 More often than not these studies are written in the tradition of
art history, which pays attention to the major stylistic changes and aesthetic
innovations in the fashion industry and analyzes the creativity and originality
of their designs. In recent years books have appeared which have a slightly
different focus, concentrating more on the general economic, political or
cultural aspects of fashion industry and design or the social and cultural
aspects of the development of clothing culture in general. However, such
works are relatively uncommon. Just to mention a few of them: Elizabeth
Wilson’s Adorned in Dreams55 was among the first to systematically analyze
fashion and gender, or women as producers and wearers of fashionable
clothing. The institutional analyses in Diane Crane’s Class, Gender and
Identity in Clothing share the same kind of a thematic agenda as our study
in analyzing the social institution of fashion.56 Fred Davis’ Culture and
Identity is still, twenty years after its publication, exemplary in offering many
systematic sociological interpretations of the role of fashion in society as well
as interesting examples of several crucial stylistic changes and innovations
with wider cultural meanings.57

The plan of the book

The present book does not have any pretension to be a systematic analysis
of the stylistic changes and innovations in the history of Soviet fashion. We
touch on this topic too but the full history is yet to be written. We leave it to
future professional design and art historians. Unfortunately, so many years

33
1. Introduction

after the collapse of the Soviet Union it would have been an almost impossible
task to draw anywhere near a complete picture of the everyday and festive
dress styles or aesthetic tastes of the various social strata in the Soviet Union.
For the same reason we have not tried to systematically study how either
the common citizens or the Soviet elites dressed themselves in practice, or
what kind of strategies they had at their disposal to satisfy their stylistic
ambitions, under the conditions of an economy of permanent shortages.58
We do, however, present some observations and comments on these issues.
This book presents, above all, a study of the establishment and development
of the Soviet organization and system of fashion industry and design as it
gradually evolved in the years after the Second World War in the Soviet
Union, which was, in the understanding of its leaders, reaching the mature
or last stage of socialism when the country was firmly set on the straight
trajectory to its final goal, Communism. What was typical of this complex
and extensive system of fashion was that it was always loyally subservient to
the principles of the planned socialist economy. This did not by any means
indicate that everything the designers and other fashion professionals did
was dictated entirely from above by the central planning agencies. Neither
did it mean that their professional judgment would have been only secondary
to ideological and political standards set by the Communist Party and the
government of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, as our study shows, the
numerous Soviet fashion professionals had a lot of autonomy. They were
eager and willing to exercise their own judgment in matters of taste and to
set the agenda of beauty and style for Soviet citizens.
If the Soviet fashion industry and markets have been relatively little
studied so far, the same can be said of other fields of the consumer goods
industry and markets too. This is particularly true of the consumer culture
of the post-war years. Some basic works, dedicated to the period between the
two world wars, the NEP period in the 1920s and Stalin’s period in power,
have appeared in English.59 The later post-war period until the end of the
Soviet Union has on the contrary hardly been systematically studied from
the perspective of fashion and consumption.60Natalia Chernyshova’s study
on Soviet consumer culture under Brezhnev’s era and Lewis Siegelbaum’s61
work on the history of Soviet cars are among the exceptions. They highlight
the great efforts and hopes as well as the serious problems that followed the
production of all kinds of consumer goods and their distribution from the
very beginning to the final collapse of the Soviet Union.
The present book is the first systematic history of the development of
fashion and fashion institutions in the Soviet Union after the Second World
War. It paints an overall picture of the development of the numerous fashion
houses, ateliers and institutes that existed in the USSR and their tasks,
achievements and problems. It will also discuss the place and role of fashion
in the economic, ideological and aesthetic programs and disputes of the
Soviet authorities and specialists as well as the changing goals and standards
of aesthetic education and cultivation of taste. It will also deal with Soviet
public opinion towards fashion. Since fashion was an anomaly in the Soviet
planned economy, it can, often in a pointed way, reveal many of the inner
tensions and contradictions built into socialism.

34
1. Introduction

The main sources for our study came from the state, party and
departmental archives of the former Soviet Union. Today, they are mostly
part of the state archives of Russia and Estonia. They are documents from
all the numerous organizations, ministries, fashion houses and ateliers as
well as department stores that took an active part in the design, planning
and production of fashion in the USSR. In addition, we refer to numerous
journals and newspapers that regularly wrote about and commented on
fashion and the culture of dress. In this respect, we are in a privileged
position because we found an almost complete collection of the articles
and news on all kinds of fashion events published all over the Soviet Union,
from Kaliningrad to Nakhodka, Arkhangelsk to Crimea during the period
between the mid-1950s and late1970s. It consists of newspaper clippings
preserved in folders and collected by the former librarians of the All-Union
House of Fashion Design in Moscow. Letters and comments from journal
readers are preserved alongside these documents. This means that it is
also possible, to study the popular ideas and conceptions of fashion in the
different periods of post-war Soviet history.
We also make extensive use of oral history. During our research, between
2007 and 2009, we met and interviewed dozens of people who had, in Soviet
times, taken active part in the fashion industry: in the propagation of the
culture of clothing, in design and pattern making, in demonstrating new
models, in the mass production of clothes, or who had otherwise worked
in the fashion ateliers. Some of them started to work in fashion as early
as the 1940s but most gained their experience during the period from the
1960s through the 1980s. Among them were directors and chief engineers of
garment factories, administrators and artistic directors of the fashion houses,
ordinary artists and designers, pattern makers, hairdressers, models, other
workers from the fashion ateliers and garment factories such as economists.
The great variation among the professional positions of these respondents
in the Soviet system of fashion has an important, principally methodical,
consequence. These people had differing views of and perspectives on the
problems that we wanted to study. What some of them did not or could not
observe from their own ‘tower’ was clearly visible to others. What some did
not know was again quite well known to others because of their specific
professional position and/or the nature of their work. What some did not
want to talk about, others discussed freely and in great detail. Thus, the
authors could also check the information received during these interviews
and discussions by comparing them with other sources, both oral and
written.
Our study makes use of rich empirical and historical material that has
been made available for the first time for scientific analysis and discussion.
The very process of the search for the documents used in this book could be
the subject of a separate book. To take one example, we found the extremely
valuable, large collections of the library of the ODMO, the All-Union House
of Fashion Design in Moscow, in complete disarray in the store house of
one of the clothing shops. They share the destiny of many similar valuable
collections of historical documents from Soviet times, which have been
severely neglected in the 1990s during the privatization and the closing down

35
1. Introduction

of the previous Soviet houses of fashion design together with all the other
state organizations of fashion.
The next chapter after this introduction gives a general outline of the
development of Soviet fashion and the fashion industry in the interwar
period after the Russian Revolution. This was the time when Soviet fashion
and fashion designers, through many stages and experiments, gradually
found their place in the new Soviet economic and political system. This was
also the time when fashion and fashion designers faced their most serious
ideological challenges. By the beginning of the Second World War fashion
had more or less found its own place in the Soviet Union. The 1930s in
particular are an important stage in the ‘pre-history’ of Soviet fashion which
came into being in its mature form after the Second World War.
The Chapter Three is a short presentation of the Soviet economic system
and its main post-war reforms. It also gives a picture of the general economic
development and standard of living, which had a direct impact on the
development of Soviet fashion and its various institutions. The Soviet system
of fashion design was a response to the rapidly rising aspirations of material
culture among the Soviet population.
The Chapter Four describes and analyzes the establishment of the first
institutions of the Soviet system of fashion, which took place under quite
exceptional war-time conditions. These institutions formed the historical
starting point of the post-war system of Soviet fashion design. We follow
their development and functioning up to the immediate post-war years.
The Chapter Five is a systematic and detailed description of the
establishment, growth and basic functions of the four parallel organizations
of Soviet fashion which worked under the Ministry of Light Industry,
the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Everyday Services and, finally, the
Ministry of Local Industry respectively. Special attention is paid both to
their mutual division of labor and several overlapping functions. This as
well as the following chapters will also dedicate much attention to the Soviet
fashion designers and other fashion professionals like models by discussing
the character of their profession and their achievements.
The Chapter Six examines closely one of the main flag ships of Soviet
fashion design, the fashion department of the big State Department Store,
GUM, at the Red Square, Moscow. This was one of the most privileged
organizations of fashion design, the atelier of which had many Soviet
dignitaries as its customers. By following its functioning we can, therefore,
analyze the reasons for its great achievements and popularity as well as the
many problems that even this key organization of Soviet trade faced during
its history.
In the Chapter Seven we move from Moscow to Tallinn, the capital
of Soviet Estonia. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design of the Estonian
Ministry of Light Industry, Tallinna moemaja, was both a typical example
of the houses of fashion design established in all the Soviet republics and
larger industrial centers as well as one of the best known among them. We
analyze its everyday activities and role in the Estonian and the All-Union
fashion industry as well as the reasons for its exceptionally high reputation
and popularity among the Soviet customers of fashionable clothing.

36
1. Introduction

Chapter Eight is dedicated to Soviet fashion publicity and the press.

By systematically analyzing both the specialized fashion publications and
journals as well as the numerous writings dedicated to the propagation of
fashion in the daily press and popular journals we can describe concretely
how the Soviet press informed the public about seasonal fashion cycles,
stylistic changes, and fashion trends as well as the achievements and
importance of Soviet fashion in general. The writings published in these
sources also give a good picture of the more general, ideological or principal
disputes concerning the role of fashion under socialism in general as well as
its various stylistic expressions regularly discussed in the press. As elsewhere,
fashion was not just an aesthetic question but had direct moral connotations
as well. The post-war decades were in the Soviet Union, just as in the
developed countries of the West, times of rapid social change which raised
many burning questions regarding the proper dress code and the decency
of dress, not least the decency of women, men and adolescents. These were
regularly discussed, often polemically and quite heatedly, in the columns
and articles dedicated to fashion. We shall highlight some of the decisive
moments and periods in the formation of the Soviet proper etiquette of
dress.

37
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet
Fashion Industry: from the Russian
Revolution to the end of Stalin's Rule

The Revolutionary Background of Soviet Fashion and Anti-Fashion

Both theoretically and practically the foundations of Soviet fashion were

created during the difficult and eventful years after the Russian Revolution
of 1917 and the Civil War. Since these formative years of Soviet history in
the 1920s to 1940s had such a great impact on almost all of the aspects of the
establishment of Soviet fashion as well as on the public opinion about dress
code and fashion, it is necessary to give a short account of this “prehistory”
of the Soviet fashion industry in order to be able to understand and analyze
the specificity of the post-war developments in the world of fashion.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, fashion and fashionable
clothing were associated mainly with urban culture as well as with material
well-being and one’s closeness to the ruling estate, while the overwhelming
majority of the Russian population lived in villages in the countryside.
Ordinary people bought linen, which was more or less available in the shops
or markets, and wore mostly homemade clothes. This was particularly true
in the case of children and the casual dress of adults. Buying ready-made
clothes was a special event which families reserved for the more festive
moments of life. Clothes bought in a shop or in a department store were, as
a rule, formal attire.
Due to high prices a fashionable suit was regarded as a luxury and
a means of social distinction. The huge inequality between the classes,
the poverty of the great masses of the population, the age old tradition of
serfdom and the strict system of social stratification created by the tsarist
regime greatly increased hatred against the “exploiters,” directed in particular
towards their “frivolous” way of life with its accompanying dress code.62 As
one of the famous Bolsheviks wrote, a deep abyss divided the two worlds
of the “black” and the “clean” citizens, which was reflected in the wide
spread resentment which ordinary people felt toward their “clean masters.”63
Another eyewitness of the red mutiny who looked at the revolutionary events
from the other side of the class barrier, the well-known attorney at law N.
Maier, characterized the atmosphere of the times in the following manner:
“The bitterness of the lower classes towards anyone who carried the outer
signs of the privileged classes became accentuated to the extent that it was

38
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

impossible, for instance, to travel in the tram without becoming the target
of cursing.”64
It is no wonder that the revolutionary masses who judged their fellow
citizens on the basis of their outer appearance (clothes, eye-glasses, calluses
on working hands, etc.) hardly recognized any difference between the
various representatives of the upper classes in their clean and beautiful dress,
whether they were land owners, capitalists, tsarist civil servants or ordinary
members of the intelligentsia it was all the same to them. During the years
of the civil war, characterized by many spontaneous outbursts of anger and
aggression, clothing served as the main evidence of a person’s social status.
The Red Army Commander Semen Budennyi told a characteristic story in
his memoirs. In the middle of the fighting with General Anton Denikin’s
“White Army,” the Red guards arrested two “members of the bourgeoisie”
wearing glasses, “dressed in long tailor-made fur coats.” Because of their
outer appearance the Red guards were ready to shoot them. The two well-
dressed prisoners turned out in fact to be very high ranking Soviet leaders,
the head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), Mikhail
Kalinin, and the head of the Ukrainian Central Executive Committee,
Grigory Petrovskii. All efforts to convince the soldiers of their real identities
with the help of their mandates undersigned by Vladimir Lenin proved to
be ineffective: the soldiers could not read and they had been used to judging
their exploiters primarily all by their outer appearance and clothing.65
When the workers’ “revolutionary consciousness of right and wrong” was
substituted for law and order, people’s outer appearance played an important
role. “It is enough to refer to his well-kept face and hands without any
calluses to accuse some one of being a bourgeois”66 proclaimed S. S. Zorin,
a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. To appear
on the street dressed in a top hat and expensive and fashionable dress which
was typical of the members of the former ruling class, caused aggression
and could cost one one’s life. It was typical that it was not only the exploiters
themselves who caused anger but also the attributes of the “cursed past”
belonging to them: a costume with a waistcoat, a monocle, a fine fur hat,
as well as, in the judgement of the ordinary man, luxurious living quarters-
exquisite furniture, a home library, a grand piano, and so on.67
At this time it would have been difficult to imagine that these hated
objects, which in the eyes of the victorious proletariat symbolized the former
luxurious life of the exploiters, would in less than 20 years turn into the
cherished symbols of the real socialist culture legitimated by Soviet power.
Nevertheless, the association between the social status of the citizen and his
or her clothing, dress code, etc., which went back in history and was deeply
rooted in the consciousness of the common man and woman, never totally
disappeared in later Soviet times either.
It was no wonder that after the Revolution the old “bourgeois” fashion,
as a part of the questionable cultural heritage of the past, became the object
of keen discussions and disputes: should the victorious proletariat create
its own “proletarian fashion”? If the answer was in the affirmative how it
would in fact differ from “bourgeois fashion”? Did the social and cultural
phenomenon of fashion have a right to exist at all under Communism? It

39
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

Fig. 2.1. Red Army uniforms designed by the artists Kuznetsov and Kustodiev in 1919.

was obvious to many that the drastic changes caused by the Revolution in life
style should be followed by equally radical changes in the outer appearance
of human beings. In some cases it was easy to see how the Revolution directly
stimulated new fashionable tendencies: The leather coats of the commissars,
the red cavalry head wear, budennovki, red ribbons, and other equally
popular references to the attributes of the revolutionary Bolshevik era
were often regarded by fashion professionals as examples of spontaneously
created “revolutionary fashion.” Many idealists thought that the victorious
proletariat would have a totally different relationship to the “world of things”
and Maxim Gorky, the so-called stormy petrel of the Revolution, declared
war against the petit bourgeois mentality, the well-known “human remnant
of the old society” – the “thirst for the bait,” or the bourgeois submissiveness
in the face of material offerings and comfort. (Fig. 2.1.)
During the cultural radicalism and the popularity of the ideals of the
Proletkult movement in the 1920s when young revolutionary radicals
suggested that all old bourgeois culture, including Pushkin and Raphael,
should be thrown on the dung heap, fashion was also labeled a typical
“remnant” of the aristocratic and bourgeois way of life not worthy of the
new proletarian aesthetics. New proletarian culture was now to be created
practically from point zero.68 Fashion was obviously understood to be

40
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

a sign of the exclusive elitism which had been propagated by the fashion
journals and albums of haute couture. It had nothing to do with the rags
commonly seen in the working districts, which followed the changes of
fashion, if at all, at a much slower pace and more spontaneously. Haute
couture’s exclusiveness was its most distinctive feature in the minds of its
socialist critics. In accordance with the common understanding of those
times, real fashionable clothes were, in contrast to the ones that were mass
produced and could be bought in clothing stores, sewn by hand by a famous
dressmaker or tailor at a fashion atelier. Thus they automatically carried an
individual flavor which guaranteed their high quality and made them chosen
examples of rare art. For the majority of the population they were simply too
expensive, not available at all or too fine and impractical for everyday use. In
the opinions of the representatives of the Proletkult, the creations that were
born in the “inflamed” brains of the fashion designers were too “artificial”
and suffered from their close resemblance to other items of “highbrow” art
and culture. Being unavailable to the majority of the population, they were
interpreted to as an expression of snobbery which artificially raised itself
above the supposed “undeveloped cultural demands” of the common man
and woman. The excesses of fashion, expressing the measuring stick of the
old society, were undemocratic. Furthermore, with fashion’s help the ruling
class elevated their own tastes far above the tastes of the other citizens.
Soviet Russia had by the end of the 1920s firmly established itself on the
world map and was even understood by many Western intellectuals to be
the center of human progress, a real alternative to the rotten old world with
its discredited moral and cultural values. Many expected that it would also
become a real turning point in the history of fashion. The question of the
reorientation of the “old” fashion, which had been produced only for a few
select people, and the consequent democratization of the world of fashion,
became important in the cultural politics of the first socialist country in the
world. The new fashion should be democratic, reoriented according to the
size of the wallet as well as other practical needs of the ordinary consumer.
Under these conditions, the representatives of the Proletkult continued
their active propaganda for a functional, in essence practical, aesthetic
style – a new ideal of beauty which would be to a greater degree in line with
the goals of the new society. In the sphere of fashion this new style almost
paradoxically took the form of an anti-fashion.69 Its critique was directed
at the whole system of fashion as such with its rapid changes of style. Old
fashion in its bourgeois packaging was totally unnecessary and did not
serve any real function in the new society. The new anti-fashion aimed at
the ideal of a wholly functional dress, a uniform for different occasions and
professions which would suit every individual despite differences in gender
or age. Such a uniform would liberate everyone from the futile need to pay
attention to individual differences. Taking stable and common human needs
as a starting point one could annihilate all kinds of rapid and unnecessary
changes in fashion and liberate human beings, women in particular, from the
“slavery of fashion.” The new vanguard of the proletarian aesthetics distanced
itself, from the frivolous and whimsical nature of traditional fashion in
general, and not only from its concrete creations.

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2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

Similar ideas regarding the creation of a new kind of clothing free of

unnecessary details, trimmings and decorations, common in the 1920s in
Soviet Russia, had been part of many previous utopian ideas of radically
reforming the world. Many talented and progressively thinking people
among artists, designers and intellectuals had defended such a position,
at least for a time.70 These ideals were thus by no means any real Soviet
inventions. The Russian artistic vanguard of the beginning of the 1920s
followed in this respect the radical European and North American arts
and crafts movement with its ideals of the functionality of dress as well
as the movement of “reform dress,” which had been popular at the turn
of century and which the more radical feminism in particular supported
and propagated in many Western European countries as well as in North
America.71 What united them all was that they presumed that functional
was beautiful and use came before aesthetics. Clothes should serve only
natural and basic human needs and not be subservient to social competition
or exhibition, which enslaved women living under capitalism in particular.
In Christine Ruane’s opinion, Russian fashion trends in the 1920s
returned to some extent to their pre-war tendencies, which the outbreak
of the First World War had interrupted, by integrating backward Russia
into the Western and European culture.72 According to Ruane, anti-fashion
movements had been popular among the Russian intelligentsia during the
war. The rapidly growing consumerism was, in the minds of the radical
intelligentsia, associated with fashion. As they argued “resources should
be used for the betterment of society and should not be squandered on
fashion.”73 By demonstratively wearing simple peasant clothes they imagined
themselves to be breaking social barriers and they encouraged ordinary
people to reject fashion too. At the same time nationalistic circles rejected
fashion as “Western or foreign business.” In June 1916 the import of luxury
goods like fashionable clothes was banned as part of the wartime economic
regulation. Similar legislation existed in other war waging European nations.
Fashion magazines disappeared in Russia during the war too. As Ruane
argued, the Bolsheviks transformed this pre-war anti-fashion discourse about
the wastefulness of fashion and the following wartime ban on luxury goods
into an attack against petit-bourgeois philistinism. Anti-fashion discourse
was particularly strong during the New Economic Policy of the 1920s when
the Bolsheviks had to deal with the problem of growing economic and social
differences due to the partial rehabilitation of the market economy.
The New Economic Policy (NEP), which the Soviet government adopted
in 1921, only helped to intensify the discussion about the nature and destiny
of fashion in the coming society and raised a lively debate about fashion as
a “hostile remnant from the class society.” During NEP in 1921–1928, due
to a more open policy on small scale private entrepreneurship, Western
influences reached Soviet fashion freely and rapidly. The broad masses
of the population who earned their meager livelihood with hard work
associated the fashion “explosion” of the 1920s not only with the “wild life”
in the restaurants and clubs, but in general with the dissipation and lavish
spending of the nepman, who had now quite suddenly become rich. More
generally, social inequality increased again forcefully and the majority of

42
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

Fig. 2.2. Typical

designs during
the times of NEP
published in the
journal Poslednie
mody (Latest
fashion).

the population had no means of acquiring a share of this new “beautiful”

and luxurious life. With NEP new fashion ateliers were opened in the
cities again, as well as beauty salons and antique shops, which shocked the
ordinary public with their pre-revolutionary styles imitating the lifestyle
of the tsarist aristocracy. The profession of the milliner became, quite
unexpectedly, popular again. Fashion journals started to publish in great
numbers again, propagating festive clothing, etc. (Fig. 2.2.) While Russia had
hardly recovered from the hard years of the Civil war and was still mourning
its many dead, the “fashionable grimace” of the NEP was reminiscent of
a feast in times of plague, thus creating a highly negative image around the
cultural phenomenon of fashion. In his article “Moscow. From the way of life
of the Nep-people,” the well-known lawyer Z. Rikhter described the social
life of the Soviet capital in the beginning of the year 1923 as follows:

In the gilded-strawberry red lounges [of the Bolshoi Theater], on the first rows
of the parquet – no workers’ shirts to be seen, as it was in 1918–1920, but instead
bare shoulders and the arms of the ladies decorated with expensive jewels,
straight combed male partings and tail-coats. This is the picture from the pre-
war and pre-revolutionary times. The public is not less luxurious than before-
but at a closer look, these are not the same people as before, not the ones with
a permanent subscription to the tickets to all the premiers, but new ones, from

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2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

outside the town, so called nep-people and nouveaux riches. The old land-owning
aristocracy and shop owners as well as the old literary-aristocratic people of
Moscow are not there anymore. Only seldom, by chance, can one now meet some
famous people from the old scene, from among the previous Moscow ‘nabob,’ or
a once bright society lion. But how they have changed in the last five years! They
have aged, got as bleak as the old curtain at the Bolshoi Theater with its muses
and roses, and how they are now dressed, worse than their previous janitors and
maids, wearing fine rags.
Nothing is left of the old society of Moscow, the famous Moscow tailor told me
in the foyer of the Bolshoi theatre in whose salon the Moscow high society used
to get its clothing made. My old customers have either emigrated or are dead.
Only a few of the old Moscow elite is left and survived. Anyway, only seldom do
any of the old ladies come to me in order to breathe a while in the lost paradise...
To let me sew something is far too expensive for them now.
In the official register the nepmen are often “unemployed,” some are even
cunning enough and try to get social benefits. And these unemployed can
earn hundreds of billions. Their apartments are full of unforeseen luxury. Atlas
tapestry, artistic, decorative items of design and drawings; every room has its own
style. Rare products of art.74

The general critical attitude towards fashion and haute couture common in
the NEP society in the 1920s was associated with luxury which had been
earned by dishonest means or with nostalgia for tsarist times, and had obvious
gender aspects too. The main consumers of fashion had traditionally been
the well-to-do ladies from the higher echelons of society. At the same time,
post-revolutionary Soviet Russia, declaring the equality of the sexes, made
real progress in the area of liberating women from the slavery of housework
and changing them into active members of society with equal rights, and
had rather unexpectedly become the spearhead of women’s liberation in the
world.
At the same time new progressive ideas appeared that had an impact on
the general conceptions of fashion and culture of dress. These conceptions
were closely related to the international school of thought on the scientific
organization of work, housework included, and leisure time, which was
popular in the USSR particularly in the 1920s. The establishment of the
Society for the Scientific Organization of Everyday Life was a good example
of these tendencies. In it the Soviet youth searched for reconciliation to its
new, Soviet outlook starting from the premise that the new Soviet way of
life must somehow find corresponding new forms in the outer appearance
of men and women. In the 1920s intense disputes were waged around such
seemingly trivial questions as whether a Komsomol boy could wear a necktie
or a suit, or if it was really allowed for a Komsomol girl to wear a fashionable
hair-do or other kinds of decorations.
In the mid-1920s, the main youth newspaper of the country,
Komsomol’skaya pravda, wrote in its editorial:

Having as its ideological basis the liberation of all the elements of contemporary
everyday life from all the remnants of capitalist society that still tormented it
and to reform it on the tested facts of exact science and Leninism, the society

44
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

sets its immediate task to cope successfully with the everyday hygienic situation,
to produce a reformation of dress, furniture, bed, as well as to establish the right
organization of rational leisure.75

Even though the scientific bases of hygiene might be understandable, it was

certainly more problematic to see how the joining of the forces of the exact
sciences and Leninism could help to reform dress.
Despite the political support they enjoyed among many radical
Bolsheviks, the radical vanguard of dress reform never in practice realized
their ideals to any great degree and had a very restricted impact on the
mass production of clothes. This was more the result of the many practical
problems caused by the extremely bad state of the whole Soviet textile and
garment industry than the lack of political will. However, even though these
social and cultural experiments from the 1920s had been almost totally
forgotten by the beginning of the 1930s and condemned as “anti-socialist,”
they were by no means totally buried and, in fact, left deep marks in the
social consciousness. The Soviet ideology of fashion, at least to some extent,
remained indebted to the idea that fashion as such is something excessive
and alien, and even more importantly, contrary to the laws of usefulness and
necessity.
Where could one possibly find the basic principles for such a democratic
uniform of the working class? To solve the problem, several institutions
were established at once. The Central Institute of the Garment Industry
was established in 1919 with the aim of coordinating and uniting all the
sewing workshops as well as creating new forms of clothes “corresponding
to the conditions of hygiene, comfort, beauty and durability.”76 In 1922 the
Center for the Creation of the New Soviet-or Revolutionary-Dress was
opened in Moscow, and later on was turned into The Fashion Atelier of the
Moscow House of Fashion Design. The famous painters Boris Mikhailovich
Kustodiev, Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar’, Kuz’ma Sergeyevich Petrov-Vodkin,
the sculptor Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina as well as the future first director of
the Fashion Atelier, Olga Dmitrievna Senicheva-Kashchenko, were among
its founders.77
The names of Varvara Fedorovna Stepanova and Liubov’ Sergeyevna
Popova are well known from art history. They represented the new radical
proletarian aesthetics in the applied arts in general and in clothing design
in particular in the early 1920s. They stood strongly for the abandonment
of everything reminiscent of fashion in clothing and textile design. Their
constructivist designs were guided by functionalist aesthetics. They relied on
such genuine cubist devices as geometry and flatness in their vision of the
dress appropriate to the New Woman.78 Their main invention, which was in
line with their self-understanding as artists serving the proletarian masses
instead of the individual members of the bourgeoisie, was the design of
prozodezhda (production clothing).The idea of prozodezhda came from the
interpretation of functionality strictly in terms of the social division of labor.
It linked the comfort and functionality of every dress to a specific productive
function.79 The prototypes of production clothing that Stepanova designed
for the theater scene were genuine working uniforms that differed from each

45
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

Fig. 2.3. A dress design

by Nadezhda Lamanova,
1920’s.

other depending solely on the type of work performed in them. By the mid-
1920s the constructivist designers together with the Proletkult movement
had lost their political influence in the country.
One of the most famous fashion designers of those days was the former
official provider of the Imperial court, Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova (1861–
1941), (Fig. 2.3.) who had a long career in the Soviet Union as well. She
was a good friend of the French couturier Paul Poiret and had become well
known for her luxurious clothes lined with golden embroidery made for
the Tsarist family and the representatives of former high society (many are
still preserved in the Hermitage Art Museum in St. Petersburg). Lamanova
was also seriously inspired by the idea of “revolutionizing” dress. Thanks
to the support given by Akeksei Maksimovich Gorky and in particular
his wife Maria Andreevna Andreeva, an actress and Lamanova’s noble
client, Lamanova could in 1919 with the permission of the Soviet regime
organize The Artistic Atelier of Contemporary Dress, which was engaged in
experimenting with the design of dress for the working masses. In 1925, in
collaboration with the Soviet sculptor Mukhina, later to become famous for
her art works which are often regarded as quintessential examples of socialist
realism, she published the album Iskusstvo v bytu (Art in Everyday Life).
It propagated the results of her dressmakers, presenting concrete projects
of practical and comfortable working clothes for the workers created from
simple raw materials but with real aesthetic appeal.

46
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

At the same time, Lamanova sewed clothes for the main figures of Soviet
high society and world of fashion in the beginning of the 1920s, among them
such figures as Lilia Yurievna Brik, Isadora Duncan and others. Arriving
back in Paris from the Soviet Union, Elsa Triole, Louis Aragon’s future
companion, caused a real sensation by demonstrating at the International
Exhibition of Arts and Crafts in Paris in the mid-1920s a dress sewn by
Lamanova and decorated with lace from Vologda region. At this time, the
idea of introducing folk motifs into fashion design inspired Lamanova.
She was deeply convinced that such popular motifs as hand-made textiles
and decorative details (like lace or embroidery) could make fashion more
democratic, synthesizing folk dress with haute couture. In the 1930s, when
Lamanova was working as the head of the atelier of Mekhkombinat (Fur
Enterprise) she took the opportunity, with as much enthusiasm as she had
for simple dress, to design luxurious clothes from fur. These were sold abroad
for foreign currency. During the 1920s and 1930s, on invitation from the
main theaters of the country, she worked with stage costumes too, in practice
educating a whole generation of costume milliners for the Soviet theater.80
After the radical constructivist movement in the mid-1920s Lamanova was
the main theoretician of fashion in Soviet Russia. Gradually, she started
to distance herself clearly from the idea of the creation of a “mass dress”
suitable for all the workers as an alternative to “bourgeois dress.” Lamanova
came to the conclusion that the reform of dress and design should take
totally different directions, closer to the needs of the concrete consumer,
and in fact promoted the maximal individualization of dress. In 1923–1924
she published articles in which she criticized the absolutization of the idea
of the democratization of fashion based on the industrial mass production
of clothes by claiming that such an approach ignores all distinctions and
does not, for instance, pay any attention to the differences in the bodily
construction of human beings. She definitely shared with the constructivists
the idea that the regular fashion cycles with their ageing of fashion should
be totally abandoned. She disagreed with them, however, in arguing that
fashion should not be substituted with the pure functionalist principle
which remained eternally the same. Instead she argued for harmony in
outer appearance and the creation of an individual dress with the taste and
peculiarities of an individual human being in mind. One’s dress should
help one to better express one’s genuine individuality and taste.81 Even
though she criticized the unnecessary cyclical changes of fashion, in another
sense she did not abandon the idea of fashion completely but attempted to
reform it, by adjusting it to the new political situation. Her own creations,
which acted as examples worth imitating to many coming generations of
Soviet fashion designers, “involved a compromising symbiosis of fashionable
modernist dress and traditional ethnic decoration”82 By adding hand-
made decorations like embroidery to her otherwise stylistically simple
and modernist dresses she created a compromise that did not have to give
up the element of representational beauty in favor of the pure productive
functions of dress. Lamanova came to create an aesthetic compromise
adequate to the new cultural climate in the Soviet Union after the cultural
radicalism of the early 1920s. In fact, the use of ethnic motifs as decorative

47
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

elements in more festive dress became a standard feature of Soviet fashion

design after the Second World War. A major problem was that handmade
embroidery was very labor intensive and was not suited for industrial mass
production. Therefore Lamanova’s dresses were mostly sewn in ateliers as
unique examples. Lamanova’s aesthetics did not solve the problem of how to
produce beautiful, fashionable and cheap clothes in great quantities. Along
with her other contributions, she also left this problem as a heritage to the
future generations of Soviet designers and planners.
After the Second World War, the name of Lamanova, who died in 1941, as
well as her theoretical constructions, became a subject of pride in the Soviet
history of culture. They were taught to the young designers and studied
in order to better understand the concept of Soviet fashion. Lamanova’s
student and follower, the designer Fekla Antonovna Gorelenkova, who had
worked at Lamanova’s atelier before the revolution, was appointed the head
of the Department of Female Light (that is, indoor) Clothing in the recently
organized All-Union House of Fashion Design in Moscow in 1949.
Despite their critique of traditional “bourgeois” fashion, in practice
the leading Bolsheviks, who often came from educated families, never
wholly denied its attractive sides. Many famous activists of the revolutionary
movement followed fashion closely and allowed themselves its pleasures,
including Inessa Fedorovna Armand, whom V.I. Lenin himself adored. We
have already mentioned Gorky’s wife, the actress Andreeva who protected
Lamanova’s talents before the new regime. Even though another famous
revolutionary female figure, Larissa Mikhailovna Reisner, is best known as
the “Red commissar,” her attractiveness and ability to dress with style are
often mentioned in her contemporaries’ memoirs. Because of Vsevolod
Vital’evich Vishnevskii’s idealized picture of her in his “Optimistic Tragedy”
she is best remembered as the “commissar in the leather jacket” with
a revolver in hand...83
Many admiring words have also been written about Aleksandra Mikhai-
lovna Kollontai, a tsarist general’s daughter who became a revolutionary
and the first female ambassador in world history, the official representative
of the Soviet Union in Sweden. Kollontai, who has gone down in history
as a feminist propagator of “free love,” was always well and fashionably
dressed. The wife of the Soviet Prime Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailovich
Molotov, Polina Semenovna Zhemchuzhina, was more closely than anyone
else connected to Soviet fashion. In the 1930s and 1940s she acted as the
deputy People’s Commissar of Light Industry, the People’s Commissar of the
Fish Industry and the organizer and director of the Soviet perfume industry,
Glavparfumer. She was a self-evident member of the artistic council of the
Moscow House of Fashion Design. According to the memoirs of her niece,
she even asked for a manicure on her death bed.84
The living conditions in the homes of many Bolshevik leaders who had
become used to domestic comfort before the Revolution were often far
from the ideals of revolutionary asceticism. In his memoirs, Belyi koridor,
the poet Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich, who was a regular visitor
at the homes of the Soviet elite, expressed his surprise when faced with the
material opulence at the Kamenevs’ and Lunacharskiis’: “In those days the

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2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

Soviet ladies were eager for luster. They dressed at Lamanova’s, patronized
proletarian art, quarreled about cars and led salons...”85 He emphasized the
generally prevailing mixture of the “old” and the “new” in the everyday lives
of the representatives of the Soviet elite, in particular among its female half.
In the 1930s, the Soviet nomenklatura distinguished itself clearly from the
ordinary citizens as far as their material provisioning and the availability of
fashionable imported clothes were concerned. Recently published documents
from the interrogation of the Soviet officials arrested by the NKVD in the
end of the 1930s bear witness to the real material achievements of some
high profile figures. For instance, the report on the search of the house of
Deputy People’s Commissar (Minister) of the NKVD, Genrikh Grigoryevich
Yagoda, in 1937, preserved as an attachment to his interrogation, makes it
clear that, in addition to having a right to a car with a chauffeur, Yagoda had
bought a private car and a motor cycle with a side car. He also had a private
film camera and a collection of films. His private clothes closet included, in
addition to a great number of shirts, 21 overcoats and 22 suits, most of them
of foreign make. He also had a collection of 1230 bottles of old, exclusive
wines; and he collected coins, weapons, smoking pipes and a cigarette
holder, antiques and rare tableware.86 According to numerous witnesses, the
children of the Kremlin leaders dressed well and fashionably in the 1930s
among themselves, being careful, however, not to advertise their material
achievements openly in front of the “ordinary audience.” Their parents kept
a close eye on them and made sure that they observed the rules of “Kremlin
etiquette.”
The novel ideas of the first half of the 1920s regarding the new proletarian
fashion, and even more the doctrine of the individuality of design and
construction of clothes, were quite utopian for a starving and ruined country
which almost totally lacked any modern garment industry. The majority
of the population simply had nothing to wear. Under these conditions, the
task of providing the population more or less immediately with at least
the minimal amounts of necessary clothing was deemed to be impossible
to fulfil without the establishment of large garment factories and the
industrial mass production of relatively good quality and cheap clothes.
The reasons for favoring industrial mass production were not only dictated
by necessity; ideological considerations played a role too. As is evident
in recently declassified records, the Soviet leaders were eager to follow the, in
their minds, successful example of American standardized industrial mass
production as the most effective way to solve the problems of consumption
in their country too.87 This ideal of standardized, industrial mass production
preserved its central role in the Soviet economic policy of growth until the
very end of the Soviet Union. At the same time the Soviet government,
however, kept on actively promoting and financially supporting state owned
fashion ateliers and the availability of custom-made clothes to the population
until the fall of socialism.
Despite many progressive ideas about the new proletarian or Soviet
fashion and the consequent radical experiments with dress, in reality the
Soviet population, consisting overwhelmingly of peasants, continued to
live their lives following the traditions of their grandparents. Just as before

49
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

the Revolution, the majority of the population could not afford to buy
industrially made clothes and most people sewed clothes for their families
themselves. The traditional ethics combined with the rough conditions of
life did not leave much space for fashion in its modern meaning. When
not even basic needs can be properly satisfied, the social space for fashion
undoubtedly gets narrower. In addition, a patriarchal conception prevailed
in the social consciousness of the population in the 1920s and 1930s,
according to which fashion was almost totally a female phenomenon and,
even more concretely, a part of the festive recreation of unmarried girls.
Married women with children and a household of their own had nothing
to do with fashion, even less so after they had become “old women” upon
turning 30. Even they could be beautifully dressed on some particular
special occasions if they could afford it, but the style and cut of their clothes
was traditional and not open to the caprices and rapid changes of fashion.
Beauty in the form of minor decorations and trimmings on practical clothes
was quite another thing.

The 1930s: The Reanimation of Traditional Fashion

In the end of the 1920s the question of the “mass fashion” of the victorious
proletariat became a question of great social importance. The circle of
the consumers of fashionable clothing remained very limited. The fashion
designers and milliners serviced, in addition to the nepmen, the Soviet
cinema and theater, which were on the rise at the time, as well as the rather
few state organizations, like the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs,
who ordered their designs. It was no secret that almost all the leading Soviet
specialists in the world of fashion were from among “people of the past,”
specialists and professionals from pre-revolutionary Russia. In the end of
the 1920s when the NEP came to an end and the state decided to take the
trade and consumption of clothes under more direct control they faced
hard times once again. The subsequent politics of the “great leap” forward
in industrialization, collectivization and in cultural politics was followed by
the propaganda of asceticism and communal living, militant atheism and
the condemnation of all forms of individualism. All private enterprises,
including hairdressers, small shops, restaurants, fashion journals and ateliers
were closed. Only state enterprises were allowed to operate according to the
new order. Even such a famous designer as Lamanova, who had succeeded
in winning the trust of the new power after having spent some months after
the Revolution in prison as a “non-working element,” or an “exploiter,” was
stripped of her citizen’s rights and labeled as “disenfranchised” again because
in the 1920s she had employed wage laborers in her sewing workshop.
It is evident from memoirs that after the end of the NEP and the
consequent closing down of the private ateliers in the end of the 1920s even
the members of the Soviet elite had problems getting their clothes made.
In the beginning of the 1930s, for instance, Galina Sergeevna Kravchenko,
an aspiring actress and Lev Borisovich Kamenev’s young daughter-in-
law, visited the elite atelier belonging to the People’s Comissar of Foreign

50
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

Affairs on the Kuznetskii most in Moscow. Stalin’s wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna

Alliluyeva, was a regular customer in the same atelier.88
The situation changed first with the rapid industrialization and
urbanization of the country in the 1930s, including the opening of new and
reopening of old textile and garment factories. Designers and pattern makers
again became sought-after professionals. It became evident that the country
needed to educate new cadres to these professions. During the first Five Year
Plans in the late 1920s and early 1930s the big garment conglomerates and
factories established their own artistic and construction workshops which
started to work out new colors for textiles and new clothing designs. They
became important centers of the professional experience of design. However,
the strictly applied character of their work seriously restricted the creativity
of the artist who had, above all, to comply with the demands of mass
production in general and with the real, and often very limited, concrete
possibilities of the factory and its workers as well.
The main factor that made the issue of clothing design in the beginning of
the 1930s particularly pressing was the serious shortage of cheap industrially
made clothes and the low income levels of the population. In 1930–1935,
all the state-produced clothes and shoes were distributed according to the
strict norms of rationing, just like bread and other food items.89 Clothes and
shoes were relatively expensive and bought mostly out of necessity and not
because they went out of fashion. It was characteristic that when the general
system of obligatory education was introduced in 1930 the main obstacle
which prevented children from attending school was their lack of shoes and
clothes, particularly during the winter. Compared to many more prosperous
countries of the West, space for fashion was quite limited in the Soviet Union.
The situation started to change in the middle of the 1930s with the
gradual rise in the living standards of the population, in particular among
its rapidly increasing urban segment. The processes of urbanization and
industrialization actively opened up the field for the impact of urban
culture, including fashion. In addition, Stalin’s famous slogan “life has
become better, life has become more joyful” (1935) suggested that ordinary
citizens should be able and were encouraged to feel in their own private
lives the achievements of the first Five Year Plans, to learn how to enjoy
life in their socialist fatherland and even get some satisfaction out of it.
Citizens’ dedication to the cause of socialism did not only demand sacrifice
from them. They had a right to expect some real rewards from it too. This
inevitably led to the diversification of the tastes and needs of the citizens. Part
of the new political course in the mid-1930s, often referred to as NeoNEP,
consisted of the reanimation, on the initiative and under the control of the
state, of the system of fashion, the publication of fashion journals and other
periodicals, and the establishments of exemplary state department stores and
the fashion ateliers attached to them in the big cities. The first Soviet House of
Fashion Design was opened in Moscow on Kuznetskii most street in 1934.90
Lamanova’s niece and former pupil, Nadezhda Sergeevna Makarova, became
the first director of this new house. The houses of fashion design existed side
by side with the more ordinary system of both state owned and cooperative
small tailors’ and seamstresses’ ateliers which sewed custom-made clothes.

51
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

In the middle of the 1930s, the question was raised of the specialization of
fashion design in the garment industry and the creation of a unified system
of designing fashionable clothes in the whole country. The house of fashion
design in the capital city, which originally designed clothes only for the
enterprises of the Moscow Sewing Company, was reorganized a few years
later into the Central House of Fashion Design (Tsentralnyi Dom modelei
or TsDM); regional houses of fashion design were opened at the same time
in Leningrad and in other big cities at the end of the 1930s to satisfy the
needs of local industry for new designs. All houses of fashion design were
under the People’s Commissar of Light Industry and designed clothes for
industrial mass production. However, the establishment of a centralized
system of fashion design was not completed before the war due to, among
other reasons, internal competition among the different organizations in the
branch. The big industrial enterprises and conglomerates were not the only
ones that had pretensions of designing their own clothes; the organizations
of trade also had their own interests in the matter. The influential People’s
Commissar (Minister) of Trade, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, actively and
successfully lobbied for the interests of trade. He claimed that since trade was
closest to the actual consumers it knew their demands better than industry
or the planning office.
By February 1935, 11 exemplary department stores opened in the big
cities of the USSR, all aiming at becoming leaders of fashion in the country.
The Central Department Store, TsUM, which opened in Moscow in the
same building next to the Bolshoi Theater which had hosted the famous pre-
revolutionary store of Muir and Merilees, was typical in this respect. In 1934
its new fashion atelier, which took orders to sew clothing according to the
individual measures of the customer made altogether 4500 garments in the
product category “dresses and suits.” According to the reports of its directors
a good example of the growing interest in fashionable clothing among the
Muscovites was the fact that during an ordinary week day about a hundred
customers turned to it for its services. However, because of the limited
number of workers it could only take 12–15 orders per day. It was easy to
understand that the whole problem of good quality and fashionable clothing
could not be solved with the help of such relatively small ateliers. It was also
well known that many garments produced in the factories for sale were not at
all fashionable and did not meet any demand. Therefore, the designers from
the TsUM atelier started to design their own original patterns. As early as
1934, TsUM made a deal with some local factories, which started to adapt its
designs into industrial production. For instance, in 1935, a whole factory of
children’s wear was attached to the atelier. As the director of TsUM reported,
they received for sale “about half of all their linen from this factory.”91
Alongside the design of its own clothes and their adaptation to the needs
of the garment factories of the capital region, TsUM actively promoted
the idea of organizing its own production units. Its designers now worked
on three fronts at the same time: they made patterns for their own atelier,
for industrial production and for production in small series by their own
production unit. They sold their fashionable designs at TsUM and they were
said to be in great demand.92

52
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

The production units at the big department stores, referred to as

industrial conglomerates (promkombinaty), themselves products of the
1930s, independently produced small series of clothes (from overcoats to
linen) which were in high demand and also had a staff of their own designers.
They could, at some stage, without doubt have presented a real alternative
to the bigger garment factories working under the People’s Commissariat of
the Light Industry. They opened up again after the war, showing their vitality
even under the new conditions of Soviet commercial trade.93 However, from
the mid-1950s onwards, their role started to diminish. Many experienced
designers and pattern makers left them in order to start work at the newly
opened Houses of Fashion Design at the Ministry of Light Industry. For
instance, in the middle of the 1960s some specialists were invited from the
production unit of the department store Moskva to work in the All-Union
House of Fashion Design on Kuznetskii most street. The small production
units continued to produce clothes even in the 1960s and 1970s but their
share in the total production of clothes in the USSR, which was small from
the beginning, drastically diminished in later years. Of all the big department
stores in Moscow only the State Department Store (GUM), in operation
since 1953, had a production unit of its own after the war.
These production units were good at turning out small series. They
could change their product lines rapidly according to changing demand. As
a rule, they decided independently what items and how much they would
produce. On the other hand, even they depended heavily on the central
state organizations for raw materials, machines and tools, etc. The units’
fashionable products were mainly sold at the unit’s own department store,
which gave an extra stimulus to find a market for them. At the same time,
the garment factories of the Ministry of Light Industry that engaged in mass
production had, as a rule, better machines, enjoyed priority in receiving raw
materials before others, and had a much higher productivity and effectiveness
than the small workshops of the promkombinates. It was economically more
effective for the state to provide the big garment factories with financial aid
with their more rapid turnover of production which filled the market more
effectively with good clothes. Thus they were heavily prioritized in the 1930s
and 1950s. Moreover, department stores naturally existed only in the larger
cities, out of reach of the majority of the population living in the villages.
Both the logic of the central planning on the All-Union level and limited
financial resources led to the heavy concentration of clothing production
in big production units. The authorities put all their hopes in the further
specialization and professionalization of the fashion designers in accordance
with the needs of mass industrial production.
When the Communist Party and the state increasingly allowed their
citizens to realize their dreams of the good life and even actively encouraged
them in their efforts, the political leaders could hardly have imagined, first,
how badly society was in need of the indulgence, and second, that people did
not necessarily get their ideals of a good life and well-being from the foggy
ideals of the Communist future-or from the uniform-like reform dress – but
rather from the “cursed past” which they had seen with their own eyes. Those
who had nothing to lose tried to achieve everything-as soon as possible.

53
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

To dress attractively and fashionably-once possible in Russia only for

a tiny well-to-do part of society-became a sign of the “socialist culture”
in the mid-1930s. On the 15th of September, 1934, the newspaper of the
Central Committee of the Communist party, Pravda, reported on the
establishment of the Fashion Atelier at the Electric Factory (Elektrozavod)
in Moscow, which opened huge new vistas to the workers of dressing
themselves according to the most exclusive fashion standards. The article,
published in millions of copies, created an outcry among its readers with
clear features of envy. The director of the factory Magnezit in the Urals
(Chelyabinskii region) wrote to the Prime Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov,
that his five thousand workers would also like to have good raw materials for
their suits, to be able to get tailor-made fashionable overcoats and shoes, or
to dress their wives and children in fur.94 Access to fashion was thus used as
an incentive to promote labor productivity and to attract a more competent
labor force to factories.
The symbols and style of the good life had not changed much since
1917. Almost all Soviet novelties turned out to be examples of the “happily”
forgotten old. The growth of the new Soviet chain of finer restaurants and
cafes, the beginning of the mass production of perfumes and cosmetics,
champagne, chocolate and other similar items quite obviously did not
satisfy any primary needs but were closely associated in the public mind
with the luxury and well-being of the previous ruling elite. The state actively
promoted the establishment of fashion ateliers at the factories, the showcase
department stores, and other locations. It also opened a system of ordinary
ateliers in the mid-1930s as a “sign of social cultivation” and regarded
custom-made clothes as the “norm of life.” This was a remarkable step in
many ways. First, in practice, if not in theory, the state took the first steps
towards the legitimization of more individual expressions of taste. Second,
it gave the citizens a free choice: either to buy an industrially ready-made
garment in a shop or order a custom made dress from the atelier or-and
this was without doubt the most common option in the 1930s particularly
in the countryside – to sew their clothes themselves. The second alternative
was certainly slightly more expensive but usually of better quality too. Even
though strongly prioritizing the industrial mass production of clothes, the
Soviet state simultaneously had an amazingly positive relationship to custom
made clothes and hand work.95
The 1930s mainly reanimated the main symbols of traditional fashion
as well as helped to invigorate the idea of fashion as a normal part of Soviet
life. Even if not overtly enthusiastic about fashion – after all, it did not
really fit into the system of the planned economy – the Soviet State still
acknowledged it as a legitimate part of the society by establishing a whole
system of organizations somehow engaged in fashion design, its propagation
and distribution. At the same time, the rapid urbanization of the country
created positive conditions for the increasing numbers of fashion conscious
Soviet consumers.

54
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

The Impact of War on the Soviet Fashion Design and Industry

It is hard to imagine any other country in which fashion was created under
such exceptional conditions as the USSR.96 The numerous social cataclysms
that the country experienced undoubtedly left their marks on the way in
which society and the state related to fashionable and festive dress, thus
also influencing the birth of the Soviet fashion industry. Just as the country
started to recover from the tragic consequences of the forced collectivization
of agriculture, with millions of deaths during the famine of 1932–1933, the
threat of war changed priorities again.
The fashion ateliers and houses, as well as all the other institutes dealing
with the beautification of the body, were closed during the war. Instead
of civilian clothing the factories produced uniforms and military boots.
The war had a clear impact on the outer appearance of the Soviet men
and women. About half a million women served in the acting army alone,
exchanging their fashionable civilian clothes for uniforms.97 Hundreds of
thousands of young girls who left for the front directly from the school
bench, simply exchanging their school uniforms for military ones, hardly
had any time to learn to dress like women at all. Millions of women who
had remained behind the enemy lines had to work like men in heavy and
often dirty work thus filling in for their husbands and fathers fighting on
the front. The war made women more independent as they took over many

Fig. 2.4. Front page

of the war time fashion
journal Kostium
i pal’to (Costume and
Overcoat), 1942.

55
2. The Formative Years of the Soviet Fashion Industry

traditionally male professions en masse, changing the traditional division

of labor between the genders. Trousers, quilted jackets and short haircuts
characterized female fashion in the war. Work clothing and the elements
of military uniform – concrete anti-fashion – became the norm. This had
a great impact on the post-war trends of fashion in the USSR as well as in
other countries. (Fig. 2.4.)
It is understandable that, among the Soviet generation who lived their
formative years in between and during the two wars, fashion did not in
general enjoy a high priority. It was not something that could give meaning
to one’s life. The Soviet philosopher and aesthetician Karl Moiseevich
Kantor expressed this typical attitude in the beginning of the 1970s with
the following words: “As if we would ever have any time to get engaged in
fashion in earnest and pay any serious attention to it.”98 The great majority
of the Soviet youth, who had by then grown up in the more prosperous
post-war years, obviously had another opinion, which could at times lead to
intense conflicts between the generations which, however, the Soviet leaders
never openly recognized. One could speak of a sublimation of the tendencies
of fashion in Soviet society until the early 1960s which led to a hidden
suppressed accumulation of the demand for fashionable dress. The age old
social control of decency and good manners, exercised both by the elders and
the Party organs, started to give way to a more liberal cultural atmosphere
during Khruschchev’s “thaw” and the more prosperous conditions under
Brezhnev. These changes became very visible in the special and slightly weird
interest in Western fashion and in the high prestige enjoyed by all imported
goods among the Soviet population.

56
3. Economic Development and Standard
of Living in the USSR after the Second
World War: A Consumer’s Perspective

Economic growth and consumption

The foundations of the Soviet centrally planned economy were laid in the
late 1920s and 1930s during the two first five year plans with their programs
of agricultural collectivization and general industrialization. The basic
principles remained intact until the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite some
minor changes of emphasis in the economic policy, most notably in the
1950s and early 1960s after Stalin’s death, investments in heavy industry, in
the production of energy, and in metallurgy and machine building, enjoyed
a high priority compared with light or consumer goods industries. Heavy
industry was further favored in that its workers were better paid than the
workers in light industry, trade or services. It was also prioritized when,
for instance, new machines and technology were imported from the West.
The textile and garment industry as well as the food industry, both of which
made up a large share of the consumer goods (light) industry, suffered
from all these systematic weaknesses. Soviet politicians and planners tried
to compensate for this chronic lack of resources through rationalization
and standardization. By producing highly standardized items in huge
production units and in great quantities the authorities hoped to cope with
the shortages and to gradually satisfy the population’s basic needs. Such
economic conditions and rules severely limited the fashion industry. On the
other hand, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its government
promised its loyal citizens increasing well-being and they were encouraged to
expect their standard of living to rise rapidly in the future. Soviet consumers
therefore had a legitimate right to expect the production and distribution of
better quality and more varied clothes in the future. The garment factories
as well as the various trade organizations had to take demand more seriously
and try to better satisfy their customers. Expectations were understandably
particularly high after the victorious war, during which the population had
been deprived of almost all the comforts of everyday life.
A large share of the production capacity of the USSR was destroyed in
the war and an overwhelming proportion of its industrial production had
been targeted for military purposes. A large portion of industrial capacity
had also been lost, left behind in occupied territories. For instance, in 1942

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

agricultural production fell to 40 percent of the 1940 level and the population
of the Soviet-controlled areas had fallen by only one third.99 Many buildings
and villages as well as industrial sites and factories were in ruins. People
were living in dugouts and saunas. This was the context in which the Soviet
Government and the Communist Party started planning the opening of new
fashion houses.
Despite these heavy losses, the recovery of the Soviet economy after the
war was rapid in some sectors. By the early 1950s pre-war levels of production
had been reached in most areas of industry. The growth in the consumer
durables sector was particularly speedy partly because many of the factories
which had produced armaments and munitions now turned to peacetime
production. As Davies concluded, “by the end of the fourth five-year-plan
(1946–1950) industrial production considerably exceeded, and agricultural
production slightly exceeded, the pre-war level.”100 Agricultural production
in particular suffered heavily from a reduced work force as a result of war
casualties and men not returning to the villages after demobilization. Once
again the heavy industry received the highest priority in investments just as it
had in the 1930s. However, the last years of Stalin’s reign witnessed a gradual
increase in the relative share of investments in the consumer goods sector.
The pre-war levels of consumption had been low in part as Davies claims,
the “real income per wage earner outside agriculture may have fallen by
nearly 50 per cent between 1928 and 1940.” However, since more people
now lived in the cities and other urban settlements and had become wage
earners they earned more and often lived better than the kolkhoz peasants
in the countryside. A move from the kolkhoz to the city often increased the
incomes of these families and thus raised the general living standards of the
population. Due to rapid urbanization and also to the fact that very little new
housing was built at all before the war, urban provision fell from 8.3 square
meters per head in 1926 to 6.7 square meters in 1940. At the beginning of
the war many people were living in rapidly deteriorating houses in the Soviet
countryside. On the other hand, state expenditure on health and education
increased rapidly during these pre-war years. Investment in the defense
industry grew most rapidly in the 1930s.101
Despite the very modest-and at many times and in many areas, such
as housing, practically non-existent increase in general living standards of
the Soviet people the basic elements of the Soviet infrastructure of trade
was created during the relatively short period in the second half of the
1930s and in the immediate post-war years.102 This included “commercial”
food and other stores, department stores, restaurants, canteens and cafés.
Alongside the “commercial” shops, in which people could buy food and other
consumer goods at fixed prices with their own money earned as wages and
salaries, consumer items were delivered and distributed to the population
through various systems of closed outlets and rationing. This system of
closed distribution and rationing reached its peak during the war years (such
measures were typical in all the European nations engaged in the war) and
varied in importance and extension in different periods of Soviet power.103
At least locally and for shorter periods of time, rationing of basic food
items continued through almost the whole Soviet period. The importance

58
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

of various closed outlets and distribution systems including fashion ateliers

(access to which was often experienced as a special privilege among Soviet
citizens) also varied across the period.104 Exact figures or estimates for their
increase are not available, but many observers state that their number grew
rapidly during the 1970s and reached its peak in the last of the Brezhnev
years. Paradoxically increasing production and availability of consumer
goods and food items did not necessarily lead to the saturation of demand
or to shorter queues in the shops. However well the Soviet economy seemed
to function and the more it produced, the greater the discrepancy between
supply and demand seemed to become. This was true in particular of the
fashion and clothing industry.
There were two main reasons for this extraordinary phenomenon, which
was a perpetual problem for the Soviet government and the Communist
Party. The centrally fixed prices were one of the reasons. The state regulated
prices of all consumer goods sold through the centralized trade system,
food and clothes included: these were fixed and usually not allowed to rise.
The products that the peasants sold on the kolkhoz markets were the only
exception. The state strongly subsidized many products and services, like
housing, basic food items, and children’s wear as well as fashion ateliers
producing custom-made clothes. When the wages and salaries increased
at the same time as prices and the production figures remained constant or
grew only moderately, demand tended to exceed supply. The Soviet economy
suffered from hidden inflationary pressures which officially should not have
existed at all in a centrally planned economy. Demand and supply should
theoretically be in perfect balance in such an economy. The hidden inflation
was among other reasons due to the lack of qualified labor and competition in
the workforce. Wages tended to increase more rapidly than officially planned.
Another reason was the rising expectations among the population of
higher living standards which were, in fact, strongly encouraged by state
propaganda, which liked to compare all kinds of economic indicators with
those of the most advanced countries in the West. This peaceful competition
reached almost epidemic proportions during Khrushchev’s last years in the
early 1960’s: everything was compared against the measuring stick of the
USA, the most advanced capitalist country in the world, which the USSR was
supposed to reach and overcome in the near future. The scientific institutes of
The State Planning Committee, GOSPLAN, were ordered to study the secrets
of American productivity and experience in order to help make the Soviet
economy more competitive. (Cf. Khrushchev’s most notorious promise of
reaching the American production figures of beef in only a couple of years-
with the help of, among other things, his forced program of cultivating maize
and increasing chemical fertilization of farmed land.105) (Fig. 3.1.)
Every Soviet citizen thus had the right to expect an improvement in his
or her standard of living and in particular the improving availability of better
and more varied consumer goods. They could complain to the authorities if
they did or could not deliver what they promised. Complaining was in fact
a legally guaranteed right of every Soviet citizen.106
The people’s voice was an essential part of the Soviet democracy as
a weapon against the bureaucracy that threatened the Soviet system of

59
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

Fig. 3.1. Nikita Khrushchev with high COMECON officials at the exhibition of consumer
goods, Moscow June 1962.

government. The authorities had the obligation to register and investigate all
complaints, even anonymous ones, which were addressed to them in people’s
letters and reports. They encouraged people to submit their complaints not
only in order to find scapegoats but also to correct wrongdoings and avoid
negligence in the future. Consumer complaints could be addressed to several
authorities using various means. Every shop and service center, like a fashion
salon, shoe store, bank office or restaurant, had to have a notebook (kniga
zhalob i predlozhenii) always at their customers’ disposal in which they could
write down their complaints and suggestions. They could suggest how to
improve the situation either in a particular case or in the whole consumer
market, for instance by changing opening hours, improving the qualification
of the personnel, or sewing more fashionable clothes from modern fabrics
with bright colors.
During the annual or seasonal inspections the state inspectors were
obliged to get thoroughly acquainted with these books. The director of
the establishment had to answer for the complaints and, if the complaints
proved to be legitimate and well founded, explain in detail how his or her
organization intended to improve the situation and correct their mistakes.
A Soviet consumer who was dissatisfied either with the services or consumer
goods available could also complain directly to higher authorities in the
central administration of the industry, service or trade concerned. Such
instances equally had an obligation to take all these complaints seriously and
demand an explanation from their subordinates who were the targets of these
complaints. Furthermore, the local Communist Party organizations and cells
in the organization of trade and industry were another important address

60
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

for such complaints. Finally, consumers could always write complaints to the
Soviet press. The newspapers were legally required to inspect, in every case,
the cause of the complaint, demand an explanation from those concerned and
give an answer to the person or persons who had submitted it, within a strictly
limited period of time. Soviet newspapers often published their reader’s
letters and, if they thought that the problem had wider resonance, they might
send an investigative journalist to the site to find out what it was all about.
Readers’ letters could address very concrete matters from the lack of the right
size or color of summer shoes in the local shops to more general issues like
the notoriously bad quality and limited variety of textile dyes produced in
the whole country. Such complaints and reports were often one of the main
topics in local evening newspapers. They were quite popular among readers
and could fill up most of the columns of any single issue.107 We shall study
them in more detail in the last chapter of this book before the conclusion.
The most common focuses of complaints were transport, housing and
all kinds of consumer goods, clothing naturally included. The individual
complaints could address the limited availability or total non-existence
of certain goods, their bad quality, rude service and the long time needed
to queue for them. Many complaints targeted the misuse of favors and
corruption common in the delivery of scarce goods, as the main villain.108
Queues and queuing were particularly interesting topics since they were
such an essential part of the Soviet culture of consumption. Queues had an
informal ethical code of their own which in people’s minds regulated the
moral righteousness of the social relations among those queuing. Breaking
these rules was an offence which gave rise to many indignant comments and
laments addressed to the authorities and the press.
The social institutions of complaint had an important role as a safety
valve to citizens’ dissatisfaction, but complaining could give concrete results
too. Individual consumers could in fact receive some goods or services to
which they considered to have a legitimate right. They could get back the
money they had paid for their new boots which had not lasted more than
a couple of days, get a right to order a new suite from the tailor, or receive
a better apartment or even a private car for which they had queued for
years. Consumers’ complaints, if collected and systematically analyzed, also
acted as a substitute for market research since, in spite of their somewhat
ritualized form, they included important information about citizens’ genuine
needs and wants.109There are good reasons to think that complaints became
more ritualistic over time, and many common people lost faith in their
effectiveness in reaching the hoped for results.
The authorities tried to cope with the discrepancy between their promises
and the real achievements in several ways: by propagating the value of
more modest and decent ways of life less concentrated on the acquisition
of material goods, by promoting higher “spiritual” values, and through the
education of taste and introduction of various models and standards of
rational consumption. The education of popular taste in which the fashion
organizations were all involved in the Soviet Union was an integral part in
these efforts to restrain the demand for extravagant or exclusive clothes. At
the same time, the Soviet authorities promised almost unlimited growth and

61
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

universal gratification of all the needs and demands of every consumer. As

a matter of fact, this promise only concerned the so-called rational needs of
man.
The concept of rational needs became an object of intense scientific
research in the 1960s, after the approval of the Third Program of the
Communist party of the USSR in 1961. Philosophers, psychologists, social
scientists and economists joined forces to study the biological and social
genesis of human nature.110 They also studied Western theories, such as
Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, with great interest. They all
started from the presumption that human needs are not determined only
biologically but always include important historical and cultural elements as
well. Therefore, human needs are not stable and given once and for all but
develop gradually alongside the general progress of society. An important
conclusion for the economic planning followed from these considerations.
The standards and goals used in planning the living standards of the Soviet
citizens were not stable but had to be adjusted from time to time.
As a practical result of these studies the Soviet planners set concrete
standards of rational needs for all fields of light industry. Such measures
were, for instance, determined for the number of shoes and stockings each
individual needed each year. The discussion of rational needs had direct
implications for the politics of fashion as well. It was difficult to legitimate
the change of fashion as answering any rational need. For instance, in 1969
the Soviet newspaper Ekonomicheskaya gazeta informed its readers that
socialism had no real need for the rapid change of fashion: “Research has
proved that in our country as well as in the other socialist countries the
demand for approximately 30 percent of all fashion styles of clothes and
shoes remains the same for the period of three to five years. They make
up 60 to 70 per cent of the whole amount of production.”111 The All-Union
scientific congress “Fashion and clothes design at the enterprises” which
was held in Moscow in 1979 took up two actual topics: how to make the
Soviet consumers’ needs more rational and how to react to the changing
international fashion trends.112
It is understandable that the standards of rational needs could not be purely
objective but always included a strong element of political consideration too.
Even though it was easy to admit that all human beings needed shoes and
stockings to keep their feet warm, it was another matter to determine how
many and what kind of shoes they in fact needed every year. In any case,
these standards had an important practical and propagandistic role in Soviet
economic planning.113 The standards used as targets in various fields of light
industry were usually set somewhat higher than the prevailing standard of
living but not too high. The behavior and the expectations of the Soviet youth
were of special interest to the researchers of rational needs since they were
thought to represent the future and could also be more easily molded with
the help of education and propaganda.114
Stalin’s death in 1953 and, in particular, Khrushchev’s first years of power
witnessed a remarkable reorientation in the economic policies of the country
even though some tentative shifts had been noticed even before then. The
most important change concerned the politics of agriculture: “Investment in

62
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

agriculture was sharply increased, and by 1958 reached 250 per cent of the
1953 level.”115
These major investments in agriculture, together with improvements in
the economic and social position of the rural population and peasants, were
probably the most far reaching reforms. They proved to be irreversible. No
political leader or regime after Khrushchev changed this basic orientation.
Due to the “Virgin Lands” program, under which huge areas of previously
uncultivated land were taken into agricultural use, mainly in Kazakhstan in
Central Asia and the Altay region of the Russian Federation, the total area of
land sown rose by 17 per cent during the period 1953–1957. The monetary
incomes of collective farmers more than doubled between 1953 and 1958.
These reforms had the desired effect, increasing agricultural output by 55
percent between 1950 and 1960.116 Khrushchev’s historical initiative to buy
and import, for the first time in Soviet history, major amounts of grain from
the West to combat the effects of a bad harvest in 1963 proved to be decisive.
Due to these measures general famine did not plague the Soviet population
after the 1950s-even though occasionally and locally the Government still
had to take resort to food rationing even later. Due to the same measures
the standard of living of the bulk of the population increased substantially
for the first time since the 1920s. Income differentials, which had been very
high even according to international (capitalist) standards, also leveled out
during Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s early years in power, only to increase
again in Brezhnev’s later period.117
One can agree with Davies’ conclusion that the “1950s and the early
1960s were the golden years of the Soviet administrative economy.”118 These
coincided with the establishment of the Soviet system of fashion design and
industry. According to Soviet statistics the real income of the population
increased 2.5 times between 1940 and 1960 and 4 times between 1940 and
1970.119 The future of the Soviet economy looked bright. This was not only
due to the rapid and promising economic growth and increase in the general
standard of living-admittedly from a very low start-but also to the general
optimism which permeated the society and its ruling circles. These were
also the times when the Soviet economy could quite reasonably be thought
to be in an orbit that would, not too far in the future, cross the trajectory
of economic growth of the most advanced capitalist country, the USA.
The Soviet citizens could also have faith in the fact that Soviet society was
now really approaching its officially expressed ideals of socialism.120 The
authorities were fighting against corruption, income differences decreased,
collective services and goods were promoted, housing stock increased rapidly,
daily working hours were reduced, investments in education and health care
increased, minimum wages and pension schemes were introduced, and so
on. The acceleration of new housing construction had a direct impact on the
general standard of living (the stock of urban housing more than doubled
between 1950 and 1965).121 The gap between the production of capital goods
and consumer goods was much narrower now than in the 1930s.
The rapid growth rates of the 1950s were, however, achieved at a high
cost. The rate of investment was very high. As economic historians rather
unanimously explain, the rapid economic growth that created great hopes

63
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

among the Soviet ruling circles as well as among the common people
was based on the increase in the three main production factors, capital,
labor and land, and much less, compared to the capitalist West, on the
increase in productivity of these factors. In the 1950s, labor was available
in excess through immigration from the countryside. When economic
growth slowed down in the 1960s, only to become even slower in later Soviet
times, it demanded even more investments to keep it going.122 In addition
to natural factors like bad harvests, the main reasons for this slow-down
seemed to be the following: the low productivity of labor in agriculture
which demanded increasing investments in order to perform better or
even as well as before, and the slowness to generate and introduce technical
innovation which would have increased the productivity of labor and capital.
In 1955 the State Committee on New Technology was created to promote
the introduction of new technology into the Soviet economy. Khrushchev,
and in particular Brezhnev, tried to combat the low rate of inventiveness and
technological progress in Soviet industry by importing foreign technology
and know-how. The buying of whole industrial complexes on a turnkey basis
started with Khrushchev, who bought huge chemical plants from abroad
in order to modernize the production of chemical fertilizers. The Togliatti
car construction factory – bought from Fiat in Italy in the late 1960s – was
the most spectacular and most advertised of these industrial mega-import
projects.123 This, as well as the increase-even though quite modest-foreign
imports, food, clothes and textile included, tourism and other kinds of
cultural exchange, opened the country in many ways to more direct foreign
influences and Western models of consumption. In the beginning of the
1970s, after the oil crises and the rapid rise in the price of oil, the USSR
income from its oil exports increased remarkably, which again allowed it to
import more machinery and consumer goods, grain included.
In general the introduction of novelties was a bottleneck in the Soviet
economy. It was not encouraged enough economically. On the contrary,
it could often be economically quite disadvantageous to an enterprise. As
Hanson put it, “the Soviet economy was particularly weak in two areas:
agricultural production and the introduction and diffusion of new products
and processes.”124 It is understandable that fashion in particular, with its
seasonally changing styles and repeated introduction of novelties, was
a major problem in the centrally planned economy.
The Soviet authorities and experts tried to combat these problems. They
talked about the necessity of changing from extensive economic growth to
intensive growth by various measures and reforms and put great hopes in
the capacity of science to generate technical innovations of a new kind and
at a totally new level, or the scientific technical revolution as the Soviets
called it. Systems theory and new big computers were expected to soon solve
many of the technical problems of central planning. Some economists were
convinced that with the help of systems theory they could learn to better
plan and control even the fashion cycles by learning to better forecast and
control trends in fashion.
Despite these economic problems generally recognized by the Soviet
leadership and economic experts in the 1970s, no new major economic

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

reforms were suggested or tried after 1965 until Gorbachev’s perestroika

in the mid-1980s. (In practice and informally economic enterprises
were nevertheless allowed more flexibility in their operations.) Hanson
emphasized, however, the importance of another non-economic factor:
the slackening of the control of the authoritarian state, which Khrushchev
started and which was never seriously questioned by any of his successors.
“He weakened the social control on which an authority-intensive economic
system depended.”125 It is of course pure speculation to wonder whether the
tightening of this social control – ideologically or by force – would have
made the use of resources in the economy any more effective, in particular
taking into account the multiplication of the economic units and the
increasing complexity reached by the whole economic system in the 1960s.
For instance, the authorities tried to cope with the problems plaguing the
fashion industry by opening several parallel and partly competing fashion
organizations, not by tightening their central control. The new demands of
a more qualified, specialized workforce also made the old direct methods
of command and control more problematic. As the permanent tensions
between the tendencies of increased central control and the increasing
independence of the economic units showed, detailed control from above
of their all movements had become increasingly difficult, costly and often
counter-productive.
Despite the gradual slowdown of economic growth after the second
half of the 1960s, the general standard of living did improve even during
those years, even though more slowly than before. According to Hanson126
consumption increased quite rapidly even between 1963 and 1973, 3.9
per cent per annum per capita: “It was not, by West European or North
American standards, a time of plenty, but it was unquestionably a time of
real improvement.”127 The figures in some particular fields of consumer
goods production prove that by the 1960s – and even more so during the
1970s-the major problems were no longer the quantities produced but their
distribution, availability and quality. According to statistics collected by the
CIA, hosiery and knitwear production increased from 17.74 million pieces
and pairs in 1950s to 103.77 million in 1970.128 The production of socks and
stockings increased from about 500 million pairs in 1950 to 1,338 million
pairs in 1970.129 The amount of leather footwear increased from 272 million
pairs in 1955 to 456 million pairs in 1962.130 The share of import in the sales
of these consumer goods was always quite modest. For instance only 8 per
cent of all leather shoes were imported to the USSR as late as 1980.131 The
Soviet Union exported only 2–3 percent of the consumer goods it produced
to other countries and imported – in different years in the 1960–1980s –
from 12 to18 percent.132
In some areas of consumer goods production the state provisioning was,
however, rather successful, at least in quantitative terms, and did not lag
much behind the capitalist West. In the late 1960s and 1970s some consumer
durables and items of home technology that belonged to any standard
household in the West, like sewing machines, TV sets, radio receivers,
refrigerators and washing machines, had also become quite common in
Soviet households. In 1973 the USSR had, per thousand people, 216 radios,

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

295 TV sets, 142 refrigerators and 173 washing machines.133 Moreover,

a large assortment of TV sets of various models and price classes, produced
by a great number of factories, were available on the market – whether they
really were available in practice at the same time and place to most of the
customers is another question. Despite these achievements the Soviet Union
clearly lagged behind leading Western countries in all these fields of consumer
goods. In the USA almost every house hold owned one or even more TV sets,
radio receivers and refrigerators and the most advanced Western European
countries were following rapidly. The discrepancy in favor of the capitalist
West was even more drastic in the number of private cars as well as in the
general standard of housing. Compared to the average level of wages these
durable goods, the possession of which the great majority of American
households took for granted, were also much more expensive in the USSR.
The rapidly increasing production figures of textiles and clothing, as well
as many other consumer goods, tell only part of the story. Due to the low
quality of the consumer goods produced by Soviet industry and distributed
to citizens a large percentage of the annual production was returned to the
shops after purchase. According to a study of household budgets in 1986,
citizens had made complaints about the quality of the things they had bought
in about 20 per cent of the cases as far as knitwear was concerned, over 15
per cent in other clothes and as much as 35 per cent in shoes.134 Boots and
shoes were a particular problem since, unlike clothes, people could not make
or repair them at home.
It was a generally known fact among the population and to a great extent
acknowledged even by the authorities that the service sector remained
underdeveloped all through Soviet times. There was a rapid increase in the
post-war years but it did not grow much after 1965. For instance, the number
of shoe shops increased from 295 in 1940 to 2583 in 1965 but remained
almost the same after that. The same was true of clothing shops: their amount
increased from a meager 173 in 1940 to 2701 in 1965 but had not reached
even three thousand by 1980. The chain of shops selling knitwear, underwear,
accessories and cosmetics grew more rapidly.135 The share of workers in trade
and public catering is even more telling of the low emphasis on services in
the USSR. Only 6.6 percent of all those employed in the national economy
worked in these sectors in the USSR in 1988. In the USA the corresponding
figure was 16.7 and in Japan 16.2 percent.136 269 workers per ten thousand
people worked in trade and public catering in the USSR, compared to 772
in the USA and 785 in Japan in the same year.137 It was quite obvious that
Soviet citizens were served by remarkably fewer (2–3 times fewer) personnel
in trade and the service sector than was the case in the capitalist West. The
salaries in the trade and service sectors were also lower than in most other
branches of the Soviet economy, a sign of their low official status in the USSR.
At the same time, at the end of the 1980s, according to the official
statistics, the Soviet Union had one barber’s shop or hairdresser per 5.5,
one photo studio per 18.4 and one dry cleaner’s shop per 141.9 thousand
inhabitants.138 In the 1970s these services were increasingly concentrated
in bigger cities and local centers in the houses of everyday services (Doma
byta) under the Ministries of Everyday Services. These units were quite large,

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

Fig. 3.2. Working class women in Moscow district, in the middle of the 1960s.

with many employees. In many ways they followed the model well known
from Western shopping centers or malls which combined several service
and trade units of various kinds under the same roof. Soviet service centers
also had, as a rule, a fashion atelier where the local customers could order
custom made clothes. Just like many other enterprises of the service sector
and trade, their number increased rapidly in the 1960s, from 24.000 in 1959
to 40.000 in 1970. After that their numbers hardly grew at all. The amount
of shoemakers’ shops in the whole country remained more or less the same,
at about 30.000, during this whole period.139
Despite these improvements the GNP per capita never exceeded much
over 35 per cent of that of the USA. The best years in this respect were from
the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. At the end of the 1970s and in particular in the
1980s the Soviet economy slowed down remarkably. Despite the slowing of
its growth rates, the general material well-being of the Soviet population was
highest in the 1980s. The Soviet consumer goods industry produced at that
time three pairs of shoes, 27 square meters of cotton textiles, 2.4–2.7 square
meters of woolen textiles and 7 square meters of silk per capita per year.140
(Fig. 3.2.)

Economic-administrative reforms

In 1957, Khrushchev started a general administrative reform by creating

Sovnarkhozy (Councils of the People’s Economy), new kinds of regional
organs of economic administration which replaced the previous ministries
responsible for the administration of the various fields of industry on the
All-Union level. This reform was motivated by the need for coordinating

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

economic management in the regions and directed against the excessive

centralization of economic decision making in Moscow. The Sovnarkhozy
had total economic jurisdiction within their region. The ministries of light,
food and local industry were closed down and their enterprises converted
to these new Sovnarkhozy. Under these circumstances Gosplan became
more important as almost the only coordinating organ on the All-Union
level. The whole territory of the USSR was divided into big economic-
administrative regions on the basis of the former regions (oblast’) or Soviet
republics. In 1957, 70 such regional Sovnarkhozy were established in the
RSFSR, 11 in Ukraine, 9 in Kazakhstan, 4 in Uzbekistan and one for all
the other, smaller republics. The three Baltic republics, Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania, formed one Sovnarkhoz each. Soon their overall number was
reduced to 47. The purpose of this reform was to make the economy more
effective by creating bigger economic production units and encouraging
cooperation at the regional level. This was done by combining a large
number of previously independent production units into a new, bigger
complex enterprise that could better utilize the local resources and assets. In
1960, the third administrative system in the Soviet production of consumer
goods, the cooperatives, was closed down. Thus the new Sovnarkhozy were,
in the beginning of the 1960s, expected to administer all the enterprises of
consumer goods industry in their own region of three previously separate
administrative economic systems: the Ministry of Light Industry, the
Ministry of Local Industry and the cooperatives. In practice, they were
responsible for the future of tens of thousands of production units, which
they centralized with a heavy hand into locally and regionally integrated big
industrial conglomerates. The system of cooperative enterprises was now
closed down. It contained 54.700 enterprises in 1956 which, according to
different sources, employed together between 1.2 million and 1.8 million
workers.141
The result of these administrative reforms was the creation of big
“Soviet firms” or industrial conglomerates usually uniting one main big
enterprise with several smaller or medium sized production units that
fulfilled complementary functions and produced some smaller parts for
the needs of the main firm. This could help the main enterprise to produce,
for instance, more fine clothes with various accessories and details. The
results were controversial. After Khrushchev resigned from power in 1965
the whole system was shut down and the old ministries, working in their
functionally divided fields, were re-established. Everything was not restored,
however. The structure of economic administration had changed for good.
For instance, in Leningrad alone the total number of 400 enterprises of local
industry had been reduced to less than half, 163.142
When the old system of economic ministries was re-established in 1966
these big enterprises were mostly not dispersed. The enterprises of light
industry were preserved in full state ownership and placed under two
separate administrative systems, those of the Light and Local Industries. The
decision to close down the system of the production cooperatives remained
in effect and neither were many of the previous production units of local
industry returned under the newly re-established Ministry of Local Industry.

68
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

Fig. 3.3. An assembly line of male suits at the big Moscow garment factory, Bol’shevichka,
1965.

They had either been totally liquidated or become an integral part of their
new, large mother enterprises. The productivity of labor in the enterprises
of local industry and the cooperatives was undoubtedly much lower than in
the bigger enterprises of the Ministry of Light Industry.143 This was not only
the result of their smaller size but also the fact that they were, compared to
the bigger “real industrial” units, as a rule underfinanced and did not receive
modern machinery or technology from the state. Often they simply inherited
old machines from bigger industrial enterprises. On the other hand, they
often made use of the local raw materials and could produce consumer
goods, clothes, dresses and accessories that were better adapted to the needs
and habits of the various localities. By producing smaller amounts of each
of their products they also acted as a welcome alternative to the highly
standardized mass production of big industry.
However, the Soviet policy of consumption all through Soviet times
prioritized the satisfaction of the basic needs of the population by producing
in as great a number as possible a few standardized items. (Fig. 3.3.) The
closing of many parallel, smaller units of local industry and cooperatives
often totally stopped the production of many necessary and popular items
of consumption – not to speak of their diminishing assortment – which
the authorities regarded as less important or prestigious. It was not at all
uncommon that, at the same time as new TV sets and refrigerators were on
sale in the Soviet shops one often had to search for such “trivial” or “low-
tech” goods as needles, threads, colorful ribbons. According to the established
division of labor, local industry was mainly responsible for producing all
such small and technically simple consumer goods since they were not
regarded as profitable enough for bigger industry. Therefore it was difficult
to guarantee their regular availability in shops all over the Soviet Union.

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

The reforms of 1965, often referred to as Kosygin’s144 reforms because the

Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin was their main advocate,
aimed at an increase in the productivity of labor in Soviet enterprises, this
time by decentralizing economic decision making and by various kinds of
economic stimuli attractive to both directors and workers alike. Kosygin had
a background in the textile industry. Industrial enterprises could now earn
bonuses for exceeding their sales and profitability targets, which produced
higher payments into the bonus funds.145 To make the planning more
effective and flexible, the indicators of economic performance were limited
to basics. The enterprises could also use their own production-development
funds for decentralized investments. One of the purposes of the reform
was to promote (direct, that is not authorized and controlled via Moscow
planning offices) inter-enterprise trade.
This major economic reform experienced a destiny similar to the previous
ones. It met a lot of resistance from various quarters. Its implementation took
a long time and was at best only half-hearted; only part of the economy ever
adopted it; the ministries neglected it and simply went on using the same
indicators as before. Gradually, after a few years it was more or less forgotten-
even though some parts of it prevailed, like the bonus systems.
As Hanson argued, the main reason for its at least partial failure despite
many good intentions and ideas was that there was, after all, not much that
an enterprise could decide on independently outside of the central plans
and administration: “If nearly all the output of nearly all enterprises was
covered by production and allocation plans, enterprises had next to nothing
in which they could trade with one another ... all (or almost all) tools and
building materials were pre-empted by existing allocation plans, they already
had an address to go to.”146 In his opinion, “Only if enterprise output targets
were done away altogether, and centralized supply allocations along with
them, would it really have been possible to decentralize economic decision
making.”147
These well-meant reforms stopped half way because their introduction
brought to light problems and discrepancies that could not be handled
as long as the main directives of the system, and in particular its totally
centralized mechanism of price formation and allocation of financial and
other resources, remained intact. To take orders for new, higher quality
goods from the trade organizations, for instance, often proved unprofitable
to industry. The strictly centralized system of determining prices was one
of the cornerstones of Soviet planning which the authorities were not at
all willing to abandon. As Hanson claimed such economic reforms, even
if on the one hand badly needed and recognized as necessary both by the
majority of the economic experts and the political leaders, often proved to be
counterproductive and therefore did not reach their goals. In consequence,
they were often totally abandoned or modified to a great extent. After all, “...
the traditional Soviet economic system was a coherent whole; modifications
to it that devolved decision making, bringing internal inconsistencies, were
likely to worsen economic performance...”148
The trade exhibitions organized annually from the early 1970s in the
consumer goods industry are a good example of later and more limited efforts

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

to improve market relations between the Soviet firms. Instead of any large
scale economic reforms, a more extensive and unofficial decentralization
of economic control took place gradually in the USSR in the 1960s and
increasingly during Brezhnev’s later years in power in the 1970s and early
1980s. Western sovietologists referred to it as Brezhnev’s “Little Deal”
(introduced by James Millar in 1985 following Vera Dunham’s already
classical label for Stalin’s “perestroika” in the early 1950s as Stalin’s own
“Big Deal”149). The rapid growth and proliferation of unofficial economic
activities, legal, half-legal and illegal, during Brezhnev’s times are all evidence
of this “Little Deal.” As Millar argued,150

Brezhnev leadership struck a new but tacit bargain with the urban population: to
tolerate the expansion of a whole range of petty private economic activities, some
legal, some in the penumbra of the legal, and some clearly and obviously illegal,
the primary aim of which was their allocation by private means of a significant
fraction of Soviet national income according to private preferences.

It is important to note that this reallocation did not concern only consumer
goods and services but also trade and exchange between economic
enterprises. An extensive network of tolkachi, commissioned middle-men or
contactors employed directly by the factories and trade organizations, were
active in helping the firms to find the right exchange partners to get their
necessary production materials and machines. To a great extent they acted
completely legally, but in the Soviet economic system the borders between
legal, semi-legal and illegal were negotiable and changed from time to time.
Informal rules and practices, tolerated and even encouraged by the higher
authorities, were often more important. They were tolerated particularly if
they were regarded to be beneficial to the functioning and stability of the
system. Millar’s main point is that during Brezhnev’s reign these unofficial
practices became more numerous and more flexible. This did not mean that
directors or vice directors of economic enterprises could no longer be put on
trial and severely punished for their illegal activities. On the contrary, such
widely publicized show trials served as important examples in drawing the
lines between what was politically tolerated and what was not.
Millar’s original claim was, after all, rather hypothetical and rested more
on theoretical reasoning about the functional needs of the system for more
flexibility. It has also received empirical evidence in its support from, for
instance, the analyses and comparison of the court cases publicized in
the press and the publicly announced punishments in Khrushchev’s and
Brezhnev’s times respectively151 as well as by the estimates of the rapid
increase in income from the “shadow economy.” According to Bokarev’s
estimates,152 illegal income increased more rapidly than the legal income
of the population during the two post-war periods, the late 1950s and
from the late 1960s onwards (his calculations end in 1974). Even though
such calculations include many uncertainties, together with other similar
evidence they make Millar’s thesis of Brezhnev’s Little Deal quite plausible.
According to Millar, as well as in the opinion of many other observers,
semi-legal or illegal dealings involving private consumers were especially

71
3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

common in many service activities, for example hairdressing, auto services,

electric appliance repair and medical care, as well as in the fashion ateliers
and other Soviet units of domestic services. According to some unofficial
calculations, the share of the second economy was, in many fields of services
like home renovation, house or car repair huge covering 80–70 per cent of
the whole market in the 1970s.153 The share of the second economy must
have been equally large in the clothing industry. At the same time it is
a good example of the principal difficulty in determining exact limits to the
second economy, which could include everything from asking a favor from
a neighbor or a friend known to be good at sewing clothes to the private
services of the workers of the state owned fashion ateliers and workshops
using the facilities and raw materials available at their work place. All the
private persons operated illegally if they received any compensation for
their work simply because they did not pay any taxes for their income. In
this way the state lost huge amounts of potential income. The new service
centers that the Soviet Government started opening in the 1960s regularly
had a state owned fashion atelier. These were expected to gradually compete
the private, small scale entrepreneurs out of business. Because of rapidly
increasing demand they never seriously succeeded in threatening the status
of the illegal or semi-legal business.
Almost everyone, including many prominent party members, KGB,
and police officers, had obtained some goods this way, through relations or
acquaintances, po blatu. From the point of view of formal legality, almost
everyone was involved in illegal or at least semi-legal activities and could,
if the authorities pressed the issue, be accused of breaking the rules. These
“offenses” could certainly vary a great deal, from help and presents received
from close relatives and family members, colleagues or friends who were in a
position to have access to some-as such not very valuable and quite ordinary-
goods and services, to small bribes and presents given to people who had the
power to deliver valuable or scarce goods or services, such as apartments,
cars, summer cottages, books, better cuts of beef, caviar or imported shoes
and suits and to more serious and large scale bribing of one’s superiors
and the representatives of the controlling organizations (“real,” large-scale
economic criminality). As already mentioned these dealings could often
go on for a long time and develop into permanent blat relations, of mutual
giving and taking of “presents” and favors. In later Soviet times only some
serious cases-or some warning examples-were publicly prosecuted. High-
ranking Party members were often not put on trial. They were handled, if at
all, by the responsible party organs which reprimanded them. Small offenses
were often dealt only in a “heart to heart talk” between the offender and the
representatives of his own Party organ. As Clark argued, the KGB collected
evidence of such dealings that could incriminate party members, economic
directors and civil servants but kept such evidence to itself. Thus it could,
when needed, be used in internal power struggles among the nomenclature.
(This was obviously the case when the Soviet leader Jury Andropov started
the campaign against corruption in Moscow in 1983.154)
At times private economic activities could assume large proportions. For
instance, some entrepreneurial local directors could organize wide networks

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

between all kinds of industrial and trade enterprises which produced and
sold, for instance, leather clothes and fur coats or shoes, privately alongside
the official plans and budgets. The quite common practice of producing
small series of fashionable clothes and selling them in the small boutiques
adjoined to the fashion houses (firmennye magaziny) were a good example
of Soviet entrepreneurship on the margins of the illegal and legal. It was at
times tolerated but never authorized by the central authorities. The directors
and leading designers of many fashion houses and ateliers were eager to start
producing small series of their own designs, which gave much more freedom
to their artistic creativity than the industrially mass produced clothes but
was not as exclusive as the design of unique clothes for the ateliers. These
experiments remained short-lived and were not allowed to grow remarkably.
After all they did not really fit into the planned economy, which always
favored highly standardized large scale production.
At the same time, “special access stores,” “closed” ateliers or medical
clinics, as well as other special systems of distribution of goods and services
prospered during Brezhnev’s later years.155 Due to the widespread permanent
shortages of consumer goods, practically all important state institutions, like
the ministries, Academy of Sciences and party and trade union divisions
had their own shops, ateliers, medical centers, children’s summer camps
and summer resorts, housing establishments, etc. which provided their
own employees with highly-valued goods. One of the functions of these
privileges was to act as incentives to labor. The employees had access to
these privileges according to their official rank. For instance an academician,
a full member of the academy, had access to better and more varied services
than an ordinary researcher or doctor of science. The same was true of the
employees of the Communist Party. All enjoyed privileges but the members
of the Central Committee had more privileges than others and the members
of the Politburo even more. There is no available general data about the
various units of “closed” service, open only to the employees of a specific
organization.156 Moscow had in the 1980s about 800 “closed” ateliers of
individual sewing, open to a restricted clientele only, which was about as
many as the number of all other, ordinary ateliers which were open to all
customers without restrictions.

The main peculiarities of the Soviet consumer society

By the beginning of the 1960s the standard of living of most of the

population, both urban and rural, had reached such levels that access to
daily necessities, basic food items and clothing included, was more or less
certain. The improvement was most rapid among the rural population since
the starting conditions had been the lowest. The immigration of the rural
population to the cities and the increasing monetary compensation of labor
in the countryside (previously peasants were often paid in natural products
and not in currency), the introduction of a general state pension system,
and other similar measures led to the rapidly growing monetary demand for
better food items and other consumer goods. An increasing share of such

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

transactions and acquisitions took place on the market (either in state shops
or in the kolkhoz peasant’s market). When, during Brezhnev’s later years,
the income differentials were allowed to increase and the shadow economy
and the illegal income from it increased remarkably, many people came to
have money at their disposal. In addition, some groups of the population
had a lot of money, legally and illegally earned, at their disposal. The
percentage of the urban and educated population increased rapidly too. One
could therefore claim that sometime during the late 1960s and early 1970s
the basic elements and preconditions of the Soviet consumer society were
created. There were people around who had money at their disposal, who
were eager to consume new, more varied and better consumer goods of all
kinds (“commodity hunger”) and whose level of aspiration was increasing
and becoming more individualized.157 This had an impact on the Soviet
fashion industry above all.
The relationship of the Communist Party and the Soviet authorities to
all kinds of expressions of consumerism, or individual acquisitiveness, was
highly ambivalent in practice. They both condemned it as a harmful remnant
of the petit bourgeois mentality158 and at the same time expressed as their
desired goal to reach or even overcome the material standard of living of
Western Europe or the US – even if they did not unquestioningly buy into
its whole “consumerist” lifestyle. The capitalist West was worth copying but
only selectively. Even though Soviet society thus developed or copied with
a short delay many features of the modern Western consumer society, it also
radically differed from the latter in many important respects.
Due to the price policy which kept the prices of many ordinary consumer
goods artificially low and stable as well as the hidden inflationary pressure
caused by increasing wages, many goods, even the most ordinary ones, were
in defitsit, in shortage. The demand for defitsit consumer goods exceeded
their supply. While short-term shortages exist even in a market economy,
under socialism many products could be in permanent short supply because
their demand outgrew their supply more or less permanently due to their
relatively low prices and limited volume of production. Private cars were
among the best known examples of such defitsits but even many more
mundane and less expensive consumer goods, like various garments and
shoes, were often more or less in permanent short supply – or defitsits.
Access to them demanded either long queuing, trips to the bigger cities, and
a lot of effort, if they were at all available in ordinary shops. Despite rapid
and even forceful increases in production, shortages and queues did not
disappear. As the country became gradually richer, increasing amounts of
the produced goods could not find buyers and languished on shop selves and
in warehouses. They were either of bad quality, too expensive (compared to
other, similar products) or simply not fashionable and stylish enough.
Since the import of foreign consumer goods was always quite limited,
many foreign goods enjoyed a special aura of prestige and luxury. If available
at all, there was a great shortage of them in the state shops and therefore they
could be sold on the black market for exorbitant prices. This was particularly
true of Western clothing and shoes, gramophone discs, cigarettes, cosmetics,
and so on.159

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

In addition to the state-owned channels of distribution, consumer goods

could be acquired in legal and illegal private markets where the prices were
usually much higher. The kolkhoz market probably came closest to the “real
market” with market prices in the USSR even though its price structure also
depended on the prices and availability of food items in the state shops. An
official secondhand market existed too and, even more importantly, a large
informal black market. It is difficult to name any other piece of clothing that
enjoyed as important a symbolic position in the consumer goods market
of the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s as the “American” jeans. Real
American jeans, like Levis or Wrangler, were highly cherished and difficult to
acquire trousers which could be sold on the black market for huge amounts
of money. They could be compared to nylon shirts and stockings, legally or
illegally imported from the West, which had a similar position in the 1950s.
The reasons for their high value among the more fashion conscious Soviet
population are easy to explain. They symbolized the modern Western and
American style of life and were hard to get. The Soviet Union did import
many consumer goods from the West, like nylon shirts and men’s suits from
Finland, but the amounts were always small compared to the total size of the
market. Even if clothes imported from the West were more expensive than
their domestic counterparts there was no lack of Soviet customers ready to
pay these higher prices. Lee Cooper jeans were, for instance, imported to the
Soviet Union from Finland but never in great numbers.160 Instead, the Soviets
produced their own jeans, a solution which was quite common in many
other fields of light industry. Despite their obvious ideological connotations
the Soviet textile industry made several efforts to start producing them in the
1970s. It faced serious technical problems in trying to produce good denim
clothes made solely out of cotton. The first Soviet-made jeans saw day-light
in 1973 and in 1975 Soviet industry produced 16.8 million jeans.161 In 1978
the denim fabric Orbita made wholly out of cotton went into production.
According to Bartlett, this was the fifty-sixth attempt to produce real denim
fabric in the Soviet Union.162 Earlier in the 1970s the Soviet industrialists had
made efforts to buy denim fabric machines on license from the States but for
some reason these attempts came to nothing.
By the end of the 1970s, Soviet-made jeans were, however, finally
available to the Soviet youth in great quantities. They never succeeded in
truly challenging the status of “real” American jeans which continued to be
sold for high prices on the black market until the final opening of the Russian
consumer goods market to import from the West in the 1990s.
Since the state gave some important goods and services, like housing,
medical care, public transport and basic education, more or less free of charge
to customers, they did not have to use their money for these purposes, which
often formed the greatest part of the household budgets in the advanced
capitalist countries of the West. Again, access and availability were the main
problems, not the price (that is, access to better medical services, apartments,
summer cottages, better schools, sidestepping long queues, etc.).
The infrastructure of trade and services was underdeveloped in the Soviet
Union compared with the developed capitalist countries, Japan included.
Many better quality and more specialized services and goods were available

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

only in a few big cities, Moscow in particular. This is certainly true in all
countries to an extent – every village cannot have special shops and ateliers
– but by all standards the Soviet system of distribution was much more
centralized and concentrated in big cities and urban centers than was the
case in the developed capitalist countries.
Regional differences in the provisioning of consumer goods and food
items remained quite large all through Soviet times, both between big cities
and smaller towns, between the town and countryside and between the
Western Russian parts of the USSR and its more distant regions, like Central
Asia. To take an example, in the 1980s and 1990s in Soviet Uzbekistan the
share of clothing in the family budgets of workers and civil servants was
only 17.4 percent, resp. 16.4 percent. Among the Uzbek kolkhoz peasants
expenses for food were very high, over 40 percent.163 Taken into account
that in Uzbekistan families had more members than in the European parts
of Russia, one can draw the conclusion that an Uzbek family had much less
money to use on the clothing of individual members than a family in Moscow
or some other Russian town had. Under the circumstances of the serious
shortages of many consumer goods, the state chose to pay less attention
to the provisioning of the periphery than the center. The difference in the
quality of life, standards of consumption and cultural possibilities between
the town and the countryside, between the center and the periphery did not
narrow but tended to become wider – which caused much dissatisfaction
among the population.
Even though advertising and other types of commercial promotion of
brands and specific commodities and services (an important feature of the
Western consumer society) was limited in the USSR, news about new goods
and services reached the populace quite widely via other channels. News
and information about novelties was regularly publicized in the Soviet press.
Special trade journals like the fashion journals were printed and circulated
in large editions. The monthly journal Novye tovary (New Commodities)
started in the mid- 1950s. It was quite popular and wholly dedicated to
the presentation of the novelties of the Soviet consumer goods industry
and trade, shoes, clothes and all kinds of accessories included. Among the
many efforts to improve the consumer goods situation and to overcome the
economy of shortages, one solution was to emphasize and invest in certain
particular luxurious items of consumption, as spearheads of the Soviet trade
and consumer goods industry, which were then advertised widely as the great
achievements of the Soviet economy. They did not necessarily contribute
much to the general quality of life of ordinary Soviet citizens. The numerous
fashion houses and institutions are a good example of this kind of policy.
Even though they certainly, despite many problems and shortcomings, did
make a big difference in the mass production of clothing in the USSR, they
acted as much as propagandists and role models of a better life to come
with their exquisite fashion shows, luxurious fashion journals and fashion
ateliers, which despite their relatively great numbers could naturally service
only a very limited part of the urban population. These flagships of Soviet
trade existed alongside an ever more centralized and standardized mass

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3. Economic Development and Standard of Living in the USSR after the Second World War

Fig. 3.4. A housewife participating in a popular evening class of cutting and sewing
clothes inspects a prototype of a fashionable dress, Moscow 1954.

consumption. They gave inspiration and offered new designs to millions of

Soviet women who sewed their own clothes at home or had them sewn in
small ateliers. At the same time, they helped to preserve and even strengthen
the role of traditional housework and female labor which officially should
have been abolished from Soviet society, presumed to be living under the
conditions of advanced, victorious socialism. For most women, the only way
to dress themselves better and more fashionably was to sew their own clothes
or to ask a colleague, neighbor or friend, well known for their sewing skills,
to sew them following some new patterns published in a fashion journal or
album. (Fig. 3.4.)
The discrepancy between what the fashion houses propagated and
presented in their shows and fashion journals and what was in fact for sale in
the ordinary clothing shops kept up the dissatisfaction of the consumers and
encouraged them to complain about the shortages, bad quality and meager
assortment of clothes and accessories. As Zygmunt Bauman argued164, under
socialism the State and the ruling Party promised to satisfy the needs of its
citizens, a promise they could not possibly keep under the conditions of
increasing diversification and individualization of consumers’ demand.

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow,
All-Union Fashion House

T he Moscow House of Fashion Design of Clothes was founded in the

beginning of 1944 under the People’s Commissariat of Light Industry-
more than a year before the end of the war! Knowing that the final victory
was approaching the Soviet Government gave an unusual present to its
people, thus concretely showing that they took care of their own. What
could be done to brighten the lives of people returning home after four hard
war years? What could be more natural than to promote the production of
decent civilian clothing? It was crucial for the citizens to be able to throw
away their uniforms and quilted jackets and dress themselves beautifully
and fashionably, to enjoy the fruits of victory. Fashion and beauty were
excellent medicine for the wounds of war. This is what we can imagine
the leaders of the country reasoned among themselves. They decided to
forcefully promote the emergence of real professional fashion design in the
country. It was decided that the best artists and designers should thenceforth
have the main responsibility for designing new clothing. Furthermore, the
garment factories were also expected to reorient their production following
these better clothing patterns and not their own old pre-war ones. What was
needed, above all, was to rapidly enlarge the clothing market, which had
been very restricted during the war. In practice, the only options people had
were to repair and remake their pre-war clothes or wear their old military
uniforms and war loot that they brought back from the front.
According to the plans, all goods that were out of fashion and unattractive
would disappear. Soon Soviet people would be able to find in any clothing
shop only the most exclusive and fashionable clothes. The great advantages
of the socialist, planned economy would become evident in the production
of fashion too. The state planning and control of the garment factories would
guarantee the provisioning of high quality textiles, highly qualified workers,
modern machines and the latest technology, and exclusively fashionable
sewing patterns. Consequently there would not be anything to prevent the
population of the USSR from changing their outer appearance completely
in the near future, dressing themselves in brand new clothes and feeling
themselves real “aristocrats of fashion.” This is how it all looked in the plans,
which unfortunately proved to be as far removed from reality as the whole
coming Communist society.

78
4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

The moment for this revolution of fashion was well selected. After the
end of the war the garment factories already had to reorient their production
for the needs of peaceful existence, which had been almost totally neglected
during the four long years of war. It was only natural to take advantage of the
situation and to start producing from the very beginning civilian clothes of
only the best and most fashionable kind. The authorities thought this could
best be achieved by the same methods of military directives and commands
that had been effective during wartime. As soon became evident, however,
fashion was not as easy to command as the army.
The textile and garment industry concentrated under the People’s
Commissariat (later Ministry) of Light Industry had the main responsibility
for the rapid recovery and strengthening of the market for mass-produced
consumer goods with the help of fashionable, high-quality clothing. These
factories did not, however, have their own designers and pattern makers
anymore since the research and development laboratories and workshops
that had been established shortly before the war had all been closed down
during the war. There was also another problem: in order to provide the
factories with the new clothing patterns to be sewn on assembly lines it was
not enough just to provide pleasing new designs. Also needed were total
setups of technical documentation, including detailed industrial patterns
and instructions. In order to solve the problem, a centralized system of
professional design and pattern makers was created within the People’s
Commissariat of Light Industry with the explicit purpose of serving all the
garment factories in the whole country.
Such a system was created over a few major stages and periods. In the first
stage (1944–1948) only a few regional houses of fashion design existed in the
major cities of the country, the Moscow House of Fashion Design (MDMO)
from 1944 onwards as the leader among them. A decree of the Soviet of the
People’s Commissars of the RSFSR (the Government of the Russian Republic;
April 23, 1944), with an almost simultaneous order from the Moscow City
Administration of Light Industry, founded the MDMO in April 1944.165
(Fig. 4.1.) The archival documents reveal that the original plans stem from
January 1944, when the war was still being fought on all fronts and the siege
of Leningrad had not yet been broken. The Leningrad House of Fashion
Design appeared a bit later, in 1945.
By August 1948 such houses existed in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk
and Riga. By the beginning of the next year their number had increased
to 12.166 They provided new clothing designs with the attached complete
technical documentation to the garment factories mainly in their own Soviet
Republic or region.
In 1949 the Moscow House of Fashion Design received the status of
the All-Union House (ODMO) and the whole system of fashion design
institutions became centrally organized. All the other houses of fashion
design and other institutes in the field were subsumed under its leadership in
questions of design methods, trend-setting, quality control and so on. During
1944–1948 designing was separated from pattern making and consequently
MDMO and the other regional houses of fashion design under the Ministry
of Light Industry concentrated their efforts on developing new designs. In

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

Fig. 4.1. Front page of the post–war issue of Zhurnal mod (Journal of Fashion) published
by ODMO in 1945.

general, pattern making was the prerogative of the garment factories. In

1949, when ODMO was created and the whole system was reorganized, this
division of labor was considered a mistake. Starting in 1948–1949 all the
houses of fashion design designed prototypes of new clothes, made their
patterns, and provided factories with the necessary technical documentation.
In other words, they provided the clothing factories with everything they
needed to start producing new designs at once. In a way this concluded the
first stage of the construction of the system of fashion design in the Soviet
Union.167 In the 1970s, the number of the republican and regional houses of
fashion design was almost 40 and their activities covered all the republics and
regions belonging to the country.

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

Many of the main principles of Soviet fashion as well as the general

Soviet approach to fashion design were set down as early as the second
half of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, mainly through the
practice of the Moscow, later All-Union, House of Fashion Design. From
its foundation in 1944 it was expected to be economically self-sustaining,
covering its expenses mainly by selling its new designs to the garment
factories in the Moscow region. These enterprises, often working on
minimal budgets, preferred not to order anything at all, instead using their
own pre-war designs. They could get away with this because under the post-
war conditions the consumer demand of the population was very modest
– not only fashionable but also almost any kind of cheap or practical
clothing could find customers immediately. Therefore, the only alternative
MDMO had was to create and propose new designs for the factories on
its own initiative, often at great economic risk and often resulting in great
losses. In addition to serving the factories in the capital area, in the second
half of the 1940s the designers in Moscow started to cooperate with the
enterprises in other areas of the country, including regions which had
only recently suffered from German occupation and which were therefore
entitled to special help without any extra financial compensation.168
Since industrial design proved to be unprofitable under the prevailing
conditions, MDMO’s main source of income in 1944–1947 was in fact the
orders from the Glavosobtorg, a department of the Ministry of Trade engaged
in commercial trade, which was allowed in the country in those years. People
were willing to pay high, commercial prices only for fashionable and good
quality clothes. MDMO not only worked out new fashion designs on the
orders of Glavosobtorg but even started to sew them in small series. For this
purpose a pattern making department as well as a workshop for sewing light
female clothing were both opened at Kuznetskii Most Street.169
The establishment of such workshops or departments sewing clothes in
smaller series could have become important alternatives to industrial mass
production even if they could never seriously threaten its leading position.
After the whole system of post-war commercial trade was shut down at
the end of the 1940s170 the production of small series did not immediately
end at Kuznetskii Most street: the department of “multiple items” or small
series of designer clothes was closed down only in 1962. It was said not to
fit the profile of the House as an All-Union theoretical and experimental
center of fashion.171 Even after that the House would produce some 50–150
experimental pieces of their own new designs, which were then sold in the
Moscow clothing shops in order to get information about the demand for
their designs. However, these minimal amounts of clothing could not have
any real impact on the commercial markets since, as a rule, they hardly
ever reached the normal shops and were mostly distributed privately by the
various employees of the Ministry of Trade.
In the 1940s the specialists at Kuznetskii Most street designed not
only for industry but also for the system of state ateliers and dressmakers.
Therefore, the House of Fashion Design opened an artistic atelier of custom
made clothes which took orders from the population for clothes sewn using
MDMO’s own designs. This practice was also understood to be a form of

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

Fig. 4.2. Designers

consult visitors on
questions of style
at the atelier of
ODMO, 1951.

market research. It enjoyed great popularity among the Muscovites and the
visitors to the capital and was part of the structure of MDM/ODMO until
the beginning of the 1960s when it was closed down as not fitting the profile
of the House. This was claimed to be a consequence of the increasing burden
caused by the more central tasks of ODMO.172 (Fig. 4.2.)
Similar ateliers existed in the post-war period at the other houses of
fashion design at the Ministry of Light Industry. For instance, the Moscow
(later All-Union) House of Fashion Design of Knitwear had one in its early
days. In 1963 it already had two ateliers. One of the ateliers, in addition to
fulfilling individual orders, sewed women’s underwear, to be sold in small
series. In addition to the ateliers, the House of Fashion Design of Knitwear
had a small experimental factory under its administration. In1962, for
instance, it produced 82,000 items of underwear as well as 68,000 items
of knitwear.173 Thus, the Houses of Fashion Design under the Ministry of
Light Industry, which were the most professional and largest organizations
of fashion design in the postwar years, combined various functions in their
activities, from the design of individual clothes to the production of small
industrially produced series of clothes. In the long run, these organizations
developed in the direction of greater specialization, cutting down other
production functions which did not quite fit their core profile.
The basic principle that guided the Soviet industrial design of clothes was,
just as in other countries, seasonality. Every year, all the institutes of fashion
design prepared two main collections: spring-summer and autumn-winter.
MDMO/ODMO, for instance, designed men’s, women’s, and children’s wear,
women’s underwear, and head wear. Women’s clothes dominated fashion
design in the USSR just like in the rest of the world. As early as the fourth
quarter of 1944 when the war was still going on but the victory of 1945 was
already concretely in mind, the specialists of MDMO designed 137 items of
women’s clothing, 54 men’s and women’s suits, 108 items of children’s wear,
11 pieces of women’s underwear and 18 hats.174
In 1945 – during its first whole year of existence – MDMO offered about
one thousand clothing patterns to the garment industry.175 In 1949 the
designers worked out as many as 2591 new designs and 2844 in 1950.176 The

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

staff of MDMO was rather small: on the first of January 1946 it employed
29 designers and 17 design engineers.177 In the beginning of 1950 ODMO
already had 617 employees, among them 32 fashion designers.178
The design work took place under the conditions typical of the immediate
post-war years. Practically everything was in great shortage and much had
been destroyed in the war years: there were no electric light bulbs to light
the design halls, no pins or pencils for the pattern makers. Often many basic
raw materials were missing as well. The annual report of MDMO declared
in 1945 that “the provisioning with basic textiles took place with breaks.”179
To save the situation, the director gave orders to MDMO to organize their
own production of fashion dolls, lasts, hangers and other similar production
items, all necessary for the designers’ work.
As soon became evident, to create a design for a beautiful garment
was only half the job. It was equally important to manage taking it into
production in the original form. This proved to be a very labor intensive
task in 1945, as well as later on. By referring to many objective difficulties,
from old and worn out machinery and the lack of qualified workers and
necessary textiles to the extra labor which the production of fashionable
items necessarily demanded and which did not fit into the strict labor norms
of the plans, the factories could refuse to take more developed designs into
production. They either demanded the designs’ modification or greatly
simplified them by their own efforts.
During the war the workers at these factories had experienced
a remarkable transformation. They had become professionally unqualified.
The workers had become used to sewing one and the same piece of cloth
from one month to another and one and only grey greatcoat or military
uniform. They did not have experience of sewing more complicated or
demanding clothes, which were more varied in style and demanded the
knowledge and skills of a larger number of difficult operations. The workers
were also not used to the stress of continuously adapting to the demands of
civilian apparel, which changed following the fashion cycles. The new post-
war demands took them mostly by surprise.
Since the garment factories in the Soviet Union were not directly
dependent on customer demand and oriented themselves mainly towards
the fulfillment of their state quotas measured in total production quantities,
their ideal was the production of technically simple clothes in great
quantities and in minimal variety, which did not demand complicated or
labor intensive operations. It was also important for them not to have to
change their assortment too often. Such an approach to clothing production
was the direct opposite of constantly changing fashion, the interests of the
consumers, and also the wishes of the designers, who would have liked to
see their original and unique designs in mass production. Gradually, due to
their long-term experience of communication with the representatives of
the garment factories the designers underwent a process of creative “self-
censorship” by giving way to the practical demands of the dressmakers. The
fact that the design organizations were punished with a loss of income in the
form of bonuses due to the low percentage of designs taken into production
also encouraged them to adjust to the harsh reality.

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

However, the appearance on the shop shelves of out-of-fashion, low quality

and badly sewn garments incited the righteous anger of the population. The
Minister of Light Industry – and the future Soviet Prime Minister – Kosygin
lost his patience in 1947. In consequence, the leading designers of MDMO
were partly liberated from their creative work and sent to the factories to
closely follow what was concretely turned out on the production sites of the
garment enterprises. The purpose of this measure was to control the quality of
clothing designs in the factories. The degree to which they followed fashion,
fulfilled the demands of the population and the aesthetic characteristics of
their products were used as the main criteria of evaluation in the inspection.
The comprehensive inspection work continued in 1947 and 1948 and its
results proved to be quite devastating. Many products were taken completely
out of production. For the first time both some factories and whole regions
of the country were prohibited from designing and making the patterns for
their own clothes. Under the circumstances the creation of a centralized All-
Union system of fashion design, with ODMO at its head, was considered to
be the best solution for light industry.
After these scandalous revelations the MDMO alone, or rather the new
All-Union ODMO now under planning, was supposed to satisfy for the
time being the need for all new designs even outside the capital region.180
It was entrusted with inspecting and controlling the garment enterprises to
ensure that their clothes were fashionable enough.181 As a consequence, the
system of regular curators was established at the end of the 1940s at ODMO
and in the other regional houses of fashion design at the Ministry of Light
Industry: particular designers were henceforth connected to particular
factories engaging in the – from the point of view of the factories – rather
humiliating control over which new designs were taken into production and
how. These control functions were in fact out of the range of the designers’
professional expertise. Yet they were preserved intact in the Soviet houses of
fashion design all through Soviet times. The houses of fashion design did not,
however, enjoy any formal legally binding rights in their control functions.
The curator could not, for instance, simply order simplified and distorted
designs to be taken out of production.
After the establishment of the system of fashion design for industrial
production the time had come to change the system for customized sewing
of clothes at fashion ateliers. After the war no unified system existed
in the Soviet Union. The fashion ateliers that functioned in the regions
belonged to various ministries, cooperatives or units of local administration.
The best ateliers in Moscow belonged, for instance, to the conglomerate
Mosindodezhda under the Moscow City Administration, which created
its own design organizations and in the 1950s opened its own house of
fashion design with a staff of professional designers and pattern makers.
As a consequence of the establishment of this parallel system, the houses
of fashion design under the Ministry of Light Industry stopped designing
clothes for the ateliers and concentrated on industrial designs only.
However, in the first post-war years new designs were understandably
in great shortage, and the ateliers mainly used designs from foreign fashion
journals and from patterns which they had acquired as war loot. In 1946

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

the MDMO was therefore expected to make sure that the ateliers used only
“our own, Soviet designs.” When discussing and judging the new designs
its artistic council decided which designs would be recommended to the
factories and which to the ateliers. As a rule, designs which were thought
to be too difficult and complicated for industrial production because of
the great number of details or an increased demand for raw materials
in comparison to the existing norms were directed to the ateliers. The
employees of MDMO gave out special albums each quarter for the use of the
ateliers, with detailed instructions and sewing patterns for the new designs
worked out by their designers.182
The artistic director of ODMO, Anna Fedorovna Blank, claimed in 1949,
with good reason, that everything that took place in the ateliers of individual
sewing, in particular in the provinces, “was covered in darkness.”183 For
years, no one had inspected or controlled their work from the point of
view of fashion or taste. The first inspection tour by the Moscow designers,
with the aim of inspecting the ateliers of customized sewing in the city of
Ivanovo, revealed that the assortment offered to the citizens “did not at all
correspond to the modern style.”184 An order of the Ministry of the Light
Industry in 1950 obliged ODMO to control and coordinate the collaboration
with the garment factories as well as with the ateliers of individual sewing in
their ongoing renewal of design according to fashion trends. Thus ODMO
became, at least formally, a real dictator of Soviet fashion. In practice,
however, it had very limited means and resources to force its will on the
numerous Soviet garment factories and design organizations.
The archival data about MDMO for 1944–1947 reveal that, in many ways,
it continued the tradition of the Moscow (later Central) House of Fashion
Design that had come into being in 1934. At the same time its functions
also differed quite drastically. The main difference was not only the amount
of workers or the amount of accomplished work but above all larger variety
and breadth of its functions and obligations. As early as the second part of
the 1940s, MDMO and later ODMO had turned into a veritable “institute of
fashion.” In addition to its main practical tasks, the servicing of the factories
and ateliers with new fashion designs, it took care of the publishing and
distribution of works on fashion, the propaganda of the culture of dress (with
the help of lectures, fashion shows and exhibitions in its demonstration hall
among other things), research in the theory and method of Soviet fashion,
the analysis and prognosis of the trends of world fashion, and so on.185 (Fig.
4.3.) The annual report of 1945 mentioned that MDMO was at that time
already engaged in the “design of clothes with the future in perspective.”186
The reorganization of MDMO into ODMO in 1948–1949 opened a new
stage in Soviet fashion design. In 1949 ODMO started to organize annual
All-Union meetings with the leading Soviet fashion specialists from the
various regions with consultations and presentations of recent trends and
perspectives in fashion. During these regular meetings the republican and
regional houses of fashion design working under the Ministry of Light
Industry demonstrated their new collections.187 This was a concrete way of
reporting their creative activities to the higher authorities. These meetings,
which continued until the end of the Soviet Union, had an important

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

Fig. 4.3. Visitors at the Exhibition Hall of New Designs at ODMO, Moscow 1954.

function in unifying and centralizing the Soviet fashion system and in

improving the qualification of its laborers.
One of the main tasks of MDMO/ODMO from the mid-1940s to the
mid-1950s was the creation of common standards and the coordination
of the creative activities of the Soviet houses of fashion design under the
Ministry of Light Industry. In addition, it engaged in theoretical analysis
and the practical realization of the concept of “Soviet fashion.” What were
the real criteria of Soviet fashion and what was typical of it? The search for
a specific “Soviet style” went on quite intensively during the post-war years. As
far as the silhouette, textiles, colors, details, and so on of Soviet fashion were
concerned, these questions were first raised concretely and comprehensively
in the annual report of 1950.188 The subject had, in fact, been first raised
a year earlier in 1949. Naumova, the head of the artistic consultants of
ODMO, discouraged the use of foreign fashion journals and copying their
designs. At the first All-Union methodical meeting of the fashion designers
in June 1949 she suggested the following universal formula of Soviet fashion:
“One should combine the dream and the fantasy of the artist with the
mastery of the pattern maker and the modern production technique.”189
It was understandably quite difficult for anyone to argue against such
a formula, but in its abstractness it gave only vague guidelines for the
concrete design tasks at hand.
A couple of months before this first All-Union meeting, on the 18th
of April 1949, the administration and the leading designers of ODMO
had, together with the editorial board of the popular journal Sovetskaya
zhenshchina (Soviet Woman) organized a meeting with the “representatives
of Moscow women.” This meeting discussed the “open letter” which
a group of women, all research workers by occupation, had addressed to the
editors of the journal. In the name of “intellectual Soviet women” who all

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

appreciated fashion and took care of their style they expressed their desire
not to “follow blindly” Western fashion anymore. In addition, they asked the
Soviet women to launch a public campaign against any uncritical copying
of Western fashion and actively promote the creation of “our own Soviet
fashion.”
During the discussion started by the letter, Moscow women of various
ages and occupations expressed their open dissatisfaction with the quality,
assortment and color scale of the clothes for sale in Soviet shops. At the
same time they were very interested in issues of fashion in general and
strongly appealed to the authorities to take drastic measures to improve
the situation. The participants made many practical proposals which were
taken quite seriously and at least partly realized later on. The suggestion
to start a new fashion journal, relatively cheap and available to everyone,
was one of these. The Soviet women also demanded that Soviet designs
should be actively propagated in the mass media in general, distributed in
illustrated publications and in documentary films, and so on. They wanted
to increase the number of fashion shows and exhibitions open to ordinary
Soviet citizens.
These political campaigns of 1949 against the westernization of
Soviet fashion were undoubtedly a part of the general campaign against
“cosmopolitanism” ongoing in the Soviet Union. These campaigns had not
only political but also very practical dimensions. Soviet fashion became,
for the first time, the focus of public debates. Ordinary consumers used
the opportunity to openly complain about shortcomings in the provision
of clothes. More principally, the debates led to the promotion of folk and
national motifs in Soviet clothing design. This was by no means a totally new
idea since in the world of Soviet fashion: Lamanova had made it one of the
leading principles in her aesthetics in the 1920s. These ethnic motifs were
now expected to distinguish the creations of Soviet fashion favorably from
the West, at the same time as emphasizing its popular image.
The remedies suggested included other elements too. In the first place,
it was important to study the positive Soviet experience of the 1920s and
1930s. The main distinction of Soviet fashion was, however, claimed to be
the wide use of folk motifs. “To follow the popular form of the achievements
of our people, to renovate it and to make it the bearing point under the
conditions of our life”190 – this is how the task was presented to the designers
at ODMO. Early on they recommended that one should not, however, just
blindly follow any popular motifs but rather use them creatively in order
to better adapt them to the purposes of modern fashion. The annual report
of MDMO from 1945 expressed the issue as follows: “The artist should pay
attention to such features in the creation of the ways of dress which combine
original characteristics while generally following international fashion which
correspond to the independent life-style of our Soviet women.” The work
on the creative adaptation of the popular forms opened up the wide and
demanding task of the creation of Soviet fashion.191
Soviet fashion was also supposed to distinguish itself with its democratic
nature, “mass-character,” and general availability. It was not tied to any social
estates. In distinction from the West where the best designers served only

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

the taste of the rich social elite, the Soviet designers oriented themselves to
the needs of all the categories of citizens in equal measure.192 However, it was
said that there was one privileged group of people in fashion, the children.
It was decided to pay special attention to the design of children’s clothes.
Children should be dressed “cheaply, beautifully and elegantly, in a rich
variety of clothes” using the same professional standards of design applied
to grown-ups. For instance, in 1945 the designers at MDMO designed 115
new garments for boys and 340 for girls (the ratio of boys’ to girls’ designs
was about the same as that of both sexes among adults).
The future Soviet fashion was supposed to make use of the best
international experience of the most advanced developments in fashion
design and pattern making. In order to do so, the Soviet fashion designers
were expected to scientifically study the general laws of the growth of
fashion, its history and the activities of the leading fashion houses abroad.
The development of “prospective design” and the prognoses of fashion were
understood to be particularly important in the Soviet planned economy.
Together with the knowledge of the general laws of fashion it was supposed
to make the system of fashion more predictable for the needs of long-term
planning.
From the 1940s onwards the future perspectives of Soviet fashion
concerned mainly the design of whole ensembles of clothes which, in the
understanding of the fashion experts, consisted in the creation of a unified
concept of dress based on the harmonious composition of all its parts
(including the main garment, head wear, shoes, accessories, and socks as
well as decorations and jewelry). The concept of the design of a whole set
of clothes was also popular elsewhere. In the Soviet Union it was, however,
difficult to realize because it demanded financial resources and the successful
coordination and cooperation of the factories and specialists of various
fields. The Soviet experts had great expectations that the planned economy
would prove its superiority even in this respect and help to solve this
problem. In the 1945 annual report of MDMO, the design of such whole
sets of clothes was claimed to be the beginning of the creative search for the
“expressive style and its individual realization.”193 At the same time, in order
to concretely promote the principle of the design of clothing collections,
MDMO organized special groups and departments for the design of the
more important “complementary” items of clothing such as shoes and ladies’
head wear.194
Soviet designers’ and art historians’ efforts to create genuinely “Soviet
fashion” were important for the propaganda and education of taste of the
Soviet citizens. The annual report of 1945 mentioned that during the coming
year MDMO faced the important task of “teaching the different groups of
the population to dress with taste.”195At one of its meetings in 1949, the
representative of the Leningrad House of Fashion Design emphasized in
particular the educational nature of the designers’ work in an authoritarian
tone: “We should dictate fashion to the population, we should educate and
improve their taste.”196 Such statements implied that in the minds of the
experts, Soviet men and women were not cultured enough, had no fine taste
and did not know how to dress properly.

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

At the turn of the 1940s and 1950s the question of the importance of
studying and controlling consumer preferences by educating them in the
best possible taste became unexpectedly acute. Trade had strong motivation
in this role since it had received in the end of the 1940s the right to study
consumer demand and to use this knowledge to make orders to light industry
to produce the items that were in fact needed. This irritated the dressmakers,
who did not want to leave these questions to trade alone. In announcing in
1949 the decision to establish a chain of its own shops under the Ministry
of Light Industry, the director F. D. Muraviev emphasized that the garment
industry aimed at using shops to influence people’s perceptions about fashion
“in order not to end up being dependent on all kinds of fashions existing in
the world.”197 The search for an effective means of exercising an impact on
fashion trends in order to direct them never ended during the existence of
the USSR.
MDMO/ODMO engaged actively in the propaganda for Soviet fashion
both in the concrete form of its own designs and in other ways, many of
which proved to be quite traditional. The numerous fashion shows organized
regularly in the demonstration hall at Kuznetskii Most street with the
participation of live models were among the most important such ways. In
1945 five such shows took place.198 At this time, fashion exhibitions of new
designs were common at MDMO. In 1949, 69,000 persons visited them.
MDMO also studied the public opinion. Questionnaires were distributed to
the visitors in order to collect information about their remarks and wishes
concerning the exhibited items. This information was then analyzed, taking
into account the visitors’ social position, educational level and profession.199
Thus, the workers at MDMO were engaged in market research of fashion as
early as 1945.200 Moreover, from 1951 onwards the designer-consultants were
always on call at the exhibitions. The visitors could ask them anything about
the choice of fashionable clothes and their personal style free of charge. Such
new forms of work helped to make the fashion designers’ achievements very
popular in the Soviet Union.201
While the war was still going on, in October 1944, MDMO organized
the first All-Russian competition in the best men’s, women’s, and children’s
wear. Altogether 228 designs took part in this creative competition, which
garnered a lot of attention – and not only among professional designers.
The specialists from MDMO, from the Moscow factories under the
administration of light industry, and from the trust Mosindodezhda took
part in it along with representatives of the garment factories from Leningrad,
Sverdlovsk, Gorky, Saratov, Tula and several other towns. The designers at
MDMO had created 20 of the 24 clothing designs which received a prize and
were specially acknowledged during the competition.202 On the eve of the
final take-over of Berlin by the Soviet troops in March 1945, the All-Union
exhibition of clothes took place in Moscow. MDMO took the self-evident
first place among the competitors there as well.203
After the war, the publication of fashion journals got off to a new start.
Two issues of the journal Moda (Fashion) came out in 1945 at the publishing
house of the People’s Commissariat of Light Industry. They presented
altogether 123 designs made at MDMO.204 In the same year, MDMO started

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

its own publishing activities by printing four albums with its own designs. In
1948 the magazine Zhurnal mod (Journal of fashion) debuted with an edition
of 50,000. It was produced mainly by the efforts of MDMO/ODMO and later
by VIAlegprom. MDMO also published a fashion album with the title Modeli
odezhdy (Clothing designs with 70,000 copies).205 Zhurnal mod became the
main fashion journal in the USSR. Its editions as well as those of the other
fashion publications grew regularly, reaching hundreds of thousands in the
1970s.
After the war, all the design organizations of the USSR (houses of
fashion design, conglomerates of ateliers, experimental-technical institutes,
etc.) established their own artistic councils which exercised aesthetic and
ideological control over fashion design.206 Formally, these were independent
social organizations – always authorized, however, by their respective
ministries. For instance, their members were not paid for their work. Without
their permission no new designs or trends could be approved or passed
on to the production lines. After the authorization of the artistic council,
the new designs received their technical instructions and other necessary
documentation, their pattern drawings, prices, and so on.
The idea was that the artistic council should consist of authoritative
experts who had good artistic taste, the necessary professional expertise,
and were known to be respected citizens with a good public and professional
reputation. They were in practice people from different professions – famous
artists, sculptors, writers, art historians and other public figures, but first of
all representatives of trade and industry, engineers and economists who, in
one way or another, had a role in clothing production or in the production
of the necessary machinery and instruments.
MDMO/ODMO had an artistic council established as early as 1945 and
consisting of 23 members. Its task was to discuss the principles and standards
of design work and the fashion of the season as well as to evaluate the main
designs worked out by the MDMO specialists. In addition, the artistic
council had a role as a consultant to the other houses of fashion design.
Later on their other functions disappeared and the council was only engaged
in inspecting and approving of the new designs. The council did not meet
regularly but gathered together seasonally from a couple of times a year to
every month and sometimes more often. For instance, in 1947 the artistic
council of MDMO met 12 times. It judged 1269 so-called principal designs
out of the well over 2100 created by the designers at the Moscow House of
Design during that year. Of all inspected, 1103 were approved for further
production – the rest were declined. Many famous people sat on the artistic
council: the author and journalist Il’ya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg, Molotov’s
wife and Minister P. S. Zhemchuzhina, already referred to before, as well as
Maxim Gorky’s first wife, Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova.207
Just like their predecessors, the members of the recently organized artistic
council of ODMO were in 1949 invited to monthly meetings to approve new
fashion designs. Beginning in the same year, ODMO also demonstrated its
new designs once every three months for the representatives of the trade
organizations of the Moscow region. They were thought to be the mediators
between the customers and the designers. The trade organizations were

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4. The Early Years of the Moscow, All-Union Fashion House

encouraged to select new designs that they thought would enjoy a demand
among their customers and place their orders accordingly for the next year.
Ideally, the garment factories were expected to sew clothes following these
orders, making sure that they satisfied a truly existing demand. In reality,
however, things did not turn out quite like that.
It is possible to get an idea of what kinds of fears and hopes about the future
of Soviet fashion were common among the members of the artistic council
from the minutes and short typewritten notes preserved in the archives.
These also give an impression of the aesthetic ideals and conceptions that
guided the members in their choices. The orders concerning the houses of
fashion design also give interesting insight into the practical organization of
their work. Many of them are quite revealing. For instance, the order number
79 on ODMO, 12 April 1951, declared that “in order to improve the culture
of exhibiting the designs” one should organize the demonstration of new
designs exclusively as parts of a whole set of clothes: “The pattern makers
should allow the models to perform only with all the specific accessories
belonging to the designs, not let them appear in sports clothes with high
heeled shoes, or children with short summer socks in winter coats, etc.”208
In evaluating new designs the artistic council was supposed to pay
attention primarily to their aesthetic quality and fashionableness. In practice
other and often more concrete questions played a more important role in its
judgements. What was often most decisive was the real chance of taking the
designs into production. In designing their new models the designers had
to take into account the very strict norms concerning the use of materials,
the limited assortment of fabrics and threads available, the elementary
conditions of the technical equipment at the factories, and so on. As a result
any “beautiful and fashionable” design could remain a prototype because
the dressmakers simply could not sew it. For instance, at the All-Union
demonstration of the new designs in August 1948 an original design of
a female dress by the designer Matrosina was declined because the Deputy
Minister of Light Industry S. G. Lukina, who was a member of the jury,
argued, according to the minutes, that “I can see that its realization will be
very labor intensive which cannot be defended by the beauty of the design.”209
The Deputy Minister used her right to veto by reminding everyone of the
“realities” of the fashion industry. In this particular case, one can only guess
what her real motives were since, in her opinion, the design was not only
labor intensive but also too “daring and feminine.”
The founding of MDMO/ODMO in many ways started a new era in
Soviet fashion design. In later years and decades a whole huge system – or
rather several parallel systems – of fashion design institutions were added
to it which covered the whole country and all the Soviet Republics. In the
next chapter we shall describe in detail the development and functioning of
this comprehensive Soviet system of fashion design. All through the post-
war decades ODMO not only preserved its leading role in this system but in
many ways set an example for all the other fashion organizations, which all,
with some minor variations, followed the same patterns in their organization
and functioning. They also shared also many of the same assets and problems
familiar from the experience of ODMO quite early on.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion:
The System of Clothing Design and
Fashion Organizations in the USSR
(1960–1980)

Four Parallel Organizations

The first Soviet fashion organizations were created in the period just before
and just after the Second World War but the decades from 1960 to 1980
could be called the period of the real institutionalization of Soviet fashion as
this was when the system reached its full extent. Hundreds of large and small
design organizations were established. Thousands of professional designers
and pattern makers worked in these organizations and their numbers
continued to increase in the thirty year period after the war. In the Soviet
Union the state financed all the organizations engaged in fashion design
although these organizations belonged to several different administrative
departments or ministries, which all organized their own departments,
networks, educational systems and parallel institutes of design.
In addition to such design institutes, the ministries also founded
a number of scientific institutes and laboratories which all, in some way,
engaged in creating the foundations for the design and manufacture of
clothing. In the Soviet context, even fashion design had to have a solid
scientific foundation. In this chapter we shall systematically explore the
various scientific organizations researching and producing fashion as well
as the various issues connected to the design and manufacture of fashion
clothing.
At least four main administrative systems were engaged in fashion design
which achieved their final structure in the late 1960s: the Ministry of Light
Industry (fashion design for the purposes of industrial mass production),
the Ministry of Everyday Services (designs for custom sewing in fashion
ateliers), as well as the Ministries of both Trade and Local Industry. (Fig.5.1.)
The first two ministries were economically the most important in the field
of consumption and therefore we shall pay more attention to them in
what follows. We shall analyze the specifics of fashion design in the trade
organizations and will take the fashion department of GUM, the State
Department Store in Moscow as a specific example in the next chapter.
Contrary to what one might expect considering the highly centralized
and planned Soviet economic system, no single center of administration
or unified centralized organization existed for fashion design. In fact, the

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CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY COUNCIL OF MINISTRIES OF THE USSR

Departments of Light Departments of Trade Other Departments of Light Departments of Trade Other
and Food Industry and Everyday Services departments and Food Industries and Everyday Services departments

Ministry of Ministry of Republican ministries of

Ministry of
Light Industry Everyday Services local industry under the Republican
Trade
Ministers and Party organs

NIKTIIMP and Design workshops

Organisations of fashion design with functions of TsOTShL and other regional and Departments and workshops other analogous at the research insti-
research and coordination republican experimental centers of fashion design in big Republican orga- tutes of arts
of fashion design department stores nizations and crafts
SKhKB RSFSR and
VIALegprom analogous bureaus ODMO
in the Soviet Republics
Republican and
regional centers of
fashion design
(Dom modelei) Research and devel-
opment laboratories
Special houses of
Regional and repub- Design laboratories at in the enterprises
fashion design of knit-
lican houses of fashion TsNIIShP and other
wear, shoes,
design and houses of scientific research Research and develop-
sportswear, work
fashion design institutes of Light In- ment departments in the
clothes, leather goods
of clothes dustry enterprises (factories,
and harberdashery
conglomerates, fashion
houses)

Research and development depart- Designers and pattern makers

ments at the garment factories and in the high quality
fashion houses fashion ateliers

Fig. 5.1. The structure of the Soviet fashion organizations under different ministries.
5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

93
5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

idea of the necessity of increasing specialization as the best solution to

the problems of fashion design and clothing production acted as the main
antithesis to the principle of strict centralization of administration. Indeed,
it motivated the foundation of the new fashion houses under the Ministry
of the Light Industry as well as a whole system of separate organizations for
custom made clothing within the republican Ministries of Everyday Service.
The ministries that were responsible for providing the population with new
and better clothes often referred to this principle in lobbying for their own
administrative interests, in particular for the necessity of establishing their
own new fashion organizations which, as a rule, also demanded additional
financial resources from the state budget. Despite the fact that these parallel
structures often existed in the same town and engaged in the same kind of
activities, their work was not coordinated and they hardly cooperated with
each other at all.
In practice the different administrative units acted independently and
autonomously from each other, and in relation to some creative issues as
well as in their appeals to consumers they often openly competed with
each other. After the economic reforms of the 1960s the Soviet consumer
goods enterprises had to earn money and become self-financing. They soon
discovered that they were in fact competing with each other for the same
markets. In addition, they had unofficial competitors: private tailors and
seamstresses and even black market operations. Competition from the black
market was even more significant in the enterprises under the Ministry
of Everyday Services, which often felt the pressure in relation to both the
prices and quality of the goods produced by unofficial competitors. In the
context of the chronic shortage of fashionable clothes such competition
had, however, a limited effect in practice. However, reports witnessing the
existence of strong ambitions among the directors of the units as well as
among the designers should not be ignored, nor should the role of the official
socialist competition between the fashion organizations. On the other hand,
it is equally evident that this tendency towards administrative specialization
could be characterized in less positive terms, with the overlapping of their
functions, parallelism and unnecessary waste of the financial resources
of the state. This becomes evident in the light of the fact that despite the
enormous quantity of new designs the Soviet consumers mostly could not
buy the fashionable, higher quality clothes they desired. This raised the
question of the extent to which these organizations were actually engaged
in useful activities. This theme was openly discussed in the Soviet press and
among experts throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Many reasonable measures
were suggested in order to improve the situation, some of which were also
realized in practice. Often the decisions taken on the governmental level
did not have the expected effects because other conditions did not favor
them. The Soviet economic system in fact often opposed them. Gradually,
the leaders and the planning offices became aware that one could not really
regulate such a delicate and rapidly changing sphere as fashion with the
same administrative directives as were common in the other fields of the
Soviet economy.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

The search for more adequate forms of administration led to the

emergence, in the 1960s and 1970s, of the so-called main organizations
of design, which received additional authority and the status of inter-
administrative units. This was true in particular of the four All-Union houses
of fashion design under the Ministry of Light Industry: one designing clothes
on the Kuznetskii Most street, and one each for knitwear, shoes, and other
leather items. They had the responsibility for studying current fashions and
future trends (each in its own particular field) and presenting their ideas to
the special annual sessions of designers and pattern makers active in their
own administrative system.
The directives of these main fashion organizations and the decisions
made during the working meetings about the tendencies of fashion (shape,
contour, style, colors, etc.) were officially only recommendations. They
offered a kind of general orientation to the designers and pattern makers
working all over the country. As was generally understood, it would have
been impossible to predict the fashion trends with total certainty in advance.
Later on these recommendations were reinforced by orders of the Ministry
of Light Industry but this procedure was mainly a formality. In any case,
neither the archives nor interviews with the former workers revealed any
cases of someone being punished or reprimanded for not following these
recommendations from the main institutions. Local and regional cultural
or religious factors played an important role in Soviet fashion too. For
example miniskirts or bikinis, popular in the European parts of the USSR in
the 1970s, never made their appearance in the Asian Soviet Republics with
predominantly Muslim populations.
At the end of the 1960s yet another main organization was created that
came to have an enormous role in promoting the unity of the tendencies of
fashion and approaches to design in the whole country. It had a typically
long administrative name: the All-Union Institute of Product Assortment
and the Culture of Dress under the Ministry of Light Industry. However, just
like many other Soviet administrative organizations it was generally known
by its acronym VIALegprom. While the All-Union houses of fashion design
functioned practically autonomously in relation to each other, each one
within their own field of specialization (the design of clothes, knitwear, shoes
or leather items), VIALegprom was created to overcome the disadvantages of
such specialization and to coordinate their activities by putting the principle
of the design of complex collections of clothing into practice. At the same
time, VIALegprom approached the concrete demands of the consumer. It
was thought that a person wanted to be fashionable and beautiful in general
and not just wear fashionable clothes and shoes. In order to achieve this
result, one had to work scientifically, to study and to agree on the present and
future perspectives of fashion in practically everything, including the colors
and types of textiles and other materials (for instance, leather and fur), the
style of dress as well as the shoes, hats, underwear, hairstyles and cosmetics.
VIALegprom was engaged in this work, leaving ODMO behind in the 1970s
in the hierarchy of fashion in the Soviet Union.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

The General Structure of the Design Organizations at the Ministry

of Light Industry
The Ministry of the Light Industry, with its big factories, was an All-Union
Ministry and the main producer of consumer goods in the country. This
included women’s, men’s and children’s garments, shoes, hats and underwear,
accessories, and so on. Its predecessor, the People’s Commissariat of Light
Industry was founded in 1932 and it became the Ministry of Light Industry
in 1946. It was closed down in 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Historically, the majority of its enterprises were located in the Russian
part of the country with a minority in Ukraine. It was therefore natural that
the majority of the design organizations serving clothes factories were also
located in these regions. In addition to the All-Union Ministry, each Soviet
Republic, including Russia, had its own Ministry of Light Industry with
its own Republican fashion institutes. They formed a strictly hierarchical
network of administrative units. In the following we shall first present the
main institutes of fashion design that worked under the Ministry of Light
Industry, among which MDMO/ODMO and VIAlegprom were most
prominent, before focusing on the fashion design that went on under other
Soviet Ministries.
The 1960s were an important stage in the development of Soviet fashion
design since the authorities acknowledged that the country had largely
neglected to take care of the production of consumer goods. The consumer
goods industry initiated many reforms to improve the situation by further
specialization and concentration. It received remarkable additional finances
and new production machinery. It was thought that as far as the enterprises
had a duty to renew their assortment of clothing following the latest fashion
trends and the orders from trade (presumably answering the customer’s
demand) the enterprises needed continuously new designs. Fashion would
thus act as a major force of innovation and progress.
The profession of the designer became quite popular. Like mushrooms
after a rain, new fashion design organizations “popped up” everywhere.
According to the statistics published in the professional journal Shveinaya
promyshlennost’ (The Garment Industry), in the five year period between
1960 and 1965 about 40 new fashion organizations came into being in the
consumer goods industry. Almost as many were opened in the area of shoe
design.210 Twenty years later, in 1984, 62 houses of fashion design worked
under the Ministry of Light Industry, among them 38 in clothing design, 16
in shoe design, 5 houses in knitwear and 3 houses in work clothing design.
They employed 2 802 designers and almost as many pattern makers.211 This
“army of fashion” produced thousands of new designs for Soviet industry
each year.
The system of fashion design under the Ministry of Light Industry
consisted of several parts. The republican (in the capital cities of the Soviet
republics) and regional (in other larger cities) houses of fashion design
were headed by the All-Union House of Fashion Design, ODMO on the
Kuznetskii Most street in Moscow, which coordinated their work and was
responsible for advice and instructions. Some of them designed only clothes

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

but the majority had multiple functions and also designed shoes, hats and
accessories.212 Their main task was to provide the factories in their own
republics or regions with new designs. This was so that the clothes that were
designed and sewn in a particular region would take local conditions and
demand into account. Therefore they were also ideally supposed to be sold
mainly in the same region.
The general political line from the1960s to the 1980s was to strengthen
the importance of these newly established regional fashion organizations.
Following the example of ODMO they opened experimental departments
which worked out their own “directional collections with a future
perspective.” These were the Soviet collections of high fashion. They also
started to participate in the creation of the prestigious, trend-setting All-
Union collections. Before the 1970s the specialists of only a few houses
– ODMO in Moscow plus the design houses in Leningrad, Kiev and Riga –
were allowed to participate in this important work. Gradually, even smaller
republican and regional houses started travelling abroad with “foreign”
collections of their own.
Some houses of fashion design specialized in the design of all outer
apparel besides clothing. The design of shoes, knitwear, leather wear, special
or work clothes as well as sportswear all had their own houses. For example,
some houses of fashion design specialized in socks and stockings as well as
outerwear made of knit fabric. In the 1960s, they made about 2 500 designs
every year.213
In addition to the central houses in Moscow, all the major Soviet republics
(Russia, Ukraine and Belarus among others) had their own specialized
republican houses of design. (Fig. 5.2.) These worked for the needs of the
specialized industrial conglomerates under the Ministry of Light Industry.
Shoes, for instance, were designed both at ODMO in Moscow and at the
Chelyabinsk House of Shoe Design.
The design of special and work clothes was entrusted to a separate
organization in the middle of the 1960s. Before that the considerations
of fashion had been deemed irrelevant to working clothes, which were
supposed to be primarily functional and practical. However, by the decree
of the Soviet of the Ministers of the USSR on the 23rd of July, 1962, the
Ministry of Light Industry was given the task of founding the necessary
design departments for working clothes.214 On the 24th of November in
1964, the main Party newspaper Pravda reported that the Soviet government
had discussed the question of the improvement of the quality and aesthetic
character of such special clothes. As a result new state norms for working
clothes were taken into use and special attention was paid to the design
of all kinds of work clothes.215 All-Union competitions, in which the best
designers of the country took part, were organized regularly to reveal the
best designs in work wear. In 1970 the Moscow Experimental Garment
Factory was nominated as the main enterprise in the field of producing
new clothing designs for the workers and employees in all the fields of the
Soviet economy.216 In the mid-1970s, it was transformed into the House of
Design of Special and Working Clothes under the Russian Ministry of Light
Industry. This was an important event which received a lot of publicity in

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.2. Designs from

the Kirghiz House
of Fashion Design of
Clothes, Ministry of
Light Industry, 1967.

the Soviet press: the USSR was proudly declared to be the only country in
the world where the best fashion designers designed the working clothes of
ordinary people together with exclusive evening dresses. (Fig. 5.3.).
In addition to the territorial and specialized Houses of Design, the bigger
enterprises of light industry founded their own departments of fashion
design, research and development departments and laboratories. The plans
of the enterprises obliged them to regularly renew the lists of their products.
Bigger clothing factories employed dozens of professional designers and
pattern makers. As a rule, the factories were supposed to order the majority
of their new designs from the territorial or special houses of fashion design
of clothes; they were officially assigned to produce only a small number of
these designs themselves. The proportion of their own and external designs
was not, however, strictly determined or stable from one year to the next.
It also varied from one enterprise to another. In practice, the individual
factories often tried to establish a maximal degree of autonomy and thus in
fact competed with the houses of fashion design to which they were officially
assigned.
The fact that the regional houses of design were supposed to service the
local enterprises caused other problems too. For instance, the designer at the
House of Fashion Design at Barnaul, Altai region, could be almost certain that

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.3. A fashion show of new work clothes at the Youth Café Romantika, Moscow,
1964.

his or her designs would never be sewn with the much better machinery of
the Moscow factory of the same Ministry. The Altai factories were expected to
cooperate mainly with the local Altai House of Fashion Design to which they
were officially attached. In principle, the local clothing factory was allowed
to cooperate even with other houses of fashion design under the Ministry
of Light Industry. In practice, this was however quite difficult since such an
unorganized, free distribution of orders would, in authorities’ opinion, lead to
chaos and open competition between the various fashion institutions and was
therefore not encouraged. As everyone knew, there were both professionally
strong and highly experienced fashion organizations as well as weaker ones,
like the new ones located in the smaller provincial cities. It was obvious to
everyone that, if allowed, factories would order designs only from the best
designers. In that case some houses would be inflated with orders at the cost
of the others, which would not be able to fulfil their quotas since they could
not compete with their prices. The Ministry tried to solve this problem and
standardize the general level of designs by, for instance, giving extra support
to the recently established weaker regional organizations.
There were certainly exceptions to the general rule. For instance, the
Houses of Fashion Design at both Riga and Tallinn, not situated in the bigger
Soviet centers, received a lot of orders from the factories in the territory of
Russia because of their good reputation and Western image. But the main
exception was the All-Union House of Fashion Design, ODMO at Moscow.
The Ministry actively distributed its designs all over the country in order to
improve the general quality of clothing production. To sum up, a garment
factory at Sverdlovsk was supposed to mainly make use of the designs of the
local Sverdlovsk House of Fashion Design as well as the designs worked out
in its own research and development department. Only as an extra addition

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

did it have the right to buy a restricted number of designs from ODMO and
even more rarely from the other leading Soviet houses.
In 1968 about 20 enterprises from the Moscow region were officially
assigned to ODMO and ordered new designs from Kuznetkii Most street.
In addition, 234 clothing factories from the “periphery” sewed clothes using
ODMO’s designs. In 1969 as many as 297 factories from the different regions
ordered ODMO’s designs.217
The factories had the right and the obligation to order new designs from
the houses of fashion design. They had to pay a price set by the state for
these services. The factories were often interested, out of purely economic
considerations, in designing their clothes themselves. The state did not
approve of such a practice. The professional services of these houses of
fashion design were not very expensive. For example, in the end of the
1970s the price a factory had to pay for one new design of male clothes (an
overcoat, a dress suit, and a rain coat) including the template and the whole
technical documentation and set of instructions was 546 rubles.218 (At the
same time the monthly salary of a university professor was 300–400 rubles.)
In the 1960s, the cultural, propagandistic functions of the houses of
fashion design at the Ministry as well as at the other administrative units
became more important. Their departments engaged in the propagation
of fashion and the culture of dress as well as strengthening the education
of good taste among the population. The directors of the houses as well as
their designers, pattern makers and artistic consultants started to appear
regularly in the central and local press, radio broadcasts and TV reports.
As is evident from the newspaper clippings and journal articles preserved
in ODMO’s library, hundreds of local newspapers had regular columns
dedicated to fashion and the culture of dress. They were often written by the
specialists working in the local fashion organizations. The local houses of
fashion design gradually started to play an important role in the cultural life
of the Soviet provinces. Judging from the local press, their leading designers
became celebrities well known and respected in their own town and region.
The local political and cultural elite used the services of these houses of
fashion design too.

The Center point of Soviet fashion: The All-Union House

of Fashion Design, ODMO
All through the post-war decades, the All-Union House of Fashion Design,
ODMO was a leading institute of fashion design in the Soviet Union. It was
a combination of a research institute, a design factory, and an exhibition
center. From the second half of the 1960s until the collapse of the Soviet
Union its structure remained more or less the same. It had several workshops,
specialized departments and divisions: the design of men’s fashion, the design
of women’s clothes and underwear, the design of children’s wear, as well as the
design of fur clothes and head wear. In addition it had a department for the
preparation of industrial templates, for the practical adaptation of designs
for industrial production, for making instructional patterns for the general

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

population, for the propaganda of fashion and for running the exhibition
hall. Finally it had an experimental department.
In the 1960s to the 1980s, the collective of ODMO counted 700–800
employees including 70 designers and about as many pattern makers. In
those years ODMO worked out over four thousand new designs a year,
though it should be noted that every design did not necessarily go through
the whole process from first sketch to final production template. Hardly
any other institute of fashion design could have competed with ODMO in
terms of the amount of designers and designs. It was common knowledge
that ODMO had the best fashion professionals in the Soviet Union. All new
designs passed through the inspection of its artistic council, the head of
which was the deputy minister of the consumer goods industry.
Two different seasonal collections (for both autumn-winter and spring-
summer) were created every year from the new designs at ODMO and
the other regional houses of fashion design: the first was the trend-setting
collection of fashion (the Soviet analogue of haute couture), which gave
“directions” to the other design organizations and the garment factories,
helping them to orient themselves to the perspectives of fashion a couple of
years ahead of time. The second kind were the so-called industrial collections,
which had been worked out on the basis of the directive collections of the
previous years.
The designs of the industrial collections were meant to be taken into
production without any delay. Therefore, they not only followed present
fashion but, distinctly from the designs of trend-setting fashion, they could
easily be adapted to the various norms, standards and technical possibilities
of mass production at Soviet factories. The seasonal collections had 120–150
items of clothing in various categories, from ordinary and work clothes
to formal dress and wedding gowns. Periodically ODMO also received
special orders, for example for school uniforms, uniforms for the pioneers’
summer camps, and fine clothing for delegations of sportsmen or other
groups representing the country abroad. One of ODMO’s main tasks was
to regularly supply the enterprises located in the capital area with new
industrial designs. These factories were supposed to renew their production
lists at regular intervals and therefore, following their economic contracts,
they turned to ODMO in good time and ordered and paid for new designs
of particular types of clothes. Alternatively, they could buy examples that had
already been demonstrated at an exhibition.219
After the second half of the 1960s, the role of ODMO grew remarkably
stronger as the All-Union center of general coordination and instruction
in relation to the other republican and regional organizations. An order of
the Ministry of Light Industry on the 18th of September 1969 gave ODMO
the leading role in questions of industrial and trend-setting design and in
the preparation and distribution of the necessary methodical materials, and
obliged it to give all kinds of practical help to all the republican and regional
houses of fashion design.220 ODMO regularly organized working meetings,
both All-Union and geographically more limited ones, for the co-workers of
the various design institutions, the task of which was to inform the specialists
coming from all over the country of the present trends in fashion as well

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as to discuss emerging problems and to exchange experiences in fashion

design and pattern making. These meetings contributed naturally to the
development of a general policy and common style.
The leading French fashion houses were consistently the main reference
point for the Soviet fashion experts and authorities. Among all the Parisian
fashion houses Dior’s played an exceptional role. Moscow’s relation to the
House of Dior was very close for most of the post-war era.221 Christian
Dior’s Fashion House visited Moscow with a three day fashion exhibition
as early as June 1959. This event could be compared to a great diplomatic
accomplishment and it duly received a lot of attention both at home
and abroad. A Soviet delegation visited Dior’s fashion house in Paris in
1957, 1960 and 1965. This close collaboration even gave cause to a quite
spectacular bit of news according to which certain Dior models would
eventually be mass produced in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.222 There were
many reasons – partly accidental – why it was particularly Dior who came
to play the role of an early godfather to Soviet fashion, but his rather classic
and conservative style, exemplified in the famous New Look of the late
1940s, probably appealed aesthetically to the leaders of the Soviet consumer
goods industry.
At the order of the Soviet government ODMO prepared one collection
after another for foreign exhibitions, all expected to be on the level of world
fashion both as far as their general design and more directly as far as the
individual garments were concerned.223 The year 1953 was important in
this respect since the USSR for the first time took part in the International
Competition of Fashion at Prague. Later on these competitions among the
designers of the socialist countries became regular, annual events. In 1957
Moscow organized the 6th International Youth Festival, which in many
ways symbolized the new post-Stalinist opening of the country to the world.
ODMO’s artists designed special costumes for the Soviet delegation on this
occasion. The year 1967 witnessed the International Fashion Festival at
Moscow, an extremely important event in the Soviet history of fashion which
definitively legitimized the role of fashion and fashion design in the Soviet
Union in particular and under socialism in general. For this occasion ODMO
naturally designed a special collection of its own. The Soviet exhibition at
the International World Fair in Montreal, EXPO-67, in the same year, was
almost as important for the future of Soviet fashion. Fashion exhibitions
were an essential part of many Soviet trade exhibitions, like the ones held
at Earl’s Court in London.224The New York Times, for instance, published
a report of such a show in 1968 (7 August) with the title “The Russians Put
on a Show – a Stylish One.” (Fig. 5.4.)
Some Soviet designs and designers were well received early on and
became well known abroad. For instance, at the International Competition
of Fashion of the socialist countries in 1958 the designer Vera Ippolitovna
Aralova from ODMO received two first prizes for her dresses with a straight
silhouette of a Russian shirt, Plakhta and Suzdal, made out of artificial
silk and designed following old Russian folk motifs.225 Ten years later,
Tatiana Osmerkina’s design Rossiya in carnation pink and stylized after an
ancient Russian icon received an enthusiastic response. The model Liudmila

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Fig. 5.4. A design from ODMO at the Soviet Exhibition of Trade and Industry
in London, 1968.

Romanovskaya, a typical Russian beauty, demonstrated it.226 This dress,

which many even now regard as the most successful achievement of Soviet
fashion design, was well received first at the International Fashion Festival in
Moscow in 1967 and at the international exhibition EXPO-67 in Montreal.
Later on, it became a standard item in the collections of ODMO that were
demonstrated in various countries around the world. This was a good
example of how the Soviet experts treated their best creations like individual
works of art that kept their aesthetic and functional value almost eternally,
becoming classics.
Irina Krutikova’s (also from ODMO, moved later to VIALegprom)
collection of fur clothes, among them suede coats, caught the attention
of many foreign visitors at the Moscow International Fashion Festival in
1967. This was the first time that a Soviet designer demonstrated a complete
collection of her own and not just individual items as a part of a bigger
Soviet or All-Union collection. It was common for the Soviet collections to
be compilations of the designs of several designers who worked in the same
fashion organization, like ODMO. In 1968 a delegation of the Ministry of
Light Industry took one of Krutikova’s creations to Paris where the Soviet
model Tamara Vladimirtseva demonstrated it with great success as a part
of Louis Ferro’s autumn-winter collection of 1968–1969. During a few days
of the fashion show the foreign specialists had a chance to see three Soviet
designs, two in each individual show. Tamara Vladimirtseva was, according
to Soviet standards, very thin.227 This was the first, in those times sensational,
success of Soviet designers in the West.228

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

During this same time, 1967–1968, the talents of a young designer at

ODMO, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Zaitsev, were recognized abroad. He
became the best known Soviet designer, called the “Red Dior” abroad.
He designed for the two abovementioned exhibitions, at Moscow and
Montreal, a small collection of his own called “The Ancient Russ” following
the motifs of ancient Russian architecture. These were demonstrated as
a part of the general collection of ODMO and received high grades from
the international experts. As a consequence, in January 1968 the American
firm Celanese Fibers Co made a deal with ODMO, having in mind the
prospect of cooperating with Zaitsev, in particular, regarding the creation of
a collection of women’s fashion with Russian motifs with synthetic fabrics of
their own production. The purpose of the contract was to make the clothes
of the American firm more competitive on the international markets. Three
leading designers from ODMO, Irina Krutikova, Lina Telegina, and Zaitsev,
made a collection of 30 items (according to some sources 45 items). Each of
the three designers designed about ten items including both ordinary and
formal clothes, like cocktail dresses. (Fig. 5.5.)
After a successful demonstration for the representatives of the firm
Celanese in 1969 the collection was exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary
Art in New York. The New York Times wrote that “although designed in the
Government-controlled Moscow House of Fashion, most of the designs
reflected the splendor of Tsarist Russia.”229 The May issue of the Sovetskii
export, the official journal of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, appreciated
this American contract highly, writing in the article “Clothes to America”
that “the designs were sold for the prices common for the items of the best
designers of Western Europe.” Pictures were also attached to the article of the
models and designers demonstrating their clothes for Celanese. The picture
of Zaitsev had the inscription: “V. Zaitsev, an artist of infallible taste, one
of those who appreciates original and brave solutions. These designs enjoy
a huge demand abroad.”230
At about the same time, from the end of 1966 to the end of 1968, ODMO
played an important part in the efforts of Soviet economic expansion into
the West. These efforts were initiated both by the Ministry of Light Industry
and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and were actively supported by the whole
Soviet government. Since the Soviet Union had a chronic lack of foreign
currency and since Soviet fashion – Russian imperial style – seemed to
be popular abroad, a decision was made to design, with the help of the
best designers, collections which could be sold in the West.231 The task
was completed. In 1967–1968 such “commercial” collections were in fact
demonstrated in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, Great Britain
and Japan. The foreign firms were, however, not overly enthusiastic and after
the tragic events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia and the following worsening of
relations with the West the initiative was given up.
The need to successfully demonstrate Soviet fashion abroad in interna-
tional arenas opened up new and broader opportunities for the Soviet
experts to study and learn from the international experience of fashion
design and pattern construction, by, for instance, having better access to the
Western literature, fashion journals and study trips abroad. The library of

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.5. The Soviet

top model Liudmila
Romanovskaya
demonstrates the dress
Zolotoi kolos (Golden
Ear) designed at
ODMO at the order
of the American firm
Celanese Fiber, 1968.

ODMO regularly subscribed to the leading international fashion journals.

ODMO’s experts translated and studied them and, using them, compiled
their own reports on the basic trends of international fashion, in general
and in different subfields, like men’s and women’s fashion, sportswear, and
so on.
In line with the growth in the importance of international contacts,
a need arose to construct a Soviet analogy to haute couture on the basis of the
trend-setting seasonal collections of fashion. (Fig. 5.6.) Thus the collections
demonstrated on the podium became high priority at ODMO. The proportion
of this kind of haute couture gradually increased too: according to the annual
reports of ODMO in the second part of the 1960s its share was about one
third of all the annual designs.232 A new kind of a designer was demanded
who could design clothes creatively for the colorful fashion shows. These
designers were expected to be professionals with original ideas and creative
dispositions. In the 1960s a generational change indeed took place at ODMO.
Viacheslav Zaitzev, Tatiana Osmerkina, Lina Telegina, Yulia Denisova,
Svetlana Kocharava, Tamara Mokeyeva (later to become Raisa Gorbachova’s
designer), Aleksandr Danilovich Igmand (Leonid Brezhnev’s designer) and
others gradually occupied the leading positions at the institute.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.6. Victoria Brezhneva and Patricia Nixon, the wives of the leaders of the world’s
two superpowers visit ODMO, 1972.

At the same time, the models changed too. New professional demands
were directed at them: to better follow the international standards of
appearance and to learn how to act more professionally on the podium. In
1962 alone, as many as 23 models had to leave their positions at ODMO.233
A special group of elite models soon appeared who demonstrated clothes
mainly at the international exhibitions or in the demonstrations attached
to the selection of the important directive collections. Since it was the
special research and development department which dealt with the design
of the Soviet haute couture and since each individual dress was sewn for an
actual model these “elite” models at ODMO were mainly attached to this
department. (Fig. 5.7.)
At the same time, ODMO was engaged in propagating fashion and the
culture of dress among the Soviet population. The visitors to the Kuznetskii
Most could take part in lectures, have a look at the permanent exhibitions
and buy drawings or patterns and instructions for the best designs. Three
two hour shows took place at the demonstration hall every day except
Monday. They enjoyed great popularity among the Muscovites and the
visitors to the capital, foreign diplomats and journalists. Those in power
certainly monitored the workings of the main Soviet organization of fashion
design closely, but this also meant that it enjoyed some privileges. The
artistic council, headed by the deputy minister, approved of the seasonal
collections as a rule.234 The council took just as seriously its task of checking
and approving the collections aimed at international exhibitions. In addition,
many other leading workers of the Party and the government who had some
professional relation to the production of clothes, the culture and ideology
of dress visited ODMO every now and then. In the 1960s and 1970s ODMO
became a kind of cultural center in Moscow, attracting young people from

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.7. Galina Milovskaya, a top model from VIALegprom, doing her make up in a
Moskvich car before a photo session.

among the artistic and scientific circles. People came there hoping to get
acquainted with modern fashion as well as the popular fashion designers,
and possibly also in order to get one’s clothes made by them (like the film
director Andrey Tarkovsky). Some also certainly came there attracted by the
possibility of meeting the beautiful models. Many actors and actresses well
known from the Soviet film and theater world also became regular guests:
Valentin Gaft whose first wife Elena Izergina was a model at ODMO, Andrei
Mironov who had a romantic relationship with the model Romanovskaya,
Nikita Mikhalkov, later to become a world famous film director and married
to the ODMO model Tatiana Shigayeva, and others.
Even though officially ODMO did not engage in the sewing of custom
made clothes to individual order, the best designers in the country did serve
personally, as an exception, the cultural and political elite, at times even
creating new designs for their important clients. According to the official
accounts, every year ODMO filled over 100 such VIP orders sanctioned by
its own Ministry. These clients included famous Soviet actresses and singers,
for example, the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater Maya Plisetskaya,
Klavdia Shul’zhenko, Muslim Magomayev, Iosif Kobson, Edita P’ekha, Alla
Pugacheva who represented the country abroad and at home and were
therefore entitled to the highest standards of dress. But even other well-
known public figures or their close relatives had their clothes made at
ODMO, starting with the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the wife of Mikhail
Gorbachev Raisa Maksimovna, the Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva,
the daughter of the Soviet Prime Minister Aleksey Kosygin, Liudmila
Gvishiani, and ending with the first female astronaut, Valentina Tereshkova.
These close, often personal ties with the leaders of the country emphasized
the exceptionally strong and central role of ODMO in the Soviet system of

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

fashion. However, from the end of the 1960s, the main institute of fashion
research at the Ministry of Light Industry was no longer formally ODMO but
the newly founded VIALegprom which now became the “crown on the head”
of the extensive system of Soviet fashion. Nevertheless, due to its long and
valuable experience in the work of fashion ODMO preserved its importance
and became the right hand of VIALegprom until the collapse of the USSR.

Standardizing Soviet Clothing Sizes: TsNIIShP and Other Scientific

Research and Construction Organizations at the Ministry of Light
Industry
In addition to the houses of fashion design, the scientific research institutes
and technical pattern construction bureaus at the Ministry of the Light
Industry were important units in the Soviet system of fashion design. The
task of such applied research was to provide the field of fashion with the
most advanced scientific and technological advice and instructions. The
state, which financed this extensive and expensive structure, naturally
expected to get its money back in the form of new applications of science
and technology for production.
The Central Scientific Research Institute of the Garment Industry
(TsNIIShP) was the leading organization, the task of which was to develop
the design and technology of clothing construction, to analyze the materials
to be used in sewing and develop the practical qualities of the clothes in use.
In the 1960s, TsNIIShP had several laboratories dedicated to, for example,
the construction of practical clothing, the technology of the garment
industry, the knowledge of materials, the clothing hygiene, and the design,
construction and technology of industrial clothes. In 1965, the Institute
employed five fashion designers and several dozen pattern makers and textile
engineers.
It was founded as early as 1930 to provide the garment industry with
scientific innovations. In the middle of the 1930s it worked out the first ever
Soviet systematic and standardized method of industrially mass producing
clothes.235 However, it never really succeeded in establishing itself before the
war, which had devastating effects on the quality of mass-produced clothes up
to the 1960s. For instance, for a very long time there were no anthropological
data about the population of the Soviet Union which could be used to
determine the different sizes and patterns when sewing clothes industrially.
TsNIIShP, together with the department of anthropology at Moscow State
University, conducted such systematic measurements for the first time in
1957–1965. Citizens of both sexes were measured in all the different regions
and parts of the country, from the Far East to the Baltic Sea, from the Arctic
regions to the Black Sea. After that the measures of the most commonly met
figures were classified and codified.236 On their basis, about 100 standard
measures were calculated for both women and men. In consequence, the
garment industry, the fashion houses, and the clothing trade had a unified set
of scientifically founded standard human figures at their disposal for the first
time. All this allowed, from the 1960s onward, improvement of the quality of

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mass-produced clothes, a better fit for different figures, as well as an increase

in the variety of ready-made clothes for sale.
These new standard measures covered about 80 percent of all the various
human figures, making it in principle possible for almost everyone to
find readymade clothes in the shops that would fit without any need of
additional adjustment. This was a great leap forward and followed the
international example of those years. But what was to be done with the rest
of the population, making up almost one fifth of all Soviets, who did not
have these standard figures? Just like in other countries, they had the choice
to buy readymade clothes and adjust them later, to sew clothes themselves,
or to turn to one of the numerous Soviet ateliers of custom made clothes.
In 1966–1967, as a consequence of the standardization of the clothing
industry within the COMECON, the Institute of Garment Industry
conducted new anthropometric studies among the adult and adolescent
population of the USSR. This resulted in the unified typology of the
measures of the COMECON countries which led further, in 1974, to the
development of the general standards for the clothing industry of the whole
Eastern bloc. In the mid-1970s, 93 standard male figures and 105 female
figures were determined which the clothing industry was to use in sewing
garments.237 In the following decades, the TsNIIShP had various tasks. It had
the responsibility of analyzing the new synthetic textiles which started to
appear in clothing production in the USSR to make sure that they would not
cause any harm to the health of the population. After 1970 the selection and
buying of textiles from other countries followed the standards developed by
the scientific laboratories. For instance, in evaluating the merits of jeans that
could be imported to the USSR in the 1970s the same standards were used
as far as their durability, resistance to folding and wrinkling and endurance
of washing were concerned. Durability and long life were the main criteria
of good quality. It did not occur to anyone that textiles that did not tolerate
washing well and were soft and easily folding could be more fashionable
and even more comfortable to wear. At the same time the secret laboratory
number ten of the Institute conducted research, together with the Scientific
Institute of Aviation and Cosmic Medicine of the Ministry of Defense, on
suits for cosmonauts and pilots, from their underwear to their overalls.238
They all needed their own designers too. The laboratories at TsNIIShP also
constructed special clothes for polar expeditions and for work in extremely
warm conditions. The designers of the Institute had the important task of
taking care that these special clothes were not only practical and comfortable
but also beautiful and fashionable.
In the beginning of the 1970s the researchers at TsNIIShP were asked
to prepare recommendations regarding the needed renewal of the clothing
price approval system. No Soviet product could be sold before it had passed
the rather complicated and bureaucratic procedure of price control. Until
1972, this was the duty of the State Committee for Prices of each Soviet
republic. For instance, all the garment factories in the Russian Federation
had to send their clothing designs and the attached technical documentation
to the State Committee for Prices of the Russian Federation. Understandably,
on many occasions the designs went out of fashion before their prices

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had been properly approved. Fashion design would therefore have greatly
benefitted from a more flexible and decentralized system of price setting.
In 1972 TsNIIShP did in fact take the initiative to change this system of
price setting for men’s and women’s clothes. The old norms regulating the
use of textiles, dating back to Stalin’s times, were now abolished and at the
same time the degree of difficulty in sewing the garment was taken into
account in determining its price. These recommendations were approved
and a new price list came into being in 1974. This reform gave a remarkable
stimulus to the factories to take more fashionable clothes into production.
At the same time, the garment industry was given the right to determine
their prices without the interference of the State Committee for Prices,
which saved a lot of time and greatly sped up the production of fashionable
garments as well as their appearance in the shops. However, the reform at
that point concerned only coats, trousers, suits and dresses. Other clothing
items had to wait until 1979–1981 for the price control to become more
flexible.

The Highest Authority of Soviet Fashion: All-Union Institute of

Product Assortment and Culture of Dress under the Ministry
of Light Industry, VIALegprom

VIALegprom was founded in 1958 to become the highest authority in the

field of fashion design and the propaganda of fashion in the USSR. It again
was an integral part of a bigger network of similar organizations in the other
Eastern European socialist countries within the COMECON.
According to its founding statutes, VIALegprom had several important
functions similar to ODMO’s. It took in fact over the role of ODMO as
the leading Soviet institute of fashion. Among its tasks were to study the
assortment of items produced by Soviet industry, to choose and control the
best textiles and clothes to be used, and to study and distribute the most
advanced experiences of fashion design in the Soviet Union and abroad.
VIALegprom’s tasks also included the technical and aesthetic instruction
of the activities of the houses of fashion design and the other organizations
involved in fashion design within the Ministry, and to coordinate the work of
its enterprises and organizations in order to create collections and whole sets
of clothes, shoes, head wear, etc. It was also expected to actively propagate
Soviet fashion.239 Until then no one had analyzed and coordinated in earnest
the creation of harmonious totalities of dress, their color scales, silhouettes,
stylistic themes, technological details, etc. in producing whole sets of clothes
as well as whole collections.240 These innovative measures are still impressive
even though their practical realization faced many problems.241
Starting in the end of the 1960s, the institute received additional functions
and authority in coordinating the work of the other organizations of fashion
design, greatly increased its staff and moved to a brand new ten floor building
in central Moscow specially constructed for it. Several new designers, Irina
Krutikova among them, were employed in the research and development
department. Departments analyzing consumer demand, the propaganda of

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Soviet fashion and the culture of dress, and the advertising of fashionable
clothes were all among its new additions.
Its publishing activities advanced too. VIALegprom started producing
its own advertisement films. For instance, in the 1980s it prepared a movie
for every meeting of its artistic council which was then distributed to all
the main organizations of fashion design in the USSR. At the same time,
the publication of its three major fashion journals continued: Zhurnal mod
(The Fashion Journal), Modeli sezona (The Fashion of the Season; first issue
in spring 1959), and Mody stran sotsializma (Fashion from the Socialist
Countries).242
Organizations analogous to VIALegprom were established in the Soviet
republics. The most important among them were the Special Artistic Bureau
of Construction (SHKB) in the Russian Ministry of Light Industry and the
Ukrainian Institute of Product Assortment and Culture of Dress. They both
had their own experimental departments with their fashion designers and
models.
The department of the theory of fashion was considered to be the leading
part of VIALegprom. It made prognoses of the fashion trends, for the
purpose of which it analyzed the development of international fashion. It
also regularly summarized and compiled brochures on the tendencies of
international fashion using international fashion journals and other available
information sources. These were then distributed in a couple of hundred
copies to all the republican and regional fashion institutions.
After its move to the new building it was the only organization in the
Soviet Union that had a demonstration hall that was specially built for the
purpose of fashion shows. The other demonstration halls in Moscow and
other cities were situated in pre-revolutionary buildings that did not fulfil
the modern demands of fashion demonstrations. In many Soviet cities and
towns fashion shows were organized in sports and concert halls as well as
bigger theaters. The hall at VIALegprom was certainly one of the biggest in
the world. It hardly ever stayed empty: in addition to its internal use, twice
every month a regional house of fashion design visited it to demonstrate its
own fashion collection at the Soviet capital. These fashion shows were, as a
rule, open to ordinary Soviet citizens and foreign visitors.
In its hall of product assortment, VIALegprom started to exhibit the best
Soviet clothes, shoes, and textiles which its aesthetic committee had inspected
and approved. It had a unique historical collection of the different kinds of
textiles produced in Russia and the USSR since pre-revolutionary times.
The building also housed a library which was, after ODMO’s, the second
fashion library in the Soviet Union with a rich collection of international and
domestic fashion journals and other publications.243
It was above all VIALegprom which was responsible for the image of
Soviet fashion abroad. The Institute created experimental designs of clothing
aimed at international exhibitions and also collected and reproduced for the
shows the best clothes created in the other houses of fashion design in the
country. It organized delegations and compiled collections of Soviet fashion
for the annual forums of fashion of the Socialist countries as well as for the
more prestigious exhibitions in the West.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

The only aesthetic council which had All-Union status and authority
comprising the whole territory of the USSR on the questions of fashion
and the culture of dress worked under the auspices of VIALegprom making
it in practice the “lawgiver” of Soviet fashion. VIALegprom produced,
and its aesthetic council gathered, inspected and approved of the trend-
setting collection and worked out recommendations regarding the future
perspectives of fashion.244 In the beginning this took place once a year, later
on twice. As a result of its meetings and the work of the aesthetic council,
VIALegprom regularly published a catalogue of fashion designs. Since
fashion was planned at least a year ahead the fashion trends of 1970, for
instance, were made in the summer of 1968 and were finally approved in the
autumn of the same year.
The meetings of the aesthetic council were quite remarkable occasions,
gathering together the leading fashion specialists of the country, including
designers, pattern makers, art theorists, engineers, and the leaders of the
various fashion organizations from all the republics and regions of the USSR.
At best well over 500 participants could be present at the demonstration hall.
The idea was that all fashion organizations would regularly send their best
designs which included some innovative ideas to the aesthetic council to be
seriously discussed and evaluated.
In practice, the aesthetic council went through and approved of four
trend-setting collections every year: first, the prospective collection of
textiles, clothes and other materials, second the knitwear items, then shoes
and other leather items (bags, gloves, belts, etc.), and finally the collection
of the complete sets of clothes. This order had a logic of its own since, quite
naturally, each design needed its own raw materials. Interestingly, the idea of
designing a complete set of clothes included hosiery, socks and accessories
for both women and men.
All the houses of fashion design as well as, from the late 1970s onward,
the main industrial enterprises made their own suggestions for the main
collection.245 VIALegprom itself made only a few of the actual fashion
designs; the other part came from the items designed by other houses and
accepted into the special trend-setting collections. These included indoor
and outdoor wear, knitwear as well as assorted leather and fur items.
Before each meeting of the big aesthetic council the members of its
working group went through hundreds of designs submitted to them from
the local organizations all over the country. A small number were turned
down totally, the rest were divided into two groups to be included in either
the industrial collection or the trend-setting collection. The final selection
took place before the meeting of the whole aesthetic council.246 For instance,
on the eve of the meeting of the aesthetic council on 22–23 November,
1968 its working section went through 403 new designs of male and female
clothes, 50 knitwear items, 43 shoe designs, and 33 bags, suitcases and
briefcases. Their designers came from the houses of fashion design all over
the country. This particular meeting was quite typical and did not differ in
any way from other meetings of these times.
The meetings of the council of VIALegprom differed from the meetings
of the other fashion organizations since the collections were not the results of

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the work of the designers of one organization alone but represented the best
designers in the whole country. The clothes in the industrial collection were
recommended for taking into industrial production immediately (in this
case as early as the second half of the year 1969). The designs of the trend-
setting collection were in their turn meant to be included in the following
industrial collection of 1970. In principle every directive collection was
meant to become an industrial collection the year after. The purpose was
to promote orderliness and forecasting. The biggest part of the collection
inspected and evaluated by the working section of the aesthetic council
was included in the trend-setting collection: 151 designs of men’s and
women’s clothes, 33 designs of shoes, and 22 designs of leather products.247
Accessories, which were usually regarded as secondary complements to
the main design, were considered to be integral parts of the whole outfit
in these collections. The results of VIALegprom’s aesthetic council were
published every year in special brochures, like “The directives of fashion of
the complete set of clothes for the year ...” or “The directives of the fashion
show for the year ...” They were then distributed all over the country.
The concluding part of the annual report on the collections of the aesthetic
council was called the ensemble. In 1970 it gave the following characterization
of future Soviet fashion: “The ensemble of female clothes distinguishes itself
with its outstanding lines, harmonic portions, elegant forms ... The male
ensemble distinguishes itself with the clear silhouette of its items with their
carefully worked out details and additions.”248
Together with the other socialist countries, the Soviet Union regularly
demonstrated its new designs in the meetings of the Permanent Working
Group on the Questions of the Culture of Dress of the COMECON.
VIALegprom played an important role in this socialist competition
too. Several dozen best female and male designs from the trend-setting
collections of VIALegprom were selected for these demonstrations each year.
They competed for the best designs with the fashion collections of the other
European socialist countries

Fashion Design in the Garment Enterprises

In 1962, A. A. Krasovskaya, the director of the Leningrad garment factory

Bolshevichka, which specialized in the production of high quality women’s
clothes published the book Sovetskim zhenshchinam-krasivuyu, dobrotnuyu
odezhdu (To the Soviet women-beautiful and good clothes). Krasovskaya
complained that her advanced enterprise, which had had an experimental
laboratory of fashion design of its own since the 1930s, had to rely on the
products of the Leningrad House of Fashion Design. In her words, in 1961
out of all the 200 new designs, 165 were ordered from this House and the
factory’s own designers created only 35. In their own opinion, they could
easily have done much more. She recommended that the proportion should
be reversed and referred to the experiences of Hungary, which she had
recently visited. The Hungarians created their new designs mostly in the
industrial enterprises. The local houses of fashion design consulted the

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firms on the more general directions of fashion. In Hungary, the houses

functioned, in other words, exclusively as trend-setters resembling the role
of VIALegprom in the USSR.249 Krasovskaya was convinced that such a
division of labor would be optimal for the garment industry in the Soviet
Union too.250Her opinion became popular among the factory directors, who
were obviously dissatisfied with their dependence on the houses of fashion
design and their curatorial role.
By 1960 at the latest all the major garment, shoe, knitwear, and
leather factories had their own research and development departments or
experimental laboratories and workshops. (Fig. 5.8.) They were directly
engaged in both the design and styling and modeling of new patterns at
the orders of the factory leadership as well as in the application-which
often meant simplification-of the completed designs they received from the
fashion houses, a procedure against which these houses constantly protested
with hardly any results. The directors argued that many designs which came
to them from the fashion houses, including ODMO, were good examples
of Soviet haute couture in the sense that they were alien to “real life” and
to the customers’ demands as well as to the technological possibilities and
economic norms of the factories. Therefore it was necessary to modify them
before taking them into production. To this claim the workers at the houses
of the fashion design answered that, in fact, such changes often only led
to the unnecessary simplification of the original design, mainly due to the
professional incompetence of the garment factories.
The situation did not improve in the 1970s. The new economic politics
demanded and actively promoted the formation of gigantic regional
industrial consortiums by abolishing the central ministries and joining
together several factories. As a consequence, their design organizations were
joined together as well. As a result these organizations became stronger and
could seriously compete with the real houses of fashion design. Some such
conglomerates even established their own artistic councils which started to
approve, on their own initiative, new designs worked out by the specialists of
the factory. The very fact of the establishment of artistic councils was equal
to a declaration of independence from the design houses in the questions
of fashion. The design houses naturally protested against such tendencies.
Just like other big enterprises, the huge Moscow-based industrial
garment conglomerate, with the characteristic name Zenskaya moda (Female
Fashion) also had an experimental laboratory. It had come into being in the
beginning of the 1970s as a result of the unification of three garment factories
producing women’s fashion in the capital region, the profiles of which were
quite close to each other: Moksvichka, Chaika and Istrinskaya shveinaya
fabrika. Zhenskaya moda had its own artistic council. The following fact
gives a good idea of the relatively high quality of its designs: four ended up
at once in the trend-setting collection of the USSR for the years 1973–1974
and were demonstrated in the annual fashion competition of the socialist
countries in Romania.
However, the new designs mainly came to the factory Zhenskaya moda
from ODMO. Its own designers made only a relatively small percentage of
them-as a rule only ten to fifteen percent. The situation in the whole country

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.8. A meeting of the artistic council of the Bol’shevichka garment factory discussing
a new men’s suit, Moscow 1966.

was about the same from the 1960s to the 1980s. The designers working at
the factories had the advantage of being more operational: in the fashion
houses it could take a year to provide the new design with the complete
technical documentation starting from its first sketch. The factories could
complete the same task in just a couple of months. Sometimes, with an
urgent order from the leadership, the designers at the factory could manage
to do it in a couple of days. (For instance, when the trade organizations
demanded an urgent modification of an already existing design.) The other
side of the coin was the almost total dependence of the designers on the
factory leadership, who often oriented themselves more according to the
practical demands of the fulfillment of the quota than to higher aesthetic
imperatives. In addition, the majority of these research and development
laboratories were, after all, professionally weaker than the “real” houses of
fashion design. Taking into consideration all these factors the leaders of the
Ministry of Light Industry did not want to make any cardinal changes in the
relations of the various design organizations: they relied mostly on the higher
professional capacity of the fashion design houses and expected better results
from their cooperation with the factories.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fashion Design in the Houses of Everyday Services

In the 1960s a unique new sector of the economy came into being in the
Soviet Union, even the name of which is almost impossible to translate
into any other language. This was the comprehensive system of everyday
services (sluzhba byta) for the population with a special ministry of its
own. The Ministry of Everyday Services of the Population of the RSFSR
(Minbyt RSFSR) was a Republican Ministry founded in 1965 to administer
all enterprises relating to everyday services on the territory of the Russian
Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was shut down in 1991 following the
collapse of the Soviet Union. In contrast to both light industry and trade,
there was no All-Union Ministry in the field of Everyday Services. It was
thought that the Republican level was more appropriate to administer
numerous local and regional service enterprises.
Services were for a long time regarded to be the less developed part
of the Soviet economy. Until the mid-1960s, many service enterprises
and units (barber’s and hair-dresser’s, laundries, ateliers and workshops,
watchmaker’s, shoe and tool repair shops, etc.) worked under the local or
municipal administration, others were cooperatives, whereas yet others
were scattered under various other ministries and administrative units.
In 1965, after the establishment of the new Ministry, they were all united
into one central administrative system. In fact, a totally new field of the
economy was thus born in the Soviet Union. The purpose of this reform
was to enlarge the network of services, and provide them with modern
tools and technique as well as more qualified labor force. The new Ministry
introduced new quality standards to raise the level of its services. It also
soon established its own institutes of fashion design to serve its ateliers of
custom made clothes. In the following we shall present the most important
among them.
Contrary to the capitalist West where local shopping centers often
combined enterprises of trade with various service units under the same
roof, in the USSR the state-owned trade and services had been, following the
principle of specialization, strictly separated into separate ministries as well
as buildings. The new Soviet service centers, Doma byta, on the other hand,
covered everything that had to do with the services needed for the everyday
life of a human being. They united all the existing ateliers of custom made
clothes which had earlier belonged to different administrative departments,
together with barber’s shops and public bathing institutions, dry cleaners,
renting points, as well as various service centers for the repair of watches,
metal objects, electric tools, and so on.251
The system of individual sewing or custom made clothes consisted of
four divisions in the USSR: 1) clothes and suits, 2) knitwear, 3) head wear,
and 4) shoes. Even though they all belonged to the same ministry they all
also had their own ateliers, factories, and industrial conglomerates with their
own designers. The individual sewing of hats and shoes in particular was
popular in the Soviet Union. Special regional industrial conglomerates were
established in hat production which had their own experimental shops with
a staff of designers.252

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

The general idea was that the units of individual sewing and services
could compensate for the shortcomings of the mass production of clothes,
hats and shoes in the Soviet consumer goods industry. At the same time, in
the economically advanced countries of the West such ateliers of individual
orders and service had become rare and expensive luxuries. The opening of
a nationwide chain of these service centers was concrete proof that highly
centralized industrial mass production, officially favored by the Soviet
government, was not a universally valid solution to all the problems of
the satisfaction of the population’s needs and material well-being. At the
same time, the principle “big is beautiful” came from the very beginning to
dominate this new service sector of the Soviet economy too. The new service
centers were large and centralized all the various activities and units under
the same roof and the same administrative planning system.
Since the individual nature of the customized production of clothes
could not in general compete cost-effectively with mass production the
government fixed its prices at an artificially low level. Therefore dressmakers’
and tailors’ ateliers sold their garments for relatively low prices, though
they were still more expensive than ready-made clothes.253 Sometimes
custom garments could, however, be even cheaper than ready made. The
authorities therefore took to the old proven methods and tried to make
the ateliers of individualized sewing more profitable by promoting their
specialization, centralizing their production, and introducing more effective
methods of mass production such as the conveyor belt with a strict division
of labor. Thus the system of individual services gradually repeated the
very same methods that had produced so many controversial results in
Soviet light industry and had originally given rise to this new alternative
organization. Its working methods often came to be closer to industrial
production when compared to the traditional fashion ateliers and tailoring
workshops. The industrialized production units of custom made clothes
thus faced contradictory expectations from the very beginning, which were
understandably not at all easy to satisfy. They were expected to have a highly
individual approach to their clients at the same time as being economically
highly effective by making use of all the methods of standardized industrial
mass production.
The Soviet ateliers made practically any kind of clothing to order – for
newborn babies and adolescents, for women and men, for civilians and
officers. In principle one could easily order a tailcoat or a tuxedo even
though their prices would admittedly be out of reach of most wage earners.
Consequently, they were for sale only in the ateliers belonging to the highest
luxury or first class, operating only in the bigger cities. People with normal
figures mostly ordered clothes that they could wear for a longer time and
not just one or two seasons from the ateliers, like overcoats, suits, dresses,
more festive clothes or simply more fashionable clothes that they could not
find in the shops. However, it was also quite possible to let an atelier sew new
– or repair or remake old-underwear for oneself. Those who did not have
time to queue for a good tailor or dressmaker could make use of the semi-
industrial items that the ateliers recommended to their customers; these
were produced in small series at the factories of the system of custom made

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

clothes. In such cases clothes could be fitted to the client almost at once and
no particular fitting session was needed. The sale of semi-industrial clothes
was much more profitable for the ateliers than only sewing to individual
order. However, they also raised from time to time critical questions among
the specialists. They did not, after all, quite correspond to the idea of a real
atelier, with its individually custom-made clothing and skillful, experienced
tailors or dressmakers.
A great part of the income of the ateliers in this new system of
administration was expected to come from the unofficial market, dominated
until then by private tailors and dressmakers who worked illegally and did
not pay any taxes, thus depriving the state every year of remarkable sums
of money. According to a financial inquiry from the year 1966, private
persons had made 20 to 30 percent of all items of the outer appearance of the
Soviet citizens.254 These private and illegal or semi-legal services continued,
however, to compete quite successfully with the official state-owned new
services until the very end of the Soviet Union, thus disappointing those who
had put great hopes in the new centralized system.
In the mid-1960s, during the formative years of the state system of
individual sewing, or custom made clothes, about 12,000 ateliers with about
35,000 pattern makers worked under the Ministry of Everyday Services of
the Russian Federation alone.255 Since the qualifications of the workforce
were rather poor only a few pattern makers mastered the skills necessary for
successful and creative fashion design. The first inspections in their localities
showed indeed that the pattern makers often could not follow fashion.
Many sewed clothes for their customers using old patterns and silhouettes
they had learned long ago. This gave rise to plans of organizing separate
units of fashion design within the field of everyday services, of raising the
qualifications and educating new cadres of designers and pattern makers, of
publishing and distributing fashion journals and albums and of adding more
precise drawings and instructions to designs.
The establishment of the network of educational, scientific and design
institutions of the Ministry of Everyday Services started in the 1960s too.
The Moscow Technological Institute became the main provider of its new
cadres. It educated designers, pattern makers and engineers of clothing
for this department in particular. In 1967 two more similar institutes of
higher learning were opened, one in Ukraine (Khmel’nitskii) and the other
in the Far East (Vladivostok) under the respective republican ministries
of everyday services. A wide range of courses for the improvement of
professional qualifications were also organized.256
Some exemplary enterprises existed in the Ministry of Everyday Services
too. In Yaroslavl’, the firm Volga came into being as a result of the unification
of all the local enterprises of garment sewing in the autumn of 1964. In 1966
it was turned into a bigger industrial conglomerate with the same name.
It united firms from both Yaroslavl’ and Rybinsk and had a research and
development bureau with its own fashion designers. The following year,
1967, the construction of a whole separate building for a fashion house under
the Ministry of Everyday Services started in the city of Yaroslavl’ in order to
provide new designs to the local ateliers and enterprises.257

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

In the same way, four production units of everyday services were united
in the city of Perm into the new Perm Garment Factory of Individual Sewing
No. 1. It combined 33 ateliers in the different regions of the city with a total
staff of 2,250 people.258 The factory had an experimental workshop with its
own fashion designers and its own artistic council. In 1968 it had 13 members,
all from the factory: designers, the head engineer, pattern designers and
pattern makers, and others. The new designs that passed the judgement of
its artistic council were sent to the experimental workshop to be properly
worked out, after which they were offered to clients through the network of
its own ateliers. During its first year of existence (1967) the Perm Factory No.
1 adopted over 100 new designs which it offered to the inhabitants of Perm.259
The factory actively advertised its products and services among the local
population too. In the end of the 1960s, it organized fashion shows of its new
designs twice a week in two places in the city: in the local Center of Everyday
Services, Almaz and in the smaller demonstration hall of the biggest atelier
in the city, Elegant. In 1968 the research and development workshop of the
factory did not yet have any models in its staff. Therefore, the models from
its local competitor, the Perm House of Fashion Design under the Ministry
of Light Industry worked there on short term contracts.
The whole USSR was rumored to visit the Tallinn atelier of individual
sewing, Lembitu, which actively engaged in fashion design and was one
of the first ateliers to organize its own department of semi-manufactured
products. These could be fitted and modified according to the needs of the
client on the very day of taking the order, which was extremely rare in Soviet
days.
The availability of the services of tailors and dressmakers of individual
sewing differed greatly from one region of the Soviet Union to another. As a
rule it was much better in the cities than in the countryside. The citizens of
Moscow and Leningrad had by far the best services at their disposal. At the
moment of the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow had about 800 ateliers attached
to the larger factories in the city districts as well as a dozen industrial units
specialized in making clothes following the Muscovites’ orders: fur clothes
(Zima, 42 ateliers), women’s underwear (Gratsia, 26 ateliers), plus-sized
clothes (Elegant, 9 ateliers), children’s and youth wear (Yunost’, 31 ateliers),
head wear (21 ateliers) as well as knitwear (Trikotazhnitsa, 13 ateliers).260 All
these conglomerates had their own designers. In addition, the capital city
had almost as many ateliers belonging to different departmental units which
serviced only their own, restricted clientele: the Communist Party apparatus,
the KGB officers, the personnel of the Ministry of International Affairs and
other ministries, the Academy of Sciences, and so on.
The early official statistics are quite impressive. In 1965 the clothing
ateliers of the republican Ministries of Everyday Services (shoe makers’
ateliers and head wear not included) filled 30 million sewing or repairing
orders from the Soviet population.261This was the time when the system
was first under construction. After another15 years, in 1980, in the Russian
Federation alone, the clothes, knitwear and shoe makers filled 113 million
orders.262 The figures for Moscow were particularly high. According to one
of the leaders of the Moscow Administration of Individual Sewing, N. A.

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Nesterova, the Moscow ateliers filled about 5 million orders a year in the
1980s.263 This added up to almost the total amount of the population in the
capital city. The ateliers at Moscow were also as a rule of good quality and
accordingly the quality of sewing was also better. The long queues at the
ateliers in Moscow witnessed to the fact that they preserved their popularity
among the Soviet population.
The Baltic Republics were also privileged in this respect. The Riga
conglomerate Rigas Modes (3,500 workers) had four industrial units with
ten departments (among them, as usual, clothes, knitwear, fur and head
wear), 85 ateliers and work-shops. If we compare the amount of orders which
this conglomerate, working exclusively in Riga, fulfilled with the amount of
the population of the city, every third citizen on average ordered a garment
annually from their ateliers and every sixth from the knitwear atelier. Rigas
Modes had a big research and development department where the designers
constructed hundreds of new designs of fashionable clothes for their clients
every year.264 The same was true of the shoe conglomerate at Riga, Rigas
Apavi, which was famous for its designers.265
The city of Kaunas in Lithuania also had quite impressive statistics to
show. At the turn of the 1980s the local factory of individual sewing of
clothes Mada (1,400 workers) had 30 workshops and ateliers as well as an
experimental design workshop. Its designers constructed and recommended
to their clients each season 25–30 new clothing designs. In 1979, Mada
filled about 600,000 orders a year. Compared to the population of Kaunas
this meant that on average every person in Kaunas visited the ateliers of
individual sewing with a new order almost twice a year.266
The situation was totally different in the sparsely populated agrarian
regions of the country, in Siberia, the Far East, and the European North
where it was not profitable to construct big new buildings for the ateliers of
individual sewing. One attempt to solve this problem was the introduction
of mobile ateliers built in trucks, the production of which started in the
middle of the 1960s in the factory at the city of Ordzhonikidze. When the
car body was raised higher on both axels it became an all-terrain vehicle
which could drive on tracks with no real roads. This pride of the spirit of
Soviet engineering became one of the main attractions at the International
Exhibition of Fashion in Moscow in 1967. It had both air conditioning and
heating in the working cabin. Inside the cabin was a mini-atelier: a table
and chair for sewing and a box for the clothes, clothing hangers with semi-
manufactured clothes, a mirror, an armchair and a small table with fashion
journals for the clients. Whenever the mobile atelier came to a village the
loudspeakers announced to the inhabitants the following information, which
had been recorded in advance: what was for sale, how long sewing would
take, and the prices of the orders. The service of the clients, the consultation
with the pattern maker, the reading of the fashion journals and taking of the
measures went on with accompanying music.267 In some parts of the Soviet
Union these trucks were known as the “atelier on wheels.”268
The Soviet authorities divided the ateliers into four quality classes: highest
or luxury, first and second class and “ordinary” sewing workshops. Some
ateliers of the highest and first class were officially called fashion ateliers.

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They had their own designers who consulted the clients on the selection
of raw materials, design and style of the clothes. If the client so wished the
designer was expected to draw a sketch of the ordered design.
In 1966 special ateliers for girls and boys under the age of 18 were opened
in the cities. Since the prices fixed by the state were much lower than in the
ateliers for adults these children’s ateliers became quite popular. By 1980,
Moscow alone had 30 such children’s ateliers belonging to the firm Yunost’
which turned out 80 to 90 new children’s designs each year.269 One of the tasks
facing the workers in these ateliers was the propagation of fashion and good
taste among the youth. “The children should be taught to dress themselves
well just as they are taught other qualities of adequate behavior and good
manners without which it is impossible to imagine any harmoniously grown
up human being,” the Journal of the Russian Ministry of Everyday Services,
Sluzhba byta announced to its readers in 1967.270
This monthly professional journal started publishing in 1963. Its huge
editions (for instance, 1.55 million in 1966), the popular character of its
articles and the abundance of its entertaining material soon turned it into a
popular journal which had a wide impact on the opinions of the population.
This journal gave, up to the mid-1970s, a quite realistic picture of the situation
in its own field, including both critique and discussion of its shortcomings.
It devoted a lot of space to the questions of fashion and the culture of dress
on its pages. As the editors wrote in 1967 “by publishing the designs of the
clothes, shoes, hats and accessories we not only make our readers familiar
with what is beautiful, practical and fashionable, but even give more concrete
recommendations to the workers of the everyday services in the country.”271
The journal regularly published clients’ complaints as well as critical
views of the experts. These writings show clearly that the struggle to make
the ateliers of custom made clothes economically more profitable was in
fact almost lost. One article described how a person living in Irkutsk,
Siberia had wanted to order a suit from the local atelier but his request was
turned down without any explanation. The costume was made only after he
had complained to higher authorities. In another case, the atelier took four
years to sew a dress, totally destroying it in the process. The inspections
of the ateliers revealed constant overstepping the deadlines of the orders,
bureaucratic treatment of the customers, client complaints, etc. In some cases
public attorneys had to take measures in order to make the ateliers comply
with their rules and regulations.272 It was no wonder that many clients, after
such unhappy experiences with a state atelier, turned to the services of
private tailors and dressmakers, which continued to operate in great numbers
alongside the official state system of custom made clothes. E. Furman’s
column published in the journal Sluzhba byta in 1980 was characteristic.
Furman recollected that in one case when a tailor had botched an order of
trousers he-knowing that the client also worked in an atelier – recommended
the client not to visit his state – owned atelier anymore but rather order his
trousers from a good private tailor, even giving him the right address.273

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Fashion Designers in the Factories of Everyday Services

The design of new clothes for the needs of the custom made system followed
the general tendencies of Soviet fashion in all essentials. The demand of the
consumers was proclaimed as one of the priorities. In order to adequately
provision all the sewing and knitwear units, as well as the shoemakers and
the hatters, thousands of new professionally designed items were needed
each year. For instance, in 1965 450 tailors and seamstresses who had worked
at the Leningrad Trust of Individual Sewing presented their own designs
to the artistic council of the factory. In the lack of any specialized design
organizations, by that time this activity had become more common and the
best designs received prizes.274 Therefore, the Ministry of Everyday Services
soon felt obliged to open its own institutes of fashion design and pattern
making. In so doing it relied heavily on the previous experience of the
Ministry of Light Industry. In practice, however, the task in this case proved
to be even more complicated. It was not enough just to open specialized
fashion design units; individual experienced designers and pattern makers
also had to be recruited for these ateliers.
In the system of individual sewing in general, the design workshops and
experimental departments of the factories and industrial conglomerates
were mainly responsible for the design of clothes. They made their designs
in response to the needs of the ateliers belonging to their own administrative
organizations. As early as the mid-1970s all the bigger factories within the
system of individual sewing in fact actively engaged in fashion design.
The republican ministries of everyday services were naturally interested in
propagating their own fashion, which was expected to compete successfully
with the fashion of the consumer goods industry. Therefore they started
publishing their patterns on a large scale. The album Mody 1967 (Fashions
1967, with an edition of 75,000) is a good example. It presented the designs
of the Kiev Factory No. 2. Alongside the name of each design its author was
also mentioned.
In the 1970s, the ateliers in the agrarian regions opened experimental
workshops with their own staffs of designers. For instance, the Kolomenskaya
inter-regional factory of individual sewing in the Moscow region with 1,200
workers united 18 ateliers in the Kolomna, Lukhovitsy, Zaraisk and Ozersk
districts of the south-eastern parts of Moscow region in the beginning of the
1980s. The needs of the peasant population, their main clients, dominated
their designs. It is interesting that just like their colleagues in Light Industry,
the designers for the system of individual sewing were, in addition to their
main professional responsibilities, eager to act as messengers of good taste to
the population. The experts at the Kolomenskaya factory traveled regularly
in the villages answering questions concerning modern fashion. This was felt
to be necessary since the peasants “do not have any possibilities to follow the
fashion journals.”275
The next step in the system of individual sewing was establishing
specialized fashion houses in the bigger cities – in the republican capitals
and the industrial centers. The first fashion house of this kind in the USSR
was opened in 1966 in Ordzhonikidze (North Ossetia). The name “fashion

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house” sounded more serious, modern and attractive than an atelier of

individual sewing or custom made clothes. It was thought that the services
of a fashion house would be both multifaceted and better quality. These
houses were regarded as centers of cultured leisure for the population, and
the bigger cities generally had several such houses. Some of them were also
attached directly to the bigger factories, such as the Moscow factories no. 15
and 19.
As a rule, these fashion houses grew out of the best local ateliers and they
continued to work mostly on their old premises or, in the best cases, in new,
specially constructed buildings. What a typical, exemplary fashion house
looked like can be judged on the basis of the Fashion House of Leningrad. Its
new building was finished at the end of the 1960s. It was located downtown
on the Kirov Prospect. The service bureau, the information desk and the café
were located on the ground floor of this building, which had six floors. The
atelier itself was placed on the second through fourth floors. These floors
also had room for the sales of ready-made and semi-fabricated clothes,
exhibition halls, and the demonstration hall with 350 seats and a podium for
the models. The fourth floor was dedicated to the production units engaged
in individual sewing and the fitting of semi-manufactured clothes. The
seamstresses, tailors, fitters and designers worked there. The administration
occupied the fifth floor.276 The client could thus, in one place, get acquainted
with the latest fashion, order a fashionable dress from the atelier or choose
one from among the semi-fabricated clothes, and spend the rest of his or her
time either in the café or watching the fashion show in the demonstration
hall. Moscow had a few such fashion houses on Arbat Street and on the
Prospekt Mira among others. The latter was opened in June 1982. The
famous Soviet designer Vyacheslav Zaitsev became its first artistic director.277
He had long experience with ODMO but since 1978 he had worked at the
fashion system of the Russian Ministry of Everyday Services.
The Moscow Fashion House (Dom mody) on the Prospekt Mira, housed
in a building with 9 floors, was the biggest institution of its kind in the
Soviet Union. It was a huge enterprise with 1,500 employees and united
the functions of a design organization, an atelier of custom-made clothes,
a garment factory and a boutique of its own on the ground floor. It was the
first Soviet fashion organization officially allowed to sell its products in small
series. This took place however first under Gorbachev’s perestroika in the
second half of the 1980s. The demonstration hall occupied its first floor and
had twice weekly theatrical shows lasting one and a half hours each. Its own
artistic councils approved of all its new designs of men’s and women’s clothes.

Special Units of Fashion Design for Centers of Everyday Services

In addition to the fashion houses, the regional administrations of the

Ministries of Everyday Services started to establish their own specialized
centers of fashion design in all the republics and bigger cities of the USSR.
These were not part of a factory or fashion atelier. After 1960 they became
important institutes in their own field. Their functions were otherwise

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quite similar to those of the houses of fashion design under the Ministry
of Light Industry – like ODMO – copying their systems in many essentials.
They designed all four kinds of clothes that could be ordered at the ateliers
of individual sewing: sewn clothing, knitwear, shoes and head wear. Just
like the other houses of fashion design in the consumer goods industry
they mainly served the enterprises belonging to the same administrative
structures in their own region: ateliers, factories, industrial conglomerates
and fashion ateliers of the houses of everyday services. They worked out
new designs with the whole package of technical documentation and
patterns. Enterprises were expected to regularly order new designs from
their own regional centers of fashion design. At the same time they tended
increasingly to design and were eager to promote their own clothes in
their experimental departments. These new clothing patterns were then
recommended to clients through the comprehensive network of ateliers,
fashion houses and other units of the Ministry. Following these designs, the
factories of individual sewing also produced small series of apparel. They
did not, however, have the right to sell their own products directly to their
customers. Even in this sense their position followed the common rules in
the system of the consumer goods industry.
The centers of fashion design soon established artistic councils. They also
had a staff of their own models and a demonstration hall for their fashion
shows. Each season they prepared both industrial and trend setting, haute
couture collections. Following the example of the consumer goods industry
they engaged in research: they distributed the most advanced foreign and
domestic experience in the field of individual sewing, analyzed fashion
trends, and engaged in methodical work with the designers of the fashion
houses and the design shops at their affiliated factories. Gradually, the best
houses of the Ministry of Everyday Services started demonstrating their
collections abroad, predominantly in the socialist countries.
They had the same kind of responsibility as other fashion organizations
to propagate fashion and the culture of dress among the population. Their
workers regularly appeared in the mass media, organized exhibitions and
fashion shows and published albums, booklets and drawings of designs,
which were recommended to clients and distributed through the ateliers.
The editions of the albums were mostly between 50,000 and 100,000 copies.
The Moscow Center of Fashion Design was one of the first within this
structure. It was opened in the end of 1962. In the middle of the 1980s it had
a staff of about 350, 20 designers and as many pattern makers among them.
It employed 2–3 male models and about 15 female models of various ages
and figures on a regular basis.278 (Fig. 5.9.)
A typical center of fashion design consisted of departments of both
designers and pattern makers, one production department, and one
technical department which engaged in the development and adaptation of
technology for the purposes of individual sewing. It also had a publishing
unit, including photograph services, the department of pattern drawing, and
a workshop which produced prototypes of the clothes. In order not to lose its
contacts with its previous customers, the Moscow Center of Fashion Design
preserved its own experimental atelier.

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.9. A dress

designed for a heavy
woman at the House of
Fashion Design of the
Ministry of Everyday
Services, 1960s.

The Law Giver of Fashion for the Service Centers:

The Experimental Center of Clothing Design, TsOTShL

In addition to the regional centers of fashion design, from the 1960s onwards
the system of the Russian Ministry of Everyday Services, alongside the other
republics, established their own specialized experimental workshops. For
instance, the laboratory of head wear and corsets in the city of Rostov-
na-Donu was very important.279 It became the leading house of design
for corsets in the Soviet Union. In addition to designing new models, the
laboratory – in a way already familiar from other fashion design units
– propagated its activities through mass media, educated professionals
in its own field, organized seminars, and gave out illustrated albums and
catalogues of its designs, which were then sent, together with the necessary
technical instructions, to the enterprises of individual sewing.280

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It is a well-known fact that any dress fits nicely with the underwear that has
been sewn for the particular figure. Therefore even their form should follow the
fashionable lines and silhouette of the dress. However, even if the dresses were, as
a rule, quite fashionable every atelier had its own way of making their products
of haberdashery. It must be admitted that the results are not always good. The
reason for this is that little attention is paid in general to this important field of
design.281

This is how T. Pluzhnikova, the director of the Rostov laboratory, character-

ized the situation to the readers of the journal Sluzhba byta while presenting
new designs of women’s underwear. In 1980, the designers at Rostov created
about 250 hat designs and as many designs of women’s underwear every year
(with the adjoining technical documentation), which were then distributed
to the various organizations of individual sewing in all the regions in the
Russian part of the country.282 The Rostov experimental center published
illustrated fashion albums with its own designs. For instance, in 1966 an
album of the designs of women’s underwear appeared.283
At the head of the whole Russian republican system of fashion design
of individual sewing, amounting at the moment of its foundation in the
1960s to well over 70 design organizations,284 stood the Experimental Center
(TsOtShL) in Moscow. Its predecessor was a laboratory under the Moscow
city administration. It was founded at the end of the 1950s and it had rich
practical experience in the design of various kinds of clothes for the ateliers
of custom made clothes in the capital, from formal to everyday clothes,
men’s, women’s and children’s fashion. As early as 1957 it published its own
design albums and booklets in large editions.
The new Experimental Center inherited all these activities together with
new additional functions. Its tasks resembled those which VIALegprom and
ODMO had in relation to industrial mass production of clothes. In other words,
it was not only the main design and pattern making organization in its own
administrative department but also the department’s scientific-methodical
center. The fact that the Experimental Center, just like VIALegprom, studied
the fashion trends, consulted fashion ateliers, and created its own directive
collection each season emphasized this close parallelism. The journal Sluzhba
byta thus called it the “the law giver of fashion of its kind” with good reason
in 1967. The title of the article, dedicated to its designs, proudly called the
Center “the designer of the Republic.”285
In the 1960s the specialists at the Experimental Center established
contacts with VIALegprom and ODMO. The designs from the Experimental
Center, together with the designs from the leading houses of fashion design
under the Ministry of Light Industry, became part of the general trend-
setting collection of the USSR. From the mid-1960s, its designs also appeared
in the design catalogues that VIALegprom recommended to the garment
factories in its annual consultations. For instance, the fashion catalogue
Modnaya odezhda286 included 110 designs from the Center.
Beginning in 1967, the Experimental Center started to organize its own
annual consultations among the specialists of the Ministry of Everyday
Services of the Russian Federation. They analyzed the results and experiences

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Fig. 5.10. Fashionable clothes from the Experimental Center of the Ministry of Everyday
Services, TsOTShI designed in the Red Army style in 1967 to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the October Revolution.

of the previous year and discussed the special problems of clothing design for
the organizations of individual sewing. In addition, the laboratory organized
regional consultations, exhibitions and other events and started to publish
fashion albums and illustrated brochures about fashion trends. (Fig. 5.10.)
Among its publications, the journal-catalogue Modeli sezona (Seasonal
fashions, 3–4 issues a year) had a special position. It was distributed to all
Soviet enterprises of individual sewing. In 1968 it published, alongside the
designs of the Experimental Center, the best creations from the regional design
organizations of everyday services. The employees of the Center – just like
those of other fashion organizations – conducted a great deal of propagandistic
work, writing articles about fashion and the culture of dress for the popular
Soviet journals and newspapers. Their credo coincided on the whole with
the point of view generally adopted among the Soviet fashion specialists:
the main focuses in fashion were rationality, functionality and moderation.
The TsOTShL organized republican consultations on fashion twice a year.
Besides the exchange of experiences they served the development of a unified
“political line” in the tendencies of fashion as well as a unified approach
towards the technical design of clothes. To take an example, the four-day
meeting at Kalinin in 1970 had about two thousand participants. The journal

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

Sluzhba byta wrote a detailed report of it including pictures from the new
directive collection of fashion for the year 1971.287
These consultations followed more or less the same scheme and program
as the All-Union and All-Russian meetings organized both by VIALegprom
and ODMO for their designers in the consumer goods industry. In the
beginning the directors of the Experimental Center delivered lectures on
the tendencies of modern fashion, and on the present state and the most
advanced methods of sewing. They also took up actual problems in the field.
After that the representatives of the regional fashion units reported on their
work by demonstrating their best designs and even whole collections with
live models. These demonstrations had several purposes: they were a kind of
annual report, an exchange of experiences as well as an introduction to the
principal discussions. In the end, the best designs from the various collections
were suggested for inclusion in the general All-Russian directive collection.
During the second and third days of the meeting its participants were
divided into different sections according to their professional specialization.
These sections discussed the questions of design, construction and the
technology of the production of clothes. The last, fourth day was dedicated
to the drawing of conclusions as well as the demonstration of designs-
both from the trend-setting collections selected by the artistic council
and other collections. For instance, the city of Kalinin (Tver’) in 1970 had
a demonstration of a special collection for full-figured women as well as
a collection of the hundred best head wear and women’s underwear designs
that the above mentioned Rostov laboratory had created. They were included
as an additional part of the annual trend-setting collection for the year
1971. This was the first time that a special collection of designs was created
in the USSR for heavier women. Their sewing was considered to better suit
the ateliers of individual sewing than industrial mass production, which
oriented its designs to the average female figures.
The trend-setting collection, which included all kinds of clothes for all
the seasons, was particularly important since the workers in the system of
individual sewing were expected to mainly follow them, their style, length,
color scale, etc., in their work. In the meeting on the last day the most
advanced enterprises received their awards. The best designers, pattern
makers and tailors were also rewarded for their outstanding performance.288
The trends of modern fashion were often discussed quite heatedly in
these annual meetings. In particular, the meeting at Kalinin in 1970 raised
the question of the adequacy and decency of female trousers-a question
which had been hotly debated in the Soviet press around the same time (see
Chapter 7). The directors of the Experimental Center strongly encouraged
the design of female trousers and even fashionable combinations like female
overcoats with fitting trousers.289
The main stages a design had to pass through on its way to the customer
were the following: first, a prototype was sewn following a draft drawn by
the designer. Then a model demonstrated it to the artistic council. After it
had been approved of, a couple more months were needed to draw the final
design pattern, print it, and send the catalogues and price lists to the local
offices. Then the local administrations, industrial conglomerates and factories

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

of individual sewing inspected them and selected the designs they liked best,
after which they ordered them from the Experimental Center. After that, it
prepared the necessary technical documentation of the designs asked for and
received the proper payment for them. After another half a year, the technical
documents and patterns would be finished and were mailed from Moscow to
the local administration which had ordered them. It could then multiply the
documents and distribute these to its own ateliers.290 At best, the clients of the
ateliers could order clothes using these new designs nine to ten months after
their original creation. In this time, fashion could change. This long road was,
however, much faster than it was in the system of light industry.
The analogous design organizations which operated under the Ministries
of Everyday Services in the other Soviet republics worked basically in the
same way as the Russian organization, which was, however, the largest of
them all.

Closer to the Customer: Fashion Design in the Organizations

of the Ministry of Local Industry
The Ministry of Local Industry of the RSFSR was founded after the
WW2, in 1946. It took the place of the old People’s Commissariat of Local
Industry, established in 1934. It was reinvigorated in 1966 when the Soviet
Government passed a new statute which stayed in place until the end of the
Soviet Union. Its main purpose was to enlarge the assortment of ordinary
consumer goods as well as to improve their quality. It also helped the
enterprises of local industry to adapt the achievements of modern science
and advanced technology. As a result, local industry started to modernize.
Only small factories and workshops which made use of second-hand raw
materials and left-overs from large scale industry, such as defects and cut-
offs from textiles, or limited local resources fell under its administration.
In addition, enterprises and workshops for arts and crafts, which relied on
hand-made production and in which large scale production would have
been practically impossible, belonged to local industry. They were mostly
located in small towns or in the countryside. Local industry employed many
disabled workers in special work-shops as well as people working at home.
It had its own fashion houses and units of fashion design which had rather
specific tasks and profiles.
In the Soviet economy local industry (mestnaya promyshlennost’) always
had only a helper’s role in relation to the consumer goods industry, which
was mainly responsible for the production of the ready-made clothes in the
country. As a rule, local industry traditionally engaged in the production of
all kinds of souvenirs, toys, handmade goods, some types of knitwear and
head wear, and ties, scarves, belts, buttons, pins, ribbons, as well as other
such minor accessories of dress. The importance of all these accessories
increased with the introduction of the principle of designing whole sets
or ensembles of clothing in the 1960s. In the 1960s VIALegprom, ODMO,
and the other leading design institutes started to pay more attention to the
question of the details of dress, which had earlier been regarded as only

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

of secondary importance. They increasingly recognized that fashion does

not exist exclusively in the lines and colors of dress but also in the various
details. Specialized designers of embroidery and textile printing were now
employed in many general houses of fashion design. For instance, Viacheslav
Zaitsev started his career at ODMO as a designer of “secondary features and
accessories” for an ensemble of clothes. Accordingly, the success of the Soviet
designer often depended on the achievements and shortcomings of the
smaller enterprises and workshops of local industry, which did not officially
enjoy a high status in the Soviet planned economy. In addition, the attempts
to export Soviet consumer goods abroad opened the decision makers’ eyes to
the fact that items with national or folk motifs were often the most successful
ones in the West, particularly if they were hand made in limited numbers.
For instance, the traditional decorations of the local manufacturers, like
embroideries in gold or silver thread or collars with the well-known lacework
from the Vologda region added another unique and exquisite flavor to the
products of the garment industry.
In this respect it is understandable that the unique Scientific Research
Institute of the Artistic Industry (NII Khudozhestvennoi promyshlennosti),
or arts and crafts, which had been moved under the administration of
the Russian Ministry of Local Industry, became much more active and
important in the 1960s. One of its main tasks was the study and design of
the traditional national or ethnic costumes. Starting in the 1950s it published
the series Khudozhestvennye promysly RSFSR (Arts and Crafts in the Russian
Federation). It conducted research on the regional specificities of Russian
embroidery and published illustrated booklets about it.
In 1969 the institute had 29 specialists including designers and pattern
makers. The laboratory designed embroideries, developed their technology
and cooperated in this field with about 60 industrial enterprises in the USSR.
The laboratory also studied and developed the production of batik, the
artistic printing of silk, which only small local manufacturers and workshops
had mastered earlier. Batik also became more popular in women’s clothes
partly due to the parallel international boom in folk themes in fashion.291
Until the 1960s the Institute mainly designed items of dress produced
as unique examples (for museums, folk culture collections, etc.) but in the
beginning of the 1960s it faced the task of combining its narrow scientific
occupation with the needs of mass production. An important stage in this
process was the founding of the Laboratory of Artistic Clothing Design.292
In 1969 this laboratory had 15 designers and pattern makers on its payroll-
mostly talented young people, recent graduates from the artistic centers of
higher learning in Moscow. The laboratory paid attention above all to “the
creation of unique costumes in modern style,” that is, it not only collected
and preserved but also systematically studied and analyzed the technical
peculiarities of the sewing and patterns of the various kinds of national
or ethnic clothes, including their color scale, their fabrics, trimmings and
knitting. The end result was the creation of new designs based on national or
ethnic motifs from Russia and the other Soviet republics. The experimental
patterns thus created were then recommended to the houses of fashion
design under the Ministry of Light Industry, to the ateliers of individual

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5. The Institutionalization of Soviet Fashion

sewing, and to the design shops of the various sewing enterprises. These
ethnic clothes could inspire them to use ethnic motifs in their own designs
which was officially encouraged by the Soviet authorities.
In the 1960s the Institute advanced from the design of individual items
aimed mainly for exhibitions and museum collections to the sewing of whole
ethnic collections of clothes following one or another general theme or
idea. It organized its own design demonstrations too. It had its own artistic
council, which consisted of representatives from the garment industry, art
historians, and other specialists on the history of dress.293 In practice, their
creations were produced and available to customers only in very limited
numbers.
By the beginning of the 1970s all the republican ministries of local
industry had their own research institutes. All these organizations had their
own departments which engaged in the design of all kinds of consumer items,
including clothing. In the 1980s, the Russian Ministry of Local Industry
alone supervised 1380 industrial units and enterprises and 112 research
workshops.294 In other words, local industry gradually created a huge system
of fashion design and construction of its own. This was, in practice, the
fourth extensive organization of fashion design in the Soviet Union.

The Differentiation of Soviet Economic Administration

The establishment of these four largely parallel Soviet fashion organizations,

which took place in the three post-war decades, followed an interesting
administrative logic. At the beginning only a few fashion design units were
opened in Moscow and some other big urban centers. They rapidly spread
their networks all over the country: their units increased in numbers and
diversified their functions. Soon the planners detected that the development
had led too long towards the decentralization and increasing autonomy of
these numerous local enterprises. The next step was the strengthening of
the planning and controlling mandate of the central administration either
by founding a totally new central unit in Moscow or by giving more power
to a previously existing one. These central units officially never planned or
controlled the activities of their local fashion houses in detail. In practice
their power was quite modest. It depended more on their recognized
professional competence and better resources than on their position in the
administrative hierarchy. Instead of dictating fashion to their underlings
they acted more as positive examples and trend setters. Nevertheless, by
regular training and sending their instructions to the thousands of designers
and pattern makers working in their local units they had a firm grip on the
formation of a Soviet style of fashion design. By publishing popular fashion
journals and albums they also acted as the main propagators of Soviet
fashion and the “educators of taste.” It was also generally acknowledged that
they had the best experts on their payrolls.
Another interesting observation which has wider implications to the
study of the development of the Soviet system of administration is the
willingness or even eagerness with which the different Soviet ministries

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created their own, extensive organizations of fashion design with to a great

extent overlapping functions. Every ministry which was somehow involved
in the clothing of the Soviet population lobbied, judging from the results
often quite successfully, for the need of their own independent fashion
design organizations. Taking into account the centralized nature of the
Soviet planned economy one would have expected much more coordination
and reserve in this respect. It looks like no one really had a general overview
of or controlled the development of the whole field of fashion design in
the Soviet Union. One possible explanation is that these separate, partly
overlapping administrative units effectively used the shortcomings of their
competitors to promote their own issues. This was perhaps most obvious
in the relations between the Ministry of Light Industry and the Ministry
of Everyday Services. The extensive chain of the ateliers of custom made
clothes was created both to combat the illegal market and to compensate for
the shortcomings caused by the inflexibility and monotony of the industrial
mass production of clothes. At the same time it worked under the same
pressure of economic effectiveness and tried to solve its problems with the
very same methods applied in industrial mass production, by standardizing
its products and increasing production targets. Both sides complained
that they were not allowed to produce small series and open their own
experimental clothing shops or boutiques. This was a concrete demand that
– despite intensive lobbying by all these parallel organizations – the Soviet
government and the Communist Party never really approved of. This is a
good example of the power relations between the central governmental and
party organizations and authorities, on the one hand, and the various fashion
organizations, on the other hand. The Soviet fashion institutes worked
constantly under some basic economic and administrative constraints
and limitations which could occasionally be challenged, on purpose or by
chance, but which all those concerned took mostly for granted. Within these
limits the development and regulation of fashion was left to the numerous,
increasingly well-educated fashion professionals. The Soviet administration
could at times show amazing flexibility but it also had some firm limits which
could not be overstepped without serious consequences.

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department
Store at Moscow

Fashion under the Ministry of Trade

The Ministry of Trade was an All-Union Ministry responsible for the

administration of the retail and wholesale sales of all consumer goods in
the USSR. Foreign trade was the responsibility of another Ministry. All state
owned shops belonged to the Ministry of Trade, from major department
stores to ordinary food stores. They employed hundreds of thousands of
sales personnel. The Ministry was established in March 1946 on the basis of
the People’s Commissariat of Trade which had existed since the mid-1920s.
It was closed down in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each
Soviet Republic, including Russia, had its own Ministry working under the
central, All-Union Ministry. In addition, regions and cities had their own
administrative units of trade which formed a hierarchical administrative
system.
Clothing design and construction in Soviet trade began in the 1930s and
was related to the establishment of the big exemplary department stores.
Not only did they receive the best consumer goods to sell and open their
own ateliers of individual sewing to serve their clients; they also had the
right to design and construct new garments. Accordingly, the new Soviet
department stores established their own design departments. The idea was
that they would work out new designs of clothes, hats and shoes closely
following the demand of their customers and then either sew them in their
own production units or order them through direct deals with the factories
of local industry or cooperative workshops in the quantity dictated by their
demand. In the end, these would be sold in the department stores’ own trade
network. They often claimed that since they were working in close contact
with their customers they knew the real needs of the Soviet population better
than the industry.
As such design organizations were opened in several department stores
in the different cities of the country, the need emerged to coordinate their
activities, to exchange experiences between them and to popularize their
designs within trade. The administration of the model department stores
established in the People’s Commissariat of Trade started to publish a fashion
journal of its own in the late 1930s, but the outbreak of war soon put an end
to these plans.

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

The post-war rebirth of fashion design within Soviet trade in many ways
coincided with the re-opening of the organizations of commercial trade
and the re-establishment of ateliers and production units in the bigger
department stores. In the ateliers as well as in the production units it was
mostly the experienced pattern makers who designed the clothes. Their
professional qualifications were generally not very high but in the immediate
post-war years, for instance, the designers of hats in the Central Department
Store (TsUM) at Moscow enjoyed a high reputation.
The People’s Comissariat (later Ministry) of Trade put great hopes in the
opening of the State Department Store (GUM) at Moscow in 1953. It had a
fashionable atelier of custom-made clothes as well as a special department of
fashion design with its own demonstration hall and a large staff of designers
and models. The fashion department of GUM did not have any parallels and
it remained the only one of its kind within the system of trade in the Soviet
Union.
Nevertheless, in the 1950s to 1970s smaller design units operated in
the bigger department stores and clothing shops in the cities. For instance,
in Moscow alone, in addition to GUM and TsUM, the department stores
Moskva, Detskii mir (the Children’s World department store) and Dom tkanei
(House of textiles) as well as the female clothing shop Moskvichka (Muscovite)
on the Soviet Broadway, Prospekt Kalinina had design units. The well-known
designer Vyaznikova worked, for instance, in Moskvichka shop.295 This was
typical of all the shops that had a production unit, promkombinat of their
own attached to them.
In the 1960–1980s, it became common practice to use the trade halls of
the department stores, crowded with customers, to advertise new products
and to propagate the novelties of Soviet fashion. In close proximity to the
masses of customers on temporary podiums models started to demonstrate
new designs. Demonstrations could take place at the initiative of the
designers of the local houses of fashion design of the consumer goods
industry but sometimes the shops organized them independently in order
to advertise their own designs. In the last case, the models were usually
selected from among the younger sales women. In some shops that had
small demonstration halls of their own the meetings of the designers with
their customers accompanied the demonstrations of the new designs, which
took place quite regularly. In particular, this was the case in Detskii mir,
which cooperated with the designers of ODMO, located on the neighboring
street.

The opening of GUM

“Look at the jeans I got as a present,” Leonid Il’ich Brezhnev proudly declared
with obvious pleasure, turning around on the spot in order to demonstrate
the symbol of the “American way of life” that fitted his corpulent figure
very well. This rare scene was witnessed at the beginning of the 1970s
in the office of the main director of the Moscow State Department Store
(GUM) by the artistic director of the department of fashion design, David

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Borisovich Shimilis,296when he happened to drop in there on some business:

it was obvious that the jeans appealed to Brezhnev and also that he was
also very conscious of the ideological connotations of his jeans. Shimilis
was not surprised at the relationship of confidentiality which obviously
reigned between Brezhnev and the director of this most famous Soviet
department store on the Red Square. The Soviet political leadership at the
Kremlin regularly visited its “closed” departments297 and, along with their
family members, provided themselves with all necessary consumer goods.
They also sprang to the services of the designers and other employees of its
fashion atelier whenever needed. What caused Shimilis’ wonder, almost 40
years after the event, was more the fact that despite Brezhnev’s obviously
positive reaction to this comfortable and practical piece of clothing, until
the 1980s jeans suffered in the USSR from their ideological label as a symbol
of American imperialism. The Department of Fashion Design at GUM, the
purpose of which was to design beautiful and practical clothes for the Soviet
citizens, was for a very long time prevented from designing jeans.
The GUM’s building was constructed at the turn of the 19th and
20th centuries following the example of the best European department
stores. Originally it was called “Upper trade rows or bazaars.” During the
Revolution and the Civil War it was closed opening again during the NEP
and continuing for a very short time in the 1920s when it received its name,
State Department Store or GUM. In 1930 it was closed again298 re-opening
after Stalin’s death in 1953 on the order of the government of the USSR.
This “reawakening” of GUM was seen by contemporaries as a sign of the
times. At the end of 1953 the new leaders of the country, who had declared
that the problems of consumption would now be prioritized, decided to
create a showcase department store in Moscow which would offer for sale
the best possible goods and commodities with the most progressive forms
of trade and service. It was opened at the Red Square. One should bear
in mind that by this time, GUM had already lost its previous position as
one of the centers of Moscow trade. During Soviet times Red Square had
a pre-eminently political status, as the main symbol of Soviet power. It was
a festive place, in fact, the ‘holy place’ of all the important Soviet state rituals.
Just 50 meters from the show windows of GUM was the ‘holy of holies’,
Lenin’s mausoleum, behind which many other famous revolutionaries and
leaders of the Communist Party were buried in the Kremlin wall. Parades
and official demonstrations were organized regularly at the Red Square with
pioneers’ vows and student graduation ceremonies being carried out there.
It is obvious, therefore, that the reanimation of retail trade at such a special
place after Stalin’s death was a politically important event and by no means
an accident. GUM was meant to become yet another major attraction in Red
Square – the main proof of the achievements of Soviet power in the fields of
trade and the service of the population.
GUM became not only exemplary but also the biggest store in the USSR,
both on the basis of its turnover of products and the number of its employees.
It was not called the “main store of the country” without reason. At the time
of its opening in the end of 1953, it had 3,500 employees, and in 1973 its
work collective consisted of 7,000 workers. According to the official statistics,

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.1. Leonid Brezhnev

dressed in a suit designed
by Alexander Igmand from
ODMO, late 1979s.

200,000–300,000 people visited it every day and bought 220,000–230,000

items.299 Muscovites and people living close to Moscow were understandably
among its regular customers but many visitors from the other republics and
regions of the USSR visited it too. Foreign tourists, for whom GUM became
one of the main attractions in the capital, were mainly interested in its rich
department of souvenirs. The department store had a special status which
was kept up by the fact that all the consumer goods that were the most
difficult to buy elsewhere in the USSR were on sale there: this made GUM
particularly attractive to the customers. If you could not buy it at GUM it was
probably not for sale in the Soviet Union. In 1950–1970 GUM sold 70–85
percent of all the so-called goods of higher demand sold in Moscow.300 For
instance, as early as the end of the 1950s imported goods made up over 30
percent of all the textiles sold at GUM.301 It was no wonder that the store
became notorious among the Soviet population for its high number of
customers and long queues that could stretch for several kilometers.
However, there was a special zone with no long queues at all within GUM
where the customers experienced individual service. This was the “secret”
department, number 200 unique among Soviet department stores, with its

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

own entrance, open only to “elite” customers of the Soviet leadership, Leonid
Brezhnev among them. (Fig.6.1.)This special department sold, at very
reasonable prices, both imported and high quality domestically produced
clothes, among them the products of many famous foreign firms.
In addition to the various sale sections, GUM had a department for the
study of supply and demand, the task of which was both to study consumer
demand and to advertise goods, as well as a customer service department,
which dealt with the packaging and home delivery of goods. Some items sold
at GUM could be ordered by mail or telephone. The department store also
organized its own medical service and had a special rest room for mothers
with small children.
Two more special departments bore witness to the high quality of service
at GUM: the Atelier of ‘Made to Measure’ clothes, shoes and head Gear,
and the Department of Fashion Design with its own hall for fashion shows,
the first of its kind in the Soviet system of trade. These departments are
the main object of our study in this chapter, which is mainly based on the
original minutes of the meetings of the Party organization of GUM, as well
as documents from the personal archives and interviews that we conducted
with several eminent former workers of the fashion department at GUM.
This chapter, and the one which follows it and is dedicated to another famous
Soviet house of fashion design in Tallinn, gives a detailed description of
the daily activities, achievements and concerns of the most advanced and
important fashion houses in the USSR.

The Fashion Atelier

Just like the rest of the department store, the fashion atelier – or the Atelier
of the Individual Sewing of Clothes, as it was officially called, which opened
its doors in the spring of 1954 – was thought from the very beginning to be a
showcase department. It belonged to the official category of “lux” and could
therefore charge seventy percent more for its services than the ateliers that
belonged to the-otherwise highest-first class. At this time Moscow had just
a few other ateliers of the category “lux.”
It was presumed that the people who turned to the services of the atelier at
GUM were those who either could not find any adequate clothes in the ordinary
shops because of their unusual body shape, or who had exceptional taste and
were striving for a more individual style. However, soon the store became so
popular that, in addition to many ordinary citizens, many prominent members
of the cultural and administrative elite of the country were also among its
customers. Importantly, this atelier also became, in the end of the 1950s, the
exemplary, leading center of the customized sewing of clothes within the
Soviet system of trade. The specialists of trade and fashion came here from
the different regions of the country to exchange experiences and to learn
more about the most advanced methods of trade and fashion trends.302
In 1955–1960 the collective of the atelier consisted of approximately
500 people. In the beginning of the 1960s it filled up to 60,000 orders a year
which, compared to the number of potential customers, was not much.

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

As everyone knew, those who wished to have their clothes sewn here far
outnumbered the orders actually received. This created chronic shortages
and, as was quite common in the Soviet Union, promoted a system of bribes
and illegal deals of all kinds.
According to their rules, the men’s and women’s salons should have
received a certain limited number of orders every day. However, the principle
of having only one single queue giving the same opportunity to all customers
was soon given up in practice. Not only was one’s place in the queue soon
turned into an object of financial speculation, but the employees of the
atelier were also obliged to fill orders coming from outside the ordinary
queue from “people who had special needs.” This happened at the request of
the administration of GUM, the Moscow city administration and even the
Ministry of Trade. According to the directors of the atelier, in 1956–1957 it
received up to 500 such orders for the sewing of men’s clothes alongside the
official queue each year.303 The amount of such special orders was presumably
just as large in the department of women’s clothing.
The salons where the customers’ orders were received were supposed
to become the real show windows of the atelier. The salons employed
consulting pattern makers who gave advice to the customers about the
fashionable designs that would fit them best. They also offered advice on
the proper textiles to be used for these clothes. It was thought that these
fashion consultants would, while consulting their customers, not only be
occupied with the reception and consignment of their orders but also
actively propagandize for Soviet fashion and educate them in matters of
good taste. Special show windows with regularly changing designs concretely
demonstrated the newest garments worked out by the pattern makers of
the atelier. Several fashion journals and albums were at the disposal of the
customers. From them they could select all the new designs that they liked.
The book of complaints and suggestions (kniga zhalob i predlozchenii304)
at the atelier included many positive comments but its customers also
complained about the “formalism” of the service, as well as old fashioned
journals with designs gone out of style long ago.
The order forms, which had been filled out in the salons with the necessary
measures and descriptions of the design, were then sent on to the respective
departments and workshops (the pattern makers and cutters, the women’s
and men’s dress workshop, children’s clothes, shoes or head gear). The fitting
session followed next. The maximum time set for the filling of the order was
one month but in the 1960s it was shortened to three weeks.
The main reason for the great popularity of the atelier at GUM was that
in its early years the Ministry of Trade gave it the opportunity to select the
best and most fashionable domestic and imported foreign textiles from its
assortment of fabrics and other goods in the warehouses. Unlike all the
other ateliers of individual sewing, in the beginning GUM did not make any
clothes from the customers’ own textiles. However, later on, it had to change
this rule. As a result, as early as 1964, half of all the orders were sewn from
the customers’ own textiles. In the beginning of the 1960s the atelier lost its
right to stock special provisions, textiles, tools and instruments directly from
the central stores of the Ministry of Trade and had to provide itself with what

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was available in the regular storerooms of GUM. These storerooms at GUM

also provided all the other ordinary clothing departments with their textiles
and other raw materials. These had an equally great interest in getting the
best-selling textiles – those in defitsit or shortage – which naturally led to
permanent conflicts of interest between them and the atelier. The directors
of the atelier complained not only of the bad quality of the textiles available
at GUM but also of their meager variety – monotonous colors, sometimes
only silk was available, at other times wool, etc. In addition to tools and
instruments, material for linings was often in great shortage too. The more
ambitious employees of the atelier even had to dye their own thread in order
to make it match the color scale of the clothes.305 However, in general the
quality of the clothes sewn at the atelier was regarded to be better than the
ready-made clothes sold in Soviet shops at the time.306
The “lux” status of the atelier at GUM gave it many valuable advantages
in comparison to the first class ateliers. In these, the number of garments
that the pattern makers were supposed to make every month was 60, at
GUM only 32. In the ateliers of first class status the monthly salary was 900
rubles per month, at GUM 1400 (in April 1958).307 It was thought that under
such beneficial conditions the pattern makers of the atelier at GUM would
have more time to work individually with their clients and even to design
clothes according to the wishes of the individual clients. Most importantly,
they could sew more fashionable and modern garments of high quality. In
practice, the design of clothes was only a side activity alongside the main
task of the atelier, which was the fulfilment of the orders of its individual
customers and the profits it made from this practice. The designing of new
clothes was not very clearly connected to the other regular work norms and
goals in the fulfilment of the annual quotas. It was not in general profitable
for the pattern makers to experiment with new designs or make changes
in the patterns often enough to be able to follow fashion. This was not
only connected with the risk of failure but also with the use of extra time
and other resources. If one became too creative one could easily forget the
fulfilment of the quotas and miss one’s personal bonuses. As a result, instead
of a really exclusive and individual service, the clients were offered a certain
collection of more or less fashionable designs worked out by the pattern
makers, which was renewed from time to time.
As the discussions from the meetings of the Party organization show,
the employees of the GUM atelier were very familiar with the consequences
of the above mentioned problems. For instance, in one of the regular Party
meetings in 1955, the confectioner Smorodinova said: “The pattern makers of
the atelier are not at all interested in doing more difficult designs. Neither are
they interested in offering their customers new designs from the Department
of Fashion Design at GUM. They want to do something simpler.”308 The
situation did not change in ten years: for instance, in 1964 the pattern makers
were criticized again at the Party meeting for artificially making the designs
and patterns simpler in order to more easily fulfil the quotas.309 “We live with
old designs, and the new ones appear very seldom”310 the same Smorodinova
repeated her accusation again in January 1964. At the end of 1963 the pattern
makers started to complain that their work had become difficult since the

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“customer sometimes demands the impossible. We should do simple, modest

designs.” But the customers wanted exclusive models.311
The majority of the pattern makers at the Atelier did not have any real
artistic education or previous professional experience, which would have
been necessary for the creation of more original designs. Many of them
did not even know how to draw a sketch of a new pattern. Consequently,
only the most experienced pattern makers at GUM had the right to design
new models. For instance, in 1964 out of the ten pattern makers who made
women’s clothes only two were engaged in designing new models. In fact, the
Atelier had a small research and development workshop which specialized
in designing, working out new ideas and developing the sketches that
they received from the other, ordinary pattern makers. Its major task was,
however, the adaptation of the more promising and saleable designs that
came from the other fashion institutes in the USSR to the concrete capacities
of the atelier at GUM.312
In a single year GUM worked out and recommended to its clients about
400–500 new designs. In 1962 out of 419 such designs, 215 consisted of
clothes, 50 shoes and 154 head wear.313 But in reality not all the designs were
fashionable or original, or in any great demand among the customers. At the
same time as the clients complained that the salons only offered them old-
fashioned clothes, the leaders of the Atelier eagerly reported their remarkable
achievements in the design business to GUM, obviously wanting to draw
attention to the fact that the Atelier mainly used its own designs.314 The
ambitious leaders liked to bring up achievements in the design of fashion,
thus consciously promoting the high image of this department among the
Soviet fashion organizations.
The meetings of the Party organization had a more critical and open
atmosphere. Here the workers in the salons, referring to the opinion of their
customers, mostly complained about the low quality of design at the atelier.
For instance, the director of the women’s salon, Antokolskaya, had made
the following observations in 1957: new designs appear highly irregularly,
“orders are received almost only for one pattern. The pattern makers do
not at all think about the new designs.”315 In the summer of 1958, while
discussing the report of the Party organization, Comrade Voronina said that
“the culture of service at the salons is not at the high level to be expected: no
new fashion journals, many designs do not at all meet the demand.”316
In September 1959, the general director of GUM, Kamenev, who had
paid a special visit to the Party meeting of the atelier, was very critical of its
work: “The designs we show lag behind in life.... The Atelier does not have
a leading role in the design of the new clothes, hats ....”317 Even after such
harsh criticism, the leaders of the Atelier continued to follow their policy of
promoting their own autonomy in the field of fashion design, also in relation
to another department of GUM which had fashion design as its main task
and which had come into being at the same time as the Atelier, namely the
Department of Fashion Design. In fact, the Atelier’s relations to the fashion
design department could be characterized more as one of competition than
collaboration.

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The Establishment of the Department of Fashion Design in GUM

The Department of Fashion Design was established at GUM, alongside its

atelier, in 1954 at Anastas Mikoyan’s personal initiative. As a long-time leader
of Soviet trade he was well known not only as an experienced politician,
diplomat and lobbyist for the interests of his Ministry but also as a defender
of the transfer of the best international experience and perspective into the
Soviet system of consumption.318 Among the leadership of the Soviet Union
he was also well known for being a person who liked to dress well and to
make use of the services of the best tailors in Moscow. The founding of the
fashion department at GUM was one of his experiments. Until then the big
Soviet department stores did not have their own departments of fashion
design. As Mikoyan hoped, the fashion department at GUM “should be the
first one in the Union, and, who knows, with time even better than in the
other countries.”319
The tasks that faced the Fashion Department were from the very
beginning quite unusual for a trade organization and not directly related
to the regular sale of commodities. These were, among others, the design of
clothes, the propagation of fashion and good taste among the population (for
instance, by publishing fashion albums and booklets as well as by regularly
organizing fashion shows at the demonstration hall), and the establishment
of trade relations with the textile factories in order to produce new clothes in
small series following the designs of GUM. The designers at GUM were not
only expected to design men’s and women’s clothes, shoes and hats. They also
started to create complete seasonal collections consisting of a whole set of
100–150 designs primarily of women’s clothes. All this resembled too much,
however, the tasks of the main Soviet organization of fashion design, the All-
Union House of Fashion Design of Clothes, ODMO, not to raise thoughts of
the creation of a parallel organization.
In the second half of the 1950s and the 1960s Mikoyan continued to
be personally interested in the workings of the GUM fashion department,
arriving at the exhibitions of the clothing collections often not alone but in
the company of other members of Soviet leadership like Aleksei Kosygin.
One of Mikoyan’s sons, Vano Mikoyan, who later became a famous Soviet
constructor of war-craft and the director of the famous firm MIG, was
also a regular guest at the fashion shows. Anastas Mikoyan was one of the
Soviet leaders who understood that fashion, like culture in general, was an
international phenomenon, and consequently acted purposefully to promote
international cooperation in this area. As early as 1956 the designer Lidia
Fedorovna Averyanova from GUM was included in a small delegation of the
Ministry of Trade which for the first time headed to Paris in order to study
the workings of its famous fashion houses.320 In Averyanova’s own words
these 20 days she spent in Paris changed her ideas not only about fashion and
her own profession but also about life in general in many ways.321 Mikoyan
succeeded thus in getting ahead of his main competitor, the Ministry of
Light Industry under which, as we know, ODMO worked. Its representatives
visited Paris, the Mecca of international fashion, a whole year later, in the
end of 1957.

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

During the second half of the 1950s, the Department of Fashion Design
at GUM was regarded as one of the leaders of Soviet design. The following
example is typical: when the Soviet delegation participated for the first time
in the Leipzig trade exhibition in 1957, which included a competition of
fashion design, the designs from only two Soviet design organizations were
selected to represent Soviet fashion: ODMO and GUM.322
The fashion department was located in the main building of GUM, as
a close neighbor to the vividly pulsating life of the sales departments. The
“brains” of the department were located in two rooms, in which the designers
and the pattern makers worked separately. A small sewing workshop was
attached to the fashion department. Its task was to sew prototypes of the new
clothes. The best designs were also prepared for publication by the publishing
group of the department. The demonstration hall was the “window” of the
department to the world outside: it started its demonstrations in September
1954. Models, musicians, speakers, an administrator, and an art historian all
worked in the demonstration hall.
The total work force of the fashion department was not very big, about
70 persons in 1954–1955, among them 7 designers and 15 models, and 80
in summer 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s the number stabilized at about
90 workers.323 In 1972 out of the 90 (75 of them women) workers 50 were
occupied in the sewing workshop (tailors, pattern makers, designers), 26 in
the demonstration hall and 9 in the publishing department.
From the professional point of view the key positions were those of
the designers, pattern makers and art instructors. However, in the 1950s
specialists of these professions were very rare in the Soviet Union. Therefore
the designers’ positions were mostly occupied by ordinary pattern makers
who did not have the necessary professional qualifications. It was equally
difficult to find experienced pattern designers. For instance, one of them,
Mokshina, had only completed some basic courses of sewing and knitting
whereas another one, Lapidus, had been educated as a constructor of
airplanes. She had learned to sew and knit in some short courses.324
In 1955 only six specialists working at the fashion department at GUM
had received a higher education. Almost all of them were in charge of
administrative duties and did not directly take part in the design of clothes.
Only in the second part of the 1960s did the professional level of the cadres
improve remarkably due to the recruitment of new employees who had
graduated from the Moscow Textile Institute, which became the main
educational institute of fashion design in the Soviet Union. The number of
designers at GUM increased too. Thus, in 1967 the Department had 12 and
in 1973 15 designers: 3 in women’s outer wear, 8 in women’s dress, and only
one each in men’s clothes, shoes, head wear and embroidery.325
One of the first designers at the department was Lidia Fedorovna
Averyanova (born 1916) who moved to GUM in 1954 from the
Shcherbakovskii Department Store – one of the biggest stores in post-war
Moscow – in which she had successfully designed children’s wear during
the first part of the 1950s. After her transfer to GUM Averyanova quickly
became one of its leading designers of women’s clothes who up to her
retirement in the 1980s had a decisive influence on the general style of GUM

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as “modest elegance.” She did not have any special education as a designer.
After returning home from the front she had taken part in some short
courses. Because she was religious she refused to become a member of the
Communist Party. Her “partyless” status did not prevent her from having a
career and travelling with the models of GUM in many parts of the world.326
In the 1960s and 1970s Averyanova became a house consultant at the
“closed” Department 200 of GUM. If a high status client could not make up
her or his mind about a garment or otherwise wanted to consult a specialist
before buying a dress or suit the leading expert from the fashion department
was called to duty. Depending on the situation, it could be the artistic
director of the fashion department (1960–1976 D. B. Shimilis) or one of
the leading designers: for women’s dress Averyanova, for men’s dress Rubin
Aaronovich Singer.
At the end of such consultations the client often decided to order an
individually designed garment from the atelier of the fashion department
instead of buying a ready-made garment. In that case the designer turned
at once to a pattern maker and took the necessary measures of the client. In
this way many garments designed by Averyanova ended up in the closets of
the Minister of Culture, Ekaterina Fursteva as well as of the daughters of the
Soviet leaders, the Prime Minister Alexey Kosygin and the Secretary of the
Central Committee of the CPSS Boris N. Ponomarev.327 Ekaterina Furtseva
and Liudmila Gvishiani (Kosygina) also relied at the same time on the
services of the designers of ODMO on the Kuznetskii Most.
In 1954 the recently opened fashion department at GUM employed
Yevgeniya Nikolaevna Istomina as a designer. Elena Aleksandrova
Tomashevich, whose specialty became extravagant women’s evening dresses,
joined the collective at about the same time. Neither of them had any formal
education in designing clothes but they had – in the terms of those days –
solid experience in the customized sewing of clothes. They learned the art
of design by doing it. Their colleagues called Averyanova, Tomashevich
and Istomina humorously the “three whales” who supported the whole
Department of Fashion Design at GUM on their backs. This was true in the
sense that they had, in fact, designed the first basic seasonal collections at
GUM, which had become a success abroad in the end of 1950s and which
dictated the general style even later. (Fig. 6.2.)
Some former designers from the Central Department Store at Moscow,
TsUM, were invited to continue their careers at the newly opened GUM. The
atelier at TsUM had experience in fashion design from the 1930s onwards.
Naum Yakovlevich Katz, who soon became the first director of the fashion
department at GUM, was one of these experienced fashion designers. Katz
was the only director of a department at GUM who was not a Party member.
Katz remained in charge for 10 years. He did a lot to improve the reputation
and status of his department, a goal that was not easy to achieve. In the
beginning the relationship between the fashion department and the other
sections of GUM was actually quite sensitive. Some of the salespersons
could not understand why such a department was needed at all. They
expressed their doubts about the seriousness and importance of the work of
its designers and models which in the opinion of some was closer to frivolous

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.2. Leading designers and employees of the GUM Department of Fashion Design
in the 1950s (from the left Tomashevich, Istomina,Gurtavaya,unknown, Averyanova,
Singer, unknown).

entertainment than serious work. The situation went so far that in summer
1955 the leaders of the fashion department asked the Party Committee to
explain to the whole work collective of GUM that “what we in fact do in the
demonstration hall is by no means easy and it is very serious work.”328
In 1964 Anna Georgievna Gorshkova was nominated to the post of
director after Naum Yakovlevich Katz, who had become seriously ill and
died soon after. In contrast to her predecessor, Gorshkova had no previous
experience of fashion and clothing design. She had used to work in the staff
office at GUM – a section which traditionally had strong ties with the KGB
and therefore a lot of influence on the administration of the department
store.329 The nomination of a reliable member of the Communist Party to the
director’s post was to a great extent motivated by the fact that the leadership
thought that the employees of the fashion department needed “special
control” since they often met with foreigners and travelled regularly abroad.
In the memories of her colleagues, Gorshkova had rather conservative
views regarding proper dress. Nevertheless, she was clever enough not to
interfere with questions of creativity and left them to the artistic leaders
of her department, and instead mostly fulfilled administrative duties. The
leading designer, Rubin Aaronovich Singer, was considered for the post of
artistic director of the fashion department, but he did not have any formal

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

artistic education. Singer had emigrated from pre-war Poland. He was in

great demand as a famous tailor in post-war Moscow. Being a virtuoso of
a tailor he did not turn down profitable private orders during his time at
GUM in the capacity of the leading designer of male dress. The direction
of the department was fully aware of his unofficial activities and obviously
tolerated them. This was a typical example of the close intertwining of the
official and unofficial, or legal and illegal, economic relations within a Soviet
organization. In the 1950s–1960s many Soviet leaders and famous artists
were among Singer’s clients.330 He worked in the fashion department at GUM
until his dismissal due to his conflicts with the directors and emigrated to the
West where he died tragically in a car accident in Italy.
During the first six years the fashion department at GUM was totally
without any artistic leader because no suitable, qualified candidate could be
found. The first to be nominated for the post was Shimilis. He was a graphic
designer educated at the Moscow Textile Institute and worked at GUM from
1960 to 1976. He came to play an important role in its development.
A. Oganesov was the only designer of shoes at GUM. Mikoyan recruited
him in the beginning of the 1950s from the experimental laboratory of the
Leningrad Shoe Factory. He had a good reputation among the specialists as
early as the second half of the 1940s. His shoe designs were often published in
Soviet journals. He served at GUM for a long time. The models at GUM wore
his shoes during fashion shows until the 1970s. They were recommended to
be made to order for the clients of the atelier at GUM as well as to be mass
produced in the leading shoe factories of the country. According to the
interviews with former models his designs looked good and stylish but were
not very comfortable to wear.
The first models at GUM (7–9 persons) were women of various sizes and
shapes. Many of them did not have any experience of work in this, in those
times, very exotic profession. Nina (Antonina) Vavilova was considered to
be politically the most reliable model. She was about 30 years old when she
started her professional career at GUM in the mid-1950s. Before entering the
Department of Fashion Design at GUM she had finished the second term of
the Institute of Literature and worked as a school teacher. (Fig. 6.3.) Tamara
Mingashudinova (the name was also written as Mingashutdinova) was the
prima donna of the Fashion Department who attracted a lot of attention
from men. She was a Tatar by nationality, and had a tall and slender body
which, with her natural talent and sensibility, made a strong impression on
the podium. During the 1960s and 1970s the number of models at GUM
increased to fifteen. The turnover rate was quite high among them as well.
The profession was an easy one only in the minds of those who were not
familiar with it. In contrast to ODMO, where the models could specialize
themselves to a great degree, at GUM they were expected to engage in all
kinds of work: to walk on the catwalk, to take part in photo sessions, and to
patiently endure the long fitting sessions which “made one’s legs to swell and
your body ache, as if it had been prickled by small pins” for hours afterwards.

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.3. GUM fashion with folk motifs, 1960s. (Models from the left: Kokareva and
Vavilova).

GUM in Search of Its House Style

The Ministry of Trade, along with its head Anastas Mikoyan, had great
ambitions and expectations of seeing the Department of Fashion Design
at GUM as the lawmaker of Soviet fashion with its own “house style.” The
director of the fashion department, Katz, explained that he expected to create
“a new style of clothes, and consequently new designs and new kinds of
clothes.”331 In the middle of the 1950s a lively discussion went on about what
kind of fashion should in fact be created at GUM. The secretary of the Party
Committee of GUM calmed down the most eager spirits by recommending
that the designers should “stay on earth” and not get carried away. Instead
they should orient themselves according to the really very modest supply
of raw materials as well as the real demands of the Soviet consumer. He

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

understood the style of GUM as a synthesis of four basic elements: simplicity

of form, beauty of design, comfort of use and low prices.332
The Party Committee of GUM felt obliged to interfere actively in the
discussion obviously because many workers of the fashion department
turned up at the meetings arguing that their house style should not be
mundane but rather something extraordinary, formal or even ultramodern.
They claimed that such clothes were in great demand at the moment, in
particular among the youth. In the mid-1950s such a position was common
among the ordinary designers. According to the director Katz,

In the beginning we felt obliged to emphasize the design of the festive clothes
which differed from the ordinary clothes but in the end we came to the conclusion
that we should promote the creation of new things, new designs which are
comfortable in structure, and above all, make use of domestic materials.333

The opponents of the predominance of mundane, everyday clothes in GUM’s

collections made an extra case of the use of the brilliant demonstration hall
at GUM – at the time only ODMO at Kuznetskii Most Street could boast of
anything similar: it should be clear to all that beautiful, bright designs looked
much better on the catwalk than any everyday wardrobe. During the general
euphoria of the first years of the fashion department, many anticipated
future competition with ODMO and even Western fashion designs eagerly
and triumphantly. “This caused many heavy disputes among us. Comrade
Singer thought that our designs should compete with the Western things
and should be ultramodern,” N. Y. Katz remarked in 1955.334
It is obvious that the prospect of GUM fashion soon reaching world
standards greatly appealed to the leaders of the newly opened department
store and corresponded on the whole to Mikoyan’s own ambitions as well.
On the other hand, the designers knew, better than anyone else, the real
conditions of their work, the low level of the consumer goods markets and
their own material base. In addition, in 1955 when the role of fashion in the
Soviet Union was still quite ambivalent, the call made by some designers to
“ultra-modernity” sounded too courageous if not totally frightening. Katz was
careful and gravitated to the position that GUM’s house style should consist of
simplicity of structure, utility (functionality) and elegance of design.335
In practice, the designers of GUM worked out in the beginning both
mundane and formal clothes, mostly for women. On the 19th of July 1955,
the first annual report of the fashion department was discussed in the
extended meeting of the Party Committee of GUM with the presence of all
the heads of the other departments and sections of the department store. In
addition to Katz’s oral report the participants were invited to attend a real
fashion show. The main question that was raised after the show was whether
ordinary Soviet citizens could in reality wear all these clothes or if they had
a purely artistic value. And if the second alternative was true, was it really
worth the trouble to continue designing such impractical things? A lot of
criticism was directed, for instance, at one of the designs, a festive dress with
ribbons of rosettes which, in the opinion of those present, “hardly any Soviet
woman would like to wear.”336

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

In the absence of an artistic council or an artistic director at the

Department of Fashion Design the Party Committee itself took on the role
of the “aesthetic arbitrator.” It soon proved that the taste of its members
as well as of some of the heads of the other departments differed from the
preferences of the fashion designers. The meeting of the Party Committee in
1955 was an important occasion in the establishment of the particular style
of GUM as primarily utilitarian and functional.
During the meeting the general director of the whole GUM, V. Kamenev,
urged everyone, including the designers, to be realistic and not to rely on
international fashion. Neither was it possible to try to compete with the
more specialized Soviet fashion houses working under the Ministry of
Light Industry, compared to which GUM’s resources were after all rather
modest. Kamenev explained that “we can dictate our designs only to the
local industry and cooperative manufacturers, and even then only in the
form of industrial production.”337 The director’s pessimism resulted from
his knowledge that not a single organizational unit of the Ministry of
Trade had, or would have in the near future, its own material base, which
was necessary for the production and selling of clothes even in small
series: sewing workshops, machines, and textiles were delivered from
the general fund of textiles according to central plans. Great hopes had
been put in the beginning on cooperation with the leading enterprises
of the consumer goods industry, which, however, soon declined any
offers to receive designs from an organization working under an alien
administrative unit.338 The decisive issue was more one of principle than
the quality of the designs: the consumer goods industry had its own design
institutes headed by ODMO. To buy just a single successful design from
GUM would have been interpreted to mean that they had lost their faith
in their own designers and started using their budget to support another,
alien organization instead.
Fabrics were, in the first place, centrally directed to the garment factories
of the consumer goods industry. GUM received only remnants of clothes
and textiles which had not been approved for sale. The designers at GUM
were expected to recycle them for their own purposes as well they could.
The department store also made a deal with the enterprises of local industry
which were interested in cooperation. The enterprises received raw materials
which came from clothes that had some defects and therefore could not be
sold. They also received some bits and pieces of textiles from the resources of
the atelier and fashion department at GUM to produce clothes which GUM
had designed. With the introduction of the economic reforms in the 1960s
the leadership of GUM hoped that material interests and the newly opened
possibilities for contracting factories directly would overcome the previous
administrative barriers. The fashion department at GUM even established
a special technical unit, the task of which was to adapt their designs to the
conditions of industrial production. On the whole, in 1967 the fashion
department succeeded, with great effort, in making only 13 of its clothing
designs and 11 shoe designs industrially producible.339 In 1968–1969 the
Moskvichka factory produced altogether 10,000 women’s garments made
with 15 of GUM’s designs.340 This was hardly enough to make it possible for

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.4. An evening

dress from the
Department of Fashion
Design at GUM, 1964.

customers to judge whether GUM really had a style of its own as its direction
expected. The situation did not change notably in the 1970s.
During all the post-war years even the best designs of GUM thus,
with some rare exclusions, remained largely out of direct reach of Soviet
consumers since they were not profitable for the Soviet garment industry to
produce in big series. Most of the designs remained at the stage of sketches
and pictures on paper or, if they were approved for the seasonal collection,
they were sewn in a unique copy to fit the model demonstrating them. In
this respect the activities at GUM did not differ much from its internationally
more famous Parisian or other Western counterparts, whose creations
mostly remained on the catwalks of fashion shows.341 (Fig. 6.4.)
Under these conditions, the whole discussion regarding the house style
of GUM might have seemed to become irrelevant. In fact, this was not the
case. The leadership of GUM continued to emphasize that the adaptation
of the designs of GUM into industrial production was a political question
because sooner or later the citizens would be able to recognize in the streets
the superior designs from GUM and become aware of its house style. In this
respect the actual numbers produced were thought to be of only secondary
importance:

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Let them take into production just five designs in a year, but such ones which they
cannot make with the designs of other fashion houses. We need a firm of our own
to take into production such designs which cannot be found anywhere else.342

In these words the artistic director of the fashion department of GUM,

Shimilis, declared his own position to the working collective at the end
of 1967. But if the issue was not the number of products but their quality
another question could be raised: could clothes designed in the utilitarian
style of GUM really distinguish themselves from the mass of objects and
touch the consumer?
This theme was raised from time to time at the meetings of the Party
Committee and the work collective of the fashion department. At this
time, the voice of the utilitarians could be heard more and more often.
It is interesting to note that this coincided with the general technocratic
orientation and atmosphere in the country in the 1950s and 1960s, which
found its expression in, for instance, Soviet architecture. Instead of Stalin’s
style of excessive decorativeness the new building plans of the cities
introduced after Khrushchev’s coming into power embodied rationalism
and frugality.343 The artistic consultant of the Department of Fashion Design,
E. A. Semenova, urged her colleagues to look around with care and to draw
the necessary conclusions: “Art for art’s sake is on the retreat. So is science for
science’s sake. This means that we do not have to build things without which
we can do as well.”344 And in her opinion we could very well do without the
frivolity of fashion and the whole idea of haute couture. In another party
meeting she developed her thoughts further: “Today we wage a struggle
against all that is malicious, artificial and expensive. A garment which
cannot be worn at all under our conditions can be called abstract.”345 In 1962
the designer Tomashevich opposed her ideas by arguing that the fashion
department should also engage in designing various, even extra-modern
clothes. “Where could an actress go otherwise to look for her clothes?”346
In 1960–1970 the main question that occupied the workers of the fashion
department at GUM was the right proportion in designing, on the one hand,
more festive dress for the seasonal collection and shows and, on the other
hand, everyday clothes.347 It seemed that the designers themselves were
more eager to design festive collections than clothes for more mundane
use. In 1974 for instance, the director of the fashion department, Anna
Georgievna Gorshkova, criticized her own designers because they “did not
pay enough attention to the designing of practical clothes, designs that are
near to life and available to the great majority of our people.”348 During the
1960s, the house style of GUM was, however, more or less finally fixed. It was
based on the idea of utilitarian fashion, which, more concretely, included
the following principles: to study modern fashion with great care but with
strong reservation concerning the use of the “ultra-modern” tendencies and
to create comfortable, simple, and moderately priced clothes which should
preferably be fashionable and beautiful too. The main idea was to orient
oneself not according to international fashion leaders but to the needs of
the ordinary Soviet consumer. A collection was ideally supposed to include
all kinds of clothes with a special emphasis on the design of practical things

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

which could be used every day at home and at work, at the theater and
cinema, in leisure time or for sport.349
If we compare these principles with the rules that were in general use
in Soviet fashion during this period, there was nothing unique or specific
about GUM’s style of fashion. It loyally followed the general trends of Soviet
fashion.350
In reality the designers at GUM, for very good reasons, had a strong
tendency to deviate from the principle of utilitarian fashion. Several
contradictory expectations were namely directed towards them at the same
time. First, when designing clothes for international demonstrations, ultra-
fashionable designs in bright tones and often with expensive pieces of fur
were highly appreciated. Second, in 1960–1970 GUM’s direction demanded
that the fashion department design clothes from textiles which were difficult
to sell in stores or could not be sold at all in order to convince their customers
of the high quality of such textiles and to stimulate their demand in this way.
There was only one method to achieve this goal in practice: to compensate
for deficiencies in the raw materials by the excessive styling of their design
or by adding original and bright attractive details to them. These factors
worked against the principle of functional dress. In addition, the utilitarian
principle had to be revised from time to time due to the general tendencies
of consumption in the USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. Living conditions
improved rapidly in those days. People had both a wish and a real possibility
to dress better, more variedly and more festively. The very idea of everyday
fashion necessarily changed too and became in itself more festive and varied.
With the gradual disappearance of real poverty and the rapid urbanization of
the country, the strict distinction between the festive – or Sunday – and the
mundane – or weekday – dress became blurred. (Fig. 6.5.)
With the increasing differentiation of taste it became more difficult
to determine the “needs of the Soviet mass consumer.” In the 1960s, the
designers of GUM saw how the actual manner of clothing as well as the
demand for fashion among the inhabitants of Moscow differed more and
more from the population living in the countryside. If GUM mainly oriented
its fashion towards the demands of Muscovites it had to raise its standards
constantly. This was made particularly clear in the 1960s when the amount
of visitors to the demonstration hall decreased drastically. Many saw the
reasons for this not only in the fact that GUM had by then lost its monopoly
on “exoticism” in demonstrating fashion in the Soviet capital but also in
the fact that the Soviet citizens had turned into more fashion conscious
customers who could compare the designs at GUM with the achievements
of international fashion.
In order to attract more customers the directors of GUM tried to make
fashion shows more interesting by including more original and ultra-
fashionable designs, such as women’s trouser suits (the next big thing of
the time) in the collections. But as soon as such measures were taken the
other side raised its critical voice. The April issue of the popular Soviet
women’s journal Rabotnitsa published an article in 1969 with the telling
title “The Splashes of Fantasy or 45 Opinions about Fashion.” After visiting
the demonstration of the spring-summer collection at GUM the author had

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.5. Two new designs of everyday clothes from GUM at the Red Square, Moscow,
1960s.

come to the conclusion that the majority of the designs were impractical
and blindly copied the modern tendencies of international high fashion. The
critique was above all directed towards the evening dresses, which had been
sewn from fashionable, expensive and, even more worrying, immodestly
shining lurex cloth.
The article was discussed animatedly at the meeting of the party activists
of the Department of Fashion Design at GUM on the 23rd of March 1969.
The majority of the designers did not agree with the author’s views. “In
Moscow many women wear fashionable dress... People are now well dressed,

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

and we try to create flashy designs with a unified style.... There is no more
need to demonstrate expensive furs since everyone wears them already
now”351 as the designer and party activist Klara Pobedinskaya explained.
Other participators argued that in the streets of Moscow people dressed
themselves better and better every year and paid more attention to fashion.
This had reached such measures that, compared to the clothes of some
young Muscovites walking in the city center, the new designs from GUM
simply looked old fashioned. The art consultant Bessmertnaya expressed her
worries that if the advice of the defenders of utilitarian fashion was followed
the “designs of GUM will turn out to be of a lower standard than those worn
by the population of Moscow.”352 In her opinion, the task of the designer
should not be to descend to the level of the “average” buyer at GUM but to
consistently raise the aesthetic level and thus also the standards of taste of
the citizens.
At the same meeting, the designer Istomina by no means tried to hide
the fact that the fashion department engaged in the “creative” adaptation
of the tendencies of Western fashion: “We basically take the journals of the
capitalist countries which in some way becomes apparent in the designs we
create.”353 The former artistic director of the department of fashion at GUM,
Shimilis, told the authors of this book that the designers of GUM, did in
fact orient their work according to the fashionable tendencies of the West
in many ways. The Department regularly received new fashion journals
from the socialist countries but also from France, Great Britain, Italy and
the USA. Even though neither he nor the majority of the designers knew
any foreign languages it was in his opinion “quite enough for a specialist to
see the pictures in a fashion journal in order to understand what the leading
tendencies of the world of fashion were like.”354

Working Days at the Department of Fashion Design at GUM

The main indicator of the activity of the labor collective of the Fashion
Department was the number and the quality of its new designs. In 1950–
1970 the department created 800–1300 new approved images every year (see
table 6.1.). This amount included both totally new designs and, to a certain
extent, reprises (designs that had been created earlier but were still in fashion
possibly after some modifications). With the exclusion of the shoes and
hats, regarded as secondary in the collections, the amount was 500–700 new
garments. These included as a rule two seasonal collections (spring-summer
and autumn-winter), each of them with 120–150 designs which were shown
to the public every day in the demonstration hall at GUM. In addition to
these seasonal collections, at the order of the direction of GUM, the fashion
department also compiled special collections, some of which were shown in
international exhibitions abroad. In contrast to ODMO, GUM did not make
any exemplary or trend setting collections whose purpose would be to act as
a guideline for the whole country.

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Table 6.1. The Number of Designs at the Department of Fashion Design at GUM 1956–1974.

1956 1957 1959 1963 1965 1966 1969 1970 1971 1972 1974
over
All 800 823 1372 1000 1205 1295 1019 1001 962 908 924
Clothes – 586 1068 – 821 892 – – 803 764 783
Shoes – 242 304 – 87 78 – – 86 78 73
Hats – – – – – 106 – – 73 66 59
Repeats – – – – – – – – 96 90 157
Source: D.23.L.37; D.39.L.183; D.41.L.219; D.56.L.87; D.63.L.128; D.105.L.159 and others.

In 1964, according to the annual plan, each designer at the department was
supposed to create eight designs a month. In 1966 the average quota was
cut down to seven.355 However, these rather tight quotas together with the
norms regulating the expenditure on textiles and accessories needed for
work were often experienced as constraining the creative character of the
work.
The procedure for the approval of new designs merits a separate discussion.
Despite many appeals to the higher state offices, the artistic council of GUM
was created first in 1967 but only started its work as late as 1969. Before
that, during 1954–1968, most of the women’s designs were taken into use
during the so-called working inspections of the special committee, which
consisted of the leading designers and artistic counselors of the department
together with the representatives of the direction of the store and its sales
departments. The members of this committee formed the first artistic
council. However, not all the new designs passed through the periodical
“working inspections” or the meetings of the council. For a long time all the
men’s clothes as well as head wear were sewn without any critical discussion.
Because no special men’s collections were ever made for the purposes of the
demonstration hall or exhibitions abroad, the individual men’s designs were
regarded as just additional parts in the regular women’s collections. Ruben
Singer was for a very long time the only designer of men’s clothes at GUM
with personal authority. In the beginning of the 1960s many new items never
reached the public and instead found their way straight to the storerooms
of the department.
The need to increase the quality of design at GUM was very acute. For the
half year from November 1962 to April 1963, 30 percent of all the designs
never passed inspection.356 In 1964–1966 the situation was even worse: half
of all the designs either did not pass at all or were sent back to be remade.357
The work of the “real” artistic council also started with scandal: in 1969
it declined 15 percent of the inspected designs, and another 26 percent
received bad marks and were sent to be remade. Thus, in all, over 40 percent
of all designs were turned down at the first inspection of the council.358
In 1973 it was suggested that the designers who produced a lot of rejects
should lose their right to a “creative” day. During such days, common in
the Soviet research institutes, which had been introduced as early as 1956

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in ODMO, the workers did not have to show up at the workplace. In general,
a designer had 50 creative days a year. These days were to be devoted to the
improvement of professional qualifications, to studying the international or
domestic experience of design, and to searching for new ideas in libraries,
museums, exhibitions, and so on.
Many concrete factors influenced everyday life at the fashion department
at GUM, not the least among them the personal relations between the
members of the working collective. Ideological issues did not play a large part
on the “shop floor” level. Ideology functioned mainly as the general, mostly
taken for granted “background” of activities.359 It reached the ordinary
designers and other workers in the form of periodically repeated political
campaigns initiated from above. Whereas the ideological dogmas were
understood with time more and more as a kind of a ritual, the economic-
administrative system of the USSR had a more concrete and practical impact
on the work of the department. The low standards of the material-technical
provisions of the department were its weak point: good textiles and new
machines were in great shortage.
Since the main purpose of the fashion department was to design clothes
for the ordinary Soviet citizens it could officially only make use of such textiles
and clothes of domestic industrial make as were for sale to the ordinary
customer and more or less regularly available in the shops. As the director
of the department Katz declared in April 1958 “we cannot show designs
made out of non-existent textiles” which were not for sale anywhere.360 The
designers at GUM felt these restrictions to be harsher than, for instance,
those at ODMO. Consequently, in the usual manner, they invented several
ways of overcoming these restrictions as early as the end of the 1950s.
Unofficially, the direction of GUM allowed its designers to buy textiles and
accessories as private customers in the Moscow shops, to be used in their
professional work. They could be reimbursed from GUM’s accounting office.
In addition, the department started, even though only exceptionally, to use
the cloth from imported clothes for sale in the sales departments of GUM.
In the 1960s orders were given to some Moscow factories to produce small
quantities of textiles with specific colors and designs.361 These exceptions
were quite common for collections that were to be shown abroad. On the
pretext of a “foreign” collection one could overcome almost any kind of
shortage and engage any external specialist in the specific work task. For
instance, the department sometimes received luxurious furs, like karakul and
others. No one at GUM could, however, dye furs and therefore a deal was
made with masters employed at the Soviet circus.362
In addition to such foreign collections, under special circumstances
GUM was even asked to design some particularly demanding domestic
ones. Such was the case with, for instance, the collection of about 150 items
designed in 1967 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution
of 1917. In that case neither the use of raw materials nor the creativity of the
artists faced any limits. The main challenge that the designers faced was to
combine modern fashion with revolutionary traditions, with the addition of
some folklore motifs.363 With the help of these collections, GUM participated
with success in the International Festival of Fashion in 1967 in Moscow.364

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

In anticipation of the important foreign collections the direction of the

Department of Fashion Design at GUM would, in the beginning of the
year, start hoarding the best textiles. At the same time, for work with the
“ordinary” seasonal collections that were shown in the exhibition hall to the
general public, the designers had to beg for the “last pieces” of high quality
cloth. As a consequence, intentionally or not, domestic collections gradually
came to be of only secondary importance.
From the point of view of the creativity of the designers, the main
contradiction was between new ideas and the many restrictions to
their realization. As one of the documents formulated it “the designer
was not expected to create the design she had thought of but instead to
make something out of the textile that she was supposed to use.”365 The
situation did not change drastically over the years and understandably had
quite a destructive impact on creativity. According to the designer Klara
Pobedinskaya, as late as the mid-1970s the problems with provisions were so
big that a designer was best off orienting herself from the beginning to what
happened to be available at the moment in the storerooms of the department
store.366
Under the conditions, a lot depended on the personality of the designer.
Designers could justifiably follow the formal path and be satisfied with the
meager materials in fact available. Or, if they could not find the necessary
materials in the storerooms of GUM, they could go the informal way and
buy them in any shop as a private person.367 In addition, when faced with
the task of designing with the relatively limited variety of textiles, they
could compensate for this disadvantage with some particularly fashionable
silhouettes or creative details that would attract a spectator’s attention. As the
designer E. A. Tomashevich formulated it, under the conditions the best way
out was to “take refuge in all kinds of ultra-fashionable patterns.”368
The price of the creativity of the designers at GUM was quite low for
the state. The price of the raw materials, and not the designers’ salaries,
made up the overwhelmingly greater part of the prices of exclusive items of
clothing. In 1968 the Department of Fashion Design at GUM made special
economic calculations in order to determine what would be a profitable
price at which to sell the unique clothes that had been designed for the
fashion shows. It proved that the average expense for sewing a light female
dress at the department was not more than 54.4 rubles and that of a women’s
overcoat 108.5 rubles, including the price of the raw materials. If a customer
had compared these prices with the prices of the corresponding industrially
produced clothes sold at GUM she would have found that their “state”
prices were almost the same. For instance, the price of an ordinary women’s
overcoat was 112 rubles, only slightly more expensive than the unique
designs of the fashion department.369
In the beginning, the designers’ trips abroad along with the demonstration
of their designs gave rise to additional interest in the novelties of international
fashion. The designers at GUM also visited the first demonstrations of
foreign fashion which took place at the international exhibitions in Moscow
in the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. Trying to follow
their times, the direction of the fashion department also subscribed to

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foreign fashion journals. In one of the party meetings in April 1958, the shoe
designer A. Oganesov noted the fact that the majority of his colleagues did
not know any foreign languages and therefore asked the direction to organize
their translation. As the minutes of the meeting show, E. V. Semenova, who
was reputed to know languages well, was given the task of systematically
translating articles from the foreign fashion journals as well as compiling
reports on the future perspectives of tendencies in international fashion.370
When she, referring to her otherwise heavy work burden, stopped the
translations for a time at the end of 1960, the matter was given high priority
and raised again in the party meetings. The designers declared that they
could not work anymore because they “did not know what was new in the
West in construction and design.”371
The question of making active use of the progressive experience of the
other fashion design organizations in the Soviet Union and, above all, of All-
Union House of Fashion Design (ODMO) was also relevant to the time. The
designers at GUM complained that they felt themselves isolated in the lack
of complete information about what was going on elsewhere in the country.
This had a negative impact on the results of their work. They regularly asked
their directors to establish regular contacts with ODMO. As the worker at
the Department at Fashion Design Shipova argued in 1960:

The (All-Union – J. G. and S. Z.) ODMO organizes methodical consultations but

we will not take part in them. The same House takes part in the competitions
and conferences of fashion – it gives direction to their design work but we lack
all this. This is a very serious and big question....372

In 1962, the designer Kolegaeva raised the same question again in the party
meeting: “We do not have any ties to the (All-Union) House of Fashion
Design. We do not take part in anything at all, we simply see nothing and
work blindly.”373 This critique was obviously taken into account.
There is no doubt that many designers and models at GUM had unofficial
contacts with their colleagues at ODMO. The workers at GUM took part
as private persons in the exhibitions of the new collections at ODMO
even though they were not invited there on official business. In 1963, the
direction of the fashion department for the first time made a deal that three
of their specialists could practice at ODMO in order to learn new methods
of clothing construction. From the mid-1960s, the workers at GUM were
officially invited to the All-Union consultations organized regularly by
ODMO and VIALegprom which discussed the future perspectives of Soviet
fashion.374

Publishing Activities at GUM

GUM had permanent problems establishing cooperation with the clothing

factories to start producing their designs industrially in greater quantities.
Therefore, it had to take refuge in other ways of making its designs well
known. Publishing activities were in this respect among the most important.

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

They both brought significant profits to GUM and made their designs
popular among the citizens.
In the beginning, some single designs were published in women’s
magazines, among them Sovetskaya zhenshchina (“Soviet Woman,” which
appeared in 7 languages and was actively distributed abroad). The Department
of Fashion Design also soon started to publish its own patterns for sewing
by ordinary women. In 1954 a series of these patterns was published as an
attachment to the popular journal Rabotnitsa (The Working Woman).
In 1955 the Department of Fashion Design started publishing its own
fashion albums – Novinki GUMa (Novelties at GUM) and Mody GUMa
(Fashions at GUM). Later it increased its publications purposefully and
offered its customers four to six fashion albums each year. In addition
to individual booklets, the patterns were also published under the title
Modeli s chertezhami kroya (Designs with sewing instructions) with a typical
edition of 50,000 to 75,000. From the beginning of the 1960s such albums
with instructions were published for both adults’ and children’s wear.375
Since sewing one’s own clothes was common in the Soviet Union, the total
copies of the edition doubled in 1963 compared to 1962 (from 150,000 to
381,000). The number of printed pictures in color sold to the visitors at the
demonstration hall also doubled in 1963.376
The fashionable publications from the fashion department were sold in
practically all the regions of the USSR as well as at GUM and in Moscow.
One could subscribe to them in advance or buy them in the local shops.
This system of distributing printed fashion patterns and illustrations with
practical instructions for sewing proved to be very effective. From the middle
of the 1950s to the middle of the 1970s GUM published tens of thousands
of new designs for women’s and children’s wear. It did not publish any men’s
patterns.
Some of the albums were “universal,” dedicated to the oncoming season
(Modeli GUMa, 50 Modelei GUMa, Modeli 1967 goda, Na kazhdyi den’ [For
Every Day]). Others were directed to a particular readership according to
their age or constitution like Detskoe platye dlya shkol’nikov (Clothes for the
Schoolchildren), Dlya molodykh (For the Young Ones), and Dlya polnykh
zhenshchin (For Big Women). The albums with designs for big women ran
many copies and were particularly popular. For instance, in 1974 one such
album had an edition of 100,000. Special albums propagated sport wear
(Sportivnaya odezhda), the knitwear designed at GUM (Spitsami i kriuchkom
[With Knitting Needles and Crochet Hooks]), or presented GUM’s designs
from the special exhibitions. For instance, in 1961 the album Modeli GUMa,
with an edition of 20,000, presented the collection which GUM’s models
had demonstrated in the All-Union exhibition of textile products.377 Some
albums were dedicated to special festive collections, like Yubileinyi (The
Festive) in 1967, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution
of 1917. The total amount of the printed albums varied greatly from one year
to the next. The size of the editions always depended on the availability of
printing paper due to the limited paper quotas which the planning organs
had given to GUM. (See table 6.2.)

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Table 6.2. The annual number of fashion albums and the total amount of copies in their editions at
GUM in the 1950s–1970s.

1956 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1974

5 – 5 4 – 4 6 4
230.000 171.000 254.000 328.000 335.000 330.000 650.000 375.000
Source: Compiled using the annual reports of the direction of the Department of Fashion Design at GUM. (Dela
23, 39, 41, 56, 63, 105.)

Table 6.3. The total amount of copies in the editions of the GUM pattern and design booklets
published and distributed in 1956–1970.

1956 1958 1959 1966 1970

1,148 thousand 1,200 thousand 708 thousand 1,960 thousand 453 thousand
pattern booklets pattern booklets pattern booklets pattern booklets collections of
with 169 designs + 120 thousand drawings
collections of
drawings

Source: the table is compiled from the annual reports of the direction of the Department of Fashion Design at
GUM. (Dela 23, 39,41,56,63,105).

The fashion department was, however, very keen on making its designs
available to the population at large. Its directors knew

that there are millions of sewing machines in the country. This means that
every woman who knows how to sew can with the help of our patterns sew
herself a beautiful and fashionable dress. This will promote the good taste of the
population and they will dress themselves attractively.378

The Ministry of Trade actively supported the publishing initiatives. It

assumed that the fashion department at GUM would distribute one million
printed copies of the patterns of the best designs from GUM every year.
GUM could in fact easily fulfill this quota, even to excess. But as the directors
well knew not even a million patterns could satisfy the demand.379
Due to this publishing activity, the designs of GUM, as a rule not exciting
interest within the garment industry and consequently not sold at clothing
shops, did not disappear without trace (see table 6.3.). Individual sewing was
an effective alternative to the mass production of clothes in the Soviet Union
all through these decades. Thanks to these publications, the designs from
GUM were turned into real concrete clothes after all, through the method
of sew-it-yourself, with the help of private tailors and the state ateliers of
individual sewing.
In the 1960s and 1970s the fashion department received remarkably
many letters of gratitude from the most remote corners of the country. The
authors usually wrote that they lived far from Moscow but still wanted to
dress themselves “not worse than the Muscovites.” The distributed printed
patterns gave them such a possibility. As the writers explained, with the help
of the designs from GUM they could cloth their whole family too.380

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Fig. 6.6. Fashion show

at the demonstration
hall of GUM, late 1950s.

In the Demonstration Hall at GUM

The main forum where the designers met their customers was without
a doubt the demonstration hall at GUM. There was no lack of visitors to
the fashion shows in the beginning. Long queues formed on the stairs in
front of the hall before the shows started. Among them were many regular
guests who visited all the seasonal exhibitions. The demonstration hall had
350 seats and it was famous for its exclusive architecture and rich interior.
(Fig. 6.6.)
At times the hall was closed to the general public. In addition to the
fitting of new designs all kinds of consultations and meetings of the artistic
council (after its founding at the end of the 1960s) as well as all kinds of
exclusive demonstrations took place here. The hall became busier when
the open demonstrations started. In the beginning the seasonal collections
were demonstrated once a day. Soon, in the end of the 1950s, the number of
demonstrations was increased to two or three depending on the day of the
week, including Sundays. This made it possible for about one thousand visitors
to see the shows every day and acquaint themselves with the tendencies of
present fashion. Internal radio broadcasts informed the customers of GUM,

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

who filled the sales departments in great numbers, about the upcoming
shows. The tickets were sold at the entrance for quite a reasonable price of
50 kopeks. With this sum the visitor received several unique pleasures at
once. First, in the 1950s and 1960s the demonstration hall was the only one
in Russia where one could follow an exotic, well arranged show with live
models and the accompaniment of a real orchestra and the commentaries
of experts. Not even at ODMO, the main “cathedral of Soviet fashion,” did
a live orchestra accompany the shows with music. (In Tallinn, Estonia, this
was the case quite early on.)
When a new design was demonstrated the speaker always announced the
name of its designer and gave some short comments about its construction,
style and purpose, the cloth used to sew it, and so on. The idea was that
during these shows the visitor would increase his or her knowledge about
the culture of dress and fashion trends as well as learn to follow the standards
of good taste. It was no accident that only professional art consultants or
historians were allowed to introduce the shows as well as to comment in
more detail on the individual designs.
The visitors who often came to Moscow on short trips from other regions
of the country could also buy the albums with the patterns and drawings of
the designs shown in the demonstrations – as well as other albums published
by GUM – at the same place, either in the kiosk at the entrance to the
demonstration hall or in the department of “goods of culture” (writing and
drawing utensils, paint, brushes, etc.) at GUM. From 1963 brochures about
each new seasonal collection were published and sold to visitors. In addition,
visitors could buy drawings of the designs sold either in single copies or in
collections.
At the turn of the years 1969–1970, a crisis hit the fashion demonstrations
at GUM, which at this time organized about 620 open shows every year. Its
working collective had for a long time lived on the success of its first years,
when the number of visitors had increased like an avalanche each year: in
1957 it was two times more than in 1956, in 1958 40 percent more than the
year before, and in 1959 44 percent more.381 In 1959 and 1960 the fashion
department reported that 500,000 to 600,000 thousand people had seen
seasonal fashion collections either at the internal demonstrations at GUM,
during the visiting exhibitions in other places in the USSR, or abroad. In
1960, the fashion show at the demonstration hall was filmed for the first time
and broadcasted on the All-Union television station.382
Since everyone at GUM had gotten used to the long queues and streams
of visitors it was inconceivable that this huge popularity could come to
an end so soon. No one had paid sufficient attention to the quality of the
shows or taken into account the growing demands of the customers. The
visitors’ critical remarks, which started to appear in the beginning of the
1960s, had been taken more than anything as proof of the visitors’ deficient
understanding of fashion and low cultural standards.
To the employees of the fashion department these problems did not,
however, come as a big surprise. Many remembered the sharp-tempered
presentation of the designer Singer at the meeting of the Party activists of the
department on the 15th of April, 1963. In his opinion “in the beginning we

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were all deeply involved in demonstrating our designs but now no one cares
about it.”383 As a matter of fact, during the first years the general enthusiasm
and emotional involvement of the designers was great. In the beginning of
the 1960s, this enthusiasm started to fade and a certain degree of boredom
or nonchalance took its place. Routines and the strict fulfilment of the quotas
became more important to many than a genuinely creative relationship
to fashion design. Many designers lost all interest in following the future
destinies of their own creations. In the end, the direction had to order the
designers to be present at the demonstrations of their own clothes in order
to get firsthand reactions to their designs.384
At the departmental meetings the workers also expressed their worries
about the need to renovate the demonstration hall and called attention to the
overall decline in the level of the demonstrations. There were many objective
reasons that had led to this situation. The foreign visits of the collective as
well as the increasing popularity of the fashion shows organized in other big
cities in the USSR by other fashion institutes, including those established on
the local and regional level, had led to a diminishing interest in the shows of
the GUM demonstration hall. The fashion shows at GUM simply lost their
unique character. The best designs were not shown there anymore. They were
more often included in the collections touring abroad. The best professional
forces – and the best textiles – at GUM were now mostly mobilized to
maintain the prestige of the country. The first whole collection to be shown
abroad was created at the end of 1958, but as early as 1966 the designers
created three such full “foreign” collections a year.385 This was mostly done
alongside and at the expense of the regular planned work.
The relatively long-term absence of part of the labor collective from
Moscow also had a destabilizing effect on the work of the Department. The
designers had to cancel their fitting sessions because the models were abroad.
The regular shows suffered from the fact that the models were not available
in Moscow. The models left behind had to work twice as much, being so
busy with the fitting sessions that they hardly had enough time to do their
make-up for the shows.386 In addition, the direction gave the Department
new design tasks that were not in its original plans. The art director of the
department, Shimilis, complained in one of the Party meetings that

a regular collection for the demonstration hall, other collections for the tours,
for the congress, for the celebratory collections. Such a heavy burden does not
pass without consequences. The models have it very badly. This makes them
nervous and disturbs the rhythm of work. All this hurry has a negative effect on
the creativity of the work.387

The head of the demonstration hall, V. I. Gurtovaya, gave the following

negative picture of the working of her unit in one of the Party meetings in
1972:

The demonstration hall has not been renovated for a long time and it has an
unpleasant and dirty view. A lot of dust, the catwalk is shaky. The narrow path
(covered with carpet) does not cover the whole catwalk ... After the call when the

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visitors have already entered the hall the lights are not turned on [in order to spare
energy-authors] and the visitors have to sit almost in the dark ... people come late
and enter the hall almost during the whole first part. ... During the demonstration
the musicians come to the hall noisily and start tuning their instruments speaking
together while the speaker is already making her introductory comments. The
models walk the catwalk without always coordinating their actions with the
speaker’s comments.388

All this caused the prestige of fashion at GUM to start to fall in the eyes of
the Soviet consumers. When people felt that their presence was not taken
seriously they stopped attending the shows. During the second half of the
1960s often only half of the seats in the hall were occupied. Scandals took
place when the visitors who were angry with the low standards of the shows
simply left their seats in the middle of the show and demanded their money
back.389 According to the annual reports, in 1967 a total of 250,000 visitors
saw the 789 demonstrations either in the demonstration hall or in the other
places which GUM visited. The next year the amount of visitors declined
to 203,500.390 With daily shows, the demonstration hall at GUM could take
a total of 217,000 visitors a year.391 In 1972 only half the seats were occupied,
with 100,500 visitors, and in 1973 the amount decreased to 83,100 people.392
Therefore, whenever designers and export firms from the other socialist
countries came to show their collections they had no problems renting the
demonstration hall at GUM. In 1971 the annual income from all the regular
shows of GUM’s own collections was 55,600 rubles, whereas just a couple of
dozen visiting fashion shows from the GDR and Czechoslovakia produced
a profit of 10,700 rubles.393
In the middle of the 1960s the direction of the Department of Fashion
Design took some measures to improve the situation at the demonstration
hall. In order to attract more visitors it was decided that the demonstrations
should be made more varied and modern and more theatrical. Instead of the
tradition of the two seasonal collections, four and later six different programs
were introduced. Starting in 1968, a whole collection of women’s dress was
designed each season consisting of all the different categories of clothes: for
domestic use, for work, sport as well as leisure, for visits to the theater and
other cultural events, etc., all of these taking into special account women of
different ages and various bodily constitutions.394
In practice it was not possible to satisfy all these demands on a regular
basis. Sportswear was more or less absent from one collection and in
another some other kinds of dresses were missing. A worker at the fashion
department, L. N. Sazanskaya, admitted in 1974: “The summer is hot and
the beach attracts many but in the demonstration hall they only show two
things that suit the season.”395 Nevertheless, in 1974 the fashion department
delighted its visitors by demonstrating seven thematic programs with 540
new designs in all.396
It was also decided to pay more attention to public opinion. In the 1960s
the visitors to the demonstration hall received twice yearly questionnaires
with the purpose of finding out what they really thought about the designs on
display. The questions included, for instance, the following: Which designs and

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which models did you like best as well as what kind of music accompanying
the demonstrations is best suited to emphasize the style, contents and pattern
of the designs?397 In 1971 to 1973, 300 questionnaires a year were distributed
(100 each in three different shows) which hardly qualifies the sample of the
study as representative. In addition, the visitors’ reactions could mostly be
anticipated and observed even without questionnaires based solely on their
emotional reactions during the shows.
The aesthetic preferences did not always coincide with those of
practicality. The visitors obviously liked to look at festive dresses worn by
young, thin models on the catwalk. On the other hand, judging from the
answers to the questionnaires, the most desirable designs were mundane,
practical designs for women of mature age. The visitors also expressed a wish
for the models to be not only young girls but also, just as in real life, women
of different ages and sizes. When presenting the results to the direction of
the Department of Fashion Design the workers of the demonstration hall
drew from them the conclusion that “our models do not have to keep up
their form, to lose weight, as is common with us.” It would be fully possible
to “extend the size of the models up to the number 56.”398 As a conclusion,
the direction expressed their willingness to employ “a very robust model
(up to size 58).”399 This followed the general concern for the needs of heavier
women. In the late 1960s, the designers at GUM were given the task of
creating designs “which can dress women of all ages and all figures.”400 Every
expert knew without doubt that there were no such universal designs. Those
that fit thin women differed from those that fit heavy women as far as their
different styles, proportions, and colors were concerned.401 In practice,
however, GUM designed clothes taking into account the sizes of their own
models, who were mostly young women of the sizes 44 to 48. In the second
half of the 1960s the situation changed and a new line appeared in the plans
of the department: “the design for heavy women.” In 1968 23 percent of all
the designs at GUM were designed for women counted as plus-sized (sizes
50–54).402 At the same time the publishing unit of the fashion department
produced special fashion albums with sewing instructions called “For the
Large Woman” (in 75,000 copies).

The Models: “The Most Difficult Part of the Work”

The propaganda for the culture of dress and good taste among the Soviet
citizens was one of the main tasks of the Department of Fashion Design at
GUM just as of all the other Soviet fashion institutes. This cultural mission
was taken quite seriously at GUM, which was filled every day with buyers
coming from all over the country who demonstrated concretely in their
own appearance, dress and behavior the difficulties and contradictions of
the social and cultural processes taking place in the Soviet Union.
The creators and distributors of socialist culture had a special responsi-
bility. They were supposed to personally follow and represent the good life-
style that they propagated in their work. An interesting contradiction was
therefore inherent in the activities of the fashion department which proved

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to be difficult to solve. The results of the work of the whole collective were
namely not presented to the public by an educated art consultant but by an
ordinary girl employed as a model, or as they were called then, a demon-
strator of clothes. She did not say anything during the demonstration but
the public could very well understand and interpret the message sent by her
style of walking, gestures and facial expressions as well as the bodily poses
she took on the podium. Even more: she was more expressive and colorful
than the language of even the best propaganda ever could be and, above all,
she was very difficult to control. The model could easily, if she only wanted
to, either “destroy” any design or to lift it up to the skies. With her own be-
havior, manners and looks she “educated” the public by offering a concrete
example, often more directly than the very designs that she demonstrated.
The models at GUM soon became generally known and even famous.
They were invited to work at ODMO too; their pictures together with the
images of the best models from Kuznetskii Most were published in the
popular Soviet journals and in the fashion albums from GUM, often in huge
editions. Soon flowers, presents and admirers appeared.
The profession of a model was highly novel in the still rather traditional
Soviet society at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s when the outer appearance
of a human being was considered to be of only secondary importance
compared to her inner characteristics and work performance. All extensive
attention that was paid to one’s outer appearance was therefore regarded with
suspicion. It proved to be particularly difficult to hire models from among
local people in the Soviet republics with predominantly Muslim cultural
traditions. Under these conditions the main moral qualification of a woman
was not her beauty but her modesty. The only people who had the right to
a good reputation and high social status were those who had earned it with
their socially useful work, like actresses, scholars, sportsmen or the shock
workers in production. The models of GUM, as well as all the models in the
Soviet Union, became the symbols of a fame that they had not really earned.
Their profession was not really decent, at least in the eyes of some of their
contemporaries. Towards the end of the 1960s this attitude gradually started
to change and the profession of a fashion model became, just like in the West,
less controversial and stigmatized.
From 1958–1959 onwards their regular travels abroad with the fashion
shows as well as the reception of foreign fashion delegations nourished
additional suspicions concerning the moral worth of their profession. For
obvious reasons, the models formed at least half of all the delegations.
Travel abroad and all kinds of contact with foreigners were regarded as
particularly demanding in those days. Therefore, it was no wonder that the
Party organization of the GUM considered the question of the ethical and
aesthetic education of the work collective, as well as the general strengthening
of discipline, to be of the utmost importance.
The presence of international tourists at the fashion demonstrations,
attracted by the rich cultural history of the city center, did not make the
situation easier. The possibility of seeing a modern Soviet fashion show
intrigued many tourists, journalists and businessmen. In 1958, the Party
Committee of GUM took up the state of political education at the Department

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of Fashion for special discussion.403 The work with the models was said to
constitute its most sensitive issue. There were some good reasons for this
conclusion. It was common practice that in order to receive travel documents
the Party Committee at GUM interviewed people who were sent abroad on
working commissions and posed them some simple questions on domestic
and international policy. The situation understandably made people nervous
and the answers given by the interviewed models caused the direction a lot
of headaches, even circulating as common jokes among the workers of the
Department.
There were no members of the Communist Party among the models
at GUM, and only a few were members of the Komsomol Youth League.
A model travelling abroad was expected not only to show clothing on the
catwalk but also to take part in receptions and to socialize with their foreign
hosts in unofficial situations. This demanded not only a pleasant outer
appearance but also “ideological firmness,” a level of culture, and knowledge
of basic manners and good behavior. The behavior of Soviet citizens abroad
was thought to have a direct impact on the general image of the whole
country.404
The Secretary of the Party Committee at GUM, Belyakov, formulated the
important task as follows on the 30th of July, 1958:

Unless we work with our models they can cause damage to our reputation. We
have to conduct discussions with them, also on the individual level, depending
on their level and readiness so that our Soviet models will be able to answer all
the questions, which some of them are not at all ready to do now. We have to
nominate the politically more mature Party members as their tutors to conduct
discussions with them.405

The head of the demonstration hall, the Communist V. I. Gurtovaya, was

given the task of tutoring the models and following their behavior and
morals. In her role of an “agitator” she raised, on Mondays and Fridays all
through the late 1950s and 1960s, the models’ cultural-political level of con-
sciousness in collective reading sessions during which the latest newspapers
were discussed. She conducted other political discussions with them too.406
There is no doubt that the visits abroad made a very strong impression
on the models as well as designers at the fashion department. This was not
only true of the observations made of the higher living standards and shops
without queues and full of goods. The travelers were even more amazed and
impressed by the fact that abroad, including the other socialist countries of
Europe, the status of their own profession, as well as that of female beauty
and appeal, was quite different from what it was in the USSR. While abroad,
the Soviet models felt themselves to be almost queens. They were always at
the center of attention during the receptions, which were often held in old
aristocratic apartments or in luxurious hotels. In most of the informal pictures
taken during these visits abroad the models have very happy smiles on their
faces. It was not easy to return home to normal life after such celebrations.
Psychologically it therefore makes sense that the models were often accused
of being arrogant and capricious after such travels abroad. (Fig.6.7.)

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.7. Models from GUM having fun after a fashion show in East Germany, 1965
(from the left: Mingashudinova, Vavilova, Mironova, Kokoreva, Korshunov and
Osetsimskaya).

On the first of July, 1960, the Communists of the Department of Fashion

Design met to discuss the confidential letter of the Central Committee of the
Party about “raising political alertness” which was distributed to all the Party
organizations in the country. The letter mainly targeted those colleagues, in
particular the models, who travelled abroad a lot. As the secretary of the
Party Committee at the Department N. A. Lifshits said, “it is necessary to
educate the models both politically and morally.”407 The critique was directed
towards their outer appearance and, in the eyes of some Communists,
excessively loose manners. What worried them most was that the models
used to go around half-naked during the fitting sessions. “It has come time to
create order, to forbid them ... during the work time on the podium to appear
not properly dressed,” demanded V. Kartashova, not paying any attention to
the specificity of their work.408
The Party members, in particular the elderly women among them,
demanded also that the models should behave more modestly even outside of
work in order not to “distinguish themselves.” As the Party member Petrosyan
remarked, “the models should not use so much make-up during their free
time,” adding that their appearance reminded one of circus performers who
only wanted to draw the attention of others. “Any foreigner can freely use

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them for his own purposes,” she continued. “Our models have a cheap finesse
and even their appearance gives a very frivolous impression.”409 The head of
the sewing workshop, G. V. Shvets, was of the same opinion: “Our models
cannot really behave themselves well. All the European delegations who
have visited us have behaved themselves very modestly.”410 In her opinion,
their tendency to “cheap finesse” was proof of their low cultural level and the
shortcomings in their aesthetic education as models.
In the beginning of 1962, the question of the models’ unsuitable outer
appearance was raised in a critical article again on the pages of the internal
newspaper of GUM, Za obraztsovuyu torgovliu (Towards Exemplary Trade).
The theme was also discussed in the meeting of the trade union of GUM
and, on the 24th of May 1962, it was taken up again in the Party meeting.411
The complaints about the models were the same as before: their vulgar outer
appearance both during the working sessions (too much make-up) and after
work. Petrosyan declared with pathos: “In our times in our country one
should not be allowed to present fashion in such a manner. Not even our
actresses use make-up like that.”412
According to G. D. Shvets “the cultural exchange with the foreign countries
has both its good and bad sides.”413 What he had in mind was that the opening
of the iron curtain opened the USSR to the import of Western values too.
As further proof of their arguments the Communists claimed that during
their foreign travels the models were only interested in clothes and in having
access to the all the imported “junk.”414
On the 15th of January, 1963, two leading designers, Averyanova and
Singer, who were not Party members, presented heavy criticism towards
the work at the demonstration hall. According to Averyanova, it was totally
unacceptable that the models were allowed to go to the demonstrations not
respecting the principles of the ensemble – “overcoat without a hat, a dress
without an umbrella, gloves and shoes – all are worn down and dirty. Any
kind of a design will suffer from this.” In her words,

the models go to the demonstrations not properly dressed, in some kind of a hair
do, in dirty stockings and worn out shoes. They remain standing in front of the
podium and continue talking with each other. They keep to themselves – and the
public is left without attention.415

Singer joined the complaints by describing the following scene:

If you enter the demonstration hall you see the models walking the catwalk
looking bored, with such an unconcerned and icy look on their faces that one
cannot speak of any style at all. The music plays for itself in one boring tune.
Vavilova is the only bright spot.416

When one of the authors of this book presented such utterances, found
in the archives, to the former workers of the fashion department their
reaction was mostly one of surprise. The prima donna of those years, Tamara
Mingashudinova, mostly did not use any make-up at all on the scene,
though certainly one or another liked to use lipstick and emphasized the

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

expressiveness of the eyes with eyeliner. Looking at the past from today’s
perspective, the interviewee could not, however, remember one single model
at the end of the 1950s and in the 1960s who could be characterized as
“vulgar” or excessive in any respect. On the contrary, they all recalled very
well how difficult it had been to find any good cosmetics in Moscow and
how they had all had to make their own “laboratory experiments” before the
shows to “cook” eyeliner and lipstick themselves.417
The expenses of cosmetics had not been taken into account in the budgets
of the fashion department. Consequently, the models did their own make-
up and hairstyling, helping each other. Some succeeded better than others.
As the designer Tomashevich complained in one of the Party meetings in
1962, “they [the models-authors] do not know how to make a face mask and
no one teaches them to do so.”418 For a long time no one taught the models
at GUM how to walk on the catwalk either. Finally in 1967 the fashion
department started organizing special courses for the newly employed
models on “choreography and rhythm, and the creation of style during
shows.”419 A regular demand made of the fashion department was for each
model to wear during the shows the shoes that were made for her personally,
but the leaders regularly answered that it would be too expensive to buy such
shoes for everyone. Therefore, some of the models preferred to use their own
shoes in the demonstrations, but it was not always easy to make them fit the
style and color of the dress to be demonstrated. Often the models, to promote
their work, brought along their own accessories that were high quality and
fashionable (belt, gloves, handbags, etc.) in order to better fit the designs that
they demonstrated.420
Quite naturally, the models also made use of their trips abroad to acquire
high quality things that were beneficial to their work, and in particular things
that were in great shortage in the USSR, like good underwear, perfumes
and cosmetics. This was not a secret from anyone. The models were, for
instance, supposed to bring their own underwear to the shows. GUM did
not provide it. Since the designs did not look good without the proper kind
of underwear the models complained regularly that they did not receive any
bras or underpants that would fit the style and other characteristics of the
demonstrated designs.421
After the second half of the 1960s the general tone of the Party meetings
changed. They became less political and more down to earth. It was, for
instance, said that the work of a model was very demanding and it was
therefore necessary to create good conditions for their work and to guarantee
them their fully deserved rest. The artistic director D. B. Shimilis remarked that
“the models should have more time to take care of their outer appearance.”
To be able to do so they received a weekly day off, Thursday, during which
they were supposed to visit the hairdresser, rest, engage in sports, and so on.
Often they were, however, invited to work even during their days off.422
The criticism of the models’ behavior did not stop, but now they were
criticized mostly for coming late to work, for their “never ending gabbles
on various themes, smoking and laughing” and for not always appearing
in the regular shows. However, as one of the Party meetings could confirm,
during the important shows or demonstrations abroad they always made an

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extra effort and worked with distinction.423In the middle of the 1960s a new
generation of models entered GUM. Many young girls came to work there
but at the same time the turnover rate of the labor force increased too. Many
girls moved to other fashion institutions, which could offer them both better
conditions of work and a higher salary. Unfortunately, GUM could not stand
up to this challenge. Quite the contrary, during this same time the amount
and, consequently, the burden of work increased remarkably. The fashion
department traveled abroad regularly and organized demonstrations of its
collections outside Moscow. But since the work in its own demonstration
hall did not diminish either the question was raised of recruiting another
crew of models.424 It was not easy to recruit and school new models in such
a short time.
Finally in 1968 the fashion department succeeded in recruiting a second
crew of models, and after that the burden of work and the situation at the
demonstration hall became normal again.

The Call from Abroad

The workers of the fashion department were sent abroad quite early, in the
end of the 1950s. International cooperation within the field of fashion served
both practical and propagandistic purposes. Included in the former category
were the exchange of experiences with foreign specialists and the study of
modern trends of fashion in the West and the other socialist countries. The
propaganda of Soviet fashion aimed at creating a positive image of the USSR
among foreigners, who should become convinced not only that fashion
existed under socialism but also that ordinary Soviet citizens were dressed
no worse – and would soon be dressed even better – than those in the West.
The best designs from GUM were included regularly in the “campaigning”
collections of clothes and shoes which the USSR exhibited in various trade
exhibitions and fairs abroad. For instance, 48 pairs of shoes designed at
GUM were selected to represent the Soviet Union in the World Fair at
Brussels in 1958.425 In addition, from the end of the 1950s the designers
at GUM were encouraged to create their own “international” collections.
These demonstrations often took place at Soviet trade exhibitions and fairs
as well as during the days of Soviet culture which were organized within the
program of strengthening the friendship, cooperation and cultural relations
between the USSR and foreign countries. In 1957–1959, GUM’s designs were
demonstrated for the first time in the USA, Finland, Yugoslavia, the United
Arab Emirates, the GDR, Poland, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. In the 1960s
and 1970s they were shown predominantly in the socialist countries and in
some developing as well as some friendly capitalist countries like Finland.
The model Liudmila Andreeva remembered in particular the first ever
visit of the GUM fashion show to Prague in 1958 and the great success of their
designs there. This was a “return” visit: their colleagues from Czechoslovakia
had visited Moscow for the first time the year before and demonstrated
their designs in a couple of shows at GUM. According to Andreeva, the
Czech audience received the festive evening dresses included in the Soviet

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

Fig. 6.8. The fashion

model Vavilova
demonstrates a new
design from GUM at
the Soviet Exhibition
of Trade and
Industry in Helsinki,
Finland in 1959 next
to the model of the
nuclear ice breaker,
Lenin.

collection with great enthusiasm. 50 years later Andreeva still associated

this, one of GUM’s very first foreign visits, with an exclusive celebration:
a beautiful hotel in downtown Prague, luxurious service, official receptions,
picnics in nature, the beautiful views of the old city, trips to the mountains
and much more.426
In 1959 the delegation of the fashion department toured with a show
for almost 30 days in Finland. (Fig. 6.8.) The fashion shows, in which even
ODMO and some other Soviet design organizations took part, were organized
within the Soviet industrial and trade exhibition in the main exhibition
hall in the heart of the Finnish capital, Helsinki. The Finnish newspapers
wrote about the exhibition and some, like Salon Seudun Sanomat, had on
its front page pictures of the Soviet models dressed in the festive evening
dresses designed at GUM.427 The close contact of the designers of GUM with
Finland continued even later. For instance, in 1966 a Finnish TV crew made
a documentary about a fashion show organized especially for them in the
demonstration hall at GUM.428
In 1963 the designs of GUM toured the cities of Poland and in the end
of 1965 a successful visit to the GDR took place including shows in Leipzig,
Erfurt, Karl-Marx-Stadt and some other towns. After the show at Leipzig the
local newspaper Thüringische Landeszeitung, enchanted by the Russian furs,
wrote: “the female overcoat and the other fur items were greatly admired

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6. Fashion at GUM, the State Department Store at Moscow

– these valuables from the forest of the dark brown fox, nutria, all the way
to the ermine and sable hats.” The evening outfits from GUM were admired
as “examples of classical beauty.” The long evening dress called Leningrad’s
white nights which the model Anatonina (Nina) Vavilova demonstrated
impressed the audience with its originality: “airy, covered with shining pearls
and with a long scarf falling down to the floor.” Nominating the models
“heroes of the day,” the newspaper printed a long interview with Vavilova.
The article had the title “Nina and the White Nights.” The model in question,
who retired long ago, preserves this paper clipping from the newspaper to
this day in her family archive as a deeply cherished memory.429
The GUM collection appealed greatly to the East German specialists.
They made a proposal to the leader of the delegation, the general director of
GUM Kochurov, to use the collection to start producing its designs in small
series in the GDR. It was also hinted that this would only be the first step.
According to the artistic director of the fashion department, D. B. Shimilis,
during the talks the Germans raised the question of starting a systematic
collaboration, distributing the best designs of GUM and opening GUM’s
own boutiques in the GDR.430 The suggestion of exporting fashion from
GUM was certainly very flattering to the direction of the department store,
who had long dreamed of their own “brand” of fashion. The realization of
the plan was not, however, within their power. After their return to Moscow
Kochurov discussed the matter with the officials of the Ministry of Trade but
as far as we know no further concrete measures were ever taken. For some
reason the Soviet Government was not seriously interested in selling Soviet
designs abroad. These later offers from potential buyers that we are aware of
as well as Soviet experts’ own rather modest efforts shared a similar destiny.
In addition to the visits to the European socialist countries (GDR,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria) in the middle of the 1960s GUM also
established relations with Cuba.
As a rule the export collections had 100–150 designs of various items,
from sportswear to luxurious evening dresses. The Soviet designers quickly
learned that the festive evening dresses and clothes got the most attention.
This was particularly the case if they had some Russian folk motifs or if
the clothes or some of their details were made out of fur or had decorative
images made in the “Russian style,” with traditionally handmade embroidery,
etc. One of these collections from the late 1960s/beginning of the 1970s
with clothes made out of karakul caused a real sensation touring in the
COMECON countries.
A delegation consisting of 10–15 members, among them 5–8 models,
some designers and representatives from the administration of the
department store and its fashion department, usually followed the collection
abroad. To have one’s name included on the list of the members of such
a delegation was understandably extremely highly valued and envied among
the workers. The trip abroad was regarded not only as working assignment
but also as a kind of extra reward. The interviewed former workers of the
department remembered their trips abroad both with great pleasure and as
important occasions to learn more about their profession and trade.

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design:
A Gateway to the West

The Founding of the Tallinn House

In many ways the Tallinn House was a typical middle-sized republican

fashion institute that served mainly the local garment industry and the
population of Estonia. However, because of its popular fashion journal it
was better known than most others and its designs were well received among
both the Soviet fashion specialists and the general public with an interest in
fashion. The reputation that Estonia enjoyed, along with the two other Baltic
States, for being an “internal Soviet West” certainly helped to promote the
fame of both the Fashion House and its “house journal.”431 (Fig. 7.1.)
Estonia along with the other two Baltic Soviet states of Lithuania and
Latvia, had formally become part of the Soviet Union in 1940 after a short
period of “bourgeois” independence between the two world wars. It was fully
integrated into the Soviet administration first after the Second World War. Its
reputation for being “Western,” however, dates far back to the times when it
was first annexed from the Swedish Baltic Empire at the beginning of the 18th
century, and became a province of the Russian Empire. Tallinn was famous
for, among other things, its “European” coffee houses which were not found
in the Russian regions of the Soviet Union.
The Tallinn House of Fashion Design, Tallinna Moemaja, was formally
founded on the 15th of May, 1957 on the order of the Soviet of Ministers
(Government) of the Estonian Socialist Soviet Republic. It was a direct
effect of the Khrushchev’s “liberal” reforms which granting more authority
to and involved the national republics of Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and
others in mutual cultural and economic cooperation on the USSR level. By
the 1970s the republican houses of fashion had been opened in the capitals
of almost all the Soviet Republics. The Tallinn House was thus from the
very beginning an integral part of the All-Union network of the Soviet
fashion design institutes (republican and regional), which formed a unified
system. It worked under the Ministry of Light Industry of the Estonian
Soviet Socialist Republic, which also financed it and approved its plans and
its annual reports. The central fashion institutes in Moscow coordinated its
activities in relation to “creative” matters, including fashion and other trends
and technological developments by sending information and instructions

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

Fig. 7.1. A youthful

dress from a fashion
show organized by
the Tallinn House
of Fashion Design
in the dance hall
at Pirita, Tallinn,
1960s.

as well as by organizing meetings and conferences to share professional

experiences. On all the above-mentioned subjects the specialists of ODMO
and VIALegprom in Moscow supervised the Tallinn House just as they did
all the other local republican fashion institutes. However, Moscow could not
simply dictate its instructions and norms to them. In practice, each local
house had a lot of independence in deciding and planning its future work.
In fact, they were regularly encouraged to develop their own creative style
and profile.
According to its founding document, the main tasks of the Tallinn House
was to design, construct and demonstrate new clothing models, to promote
the mass production of new models, and to participate in the activities of the
design shops of the garment factories. At the beginning of 1958, it started
publishing its own fashion journal, Siluett, in parallel Russian and Estonian
editions. Its Russian edition was much larger and soon became well known
all over the Soviet Union and in the Eastern European socialist countries.432
According to its long-time employees, the Tallinn House was the only one
in the USSR which used the local language (Estonian) rather than Russian
as its official working language. The annual reports and plans of The House
preserved in the archives are also written in Estonian with the exception of

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

the economic book-keeping documents and letters to the other Soviet fashion
institutes. Almost all its designers and workers were Estonian by birth and
even the few Russians who worked there spoke fluent Estonian. Its first and
long-time director, Anita Burlaka, was an Estonian too – her definitely non-
Estonian sounding surname came from her Ukrainian husband. She used to
joke that her non-Estonian surname acted as a protective shield and saved
the House from any campaigns of “Russification.”
How did the Tallinn House work in practice? At the very start, the
number of workers at Moemaja was relatively small. In 1958, the first year of
its existence it employed a total of 52 workers, 26 of whom had a secondary
educational degree, mostly from the Tallinn Technological Institute of Textile
Industry.433 During early years they designed some hundreds of models
annually, most of them work clothes and uniforms of various kinds.434 It
reached its final size – which remained more or less the same until the end
of the Soviet Union – by the mid-1960s and its main organizational structure
and features were also established by then.
In addition to several administrative units, such as the economic depart-
ment and the staff office, it consisted of five departments which dealt directly
with fashion design: the department of “light clothes,” that is, indoor
clothing, the department of outdoor clothing, the head wear department, the
department of fashion exhibitions and the department responsible for the
editing of the journal Siluett. The sixth department produced other printed
publications such as fashion albums and technical drawings of the individual
clothes sold to the public, often in big editions. All these departments were
relatively small, the biggest ones with some 20–25 employees. The structure
of the Tallinn House was typical of all the republican houses of fashion
design in the USSR.
In the beginning the individual designers were attached to the different
departments according to their specialization but later they formed a design
department of their own servicing all the other departments. Designers thus
did not have a narrow specialty of their own but took part in the design of
all kinds of clothing. Only the shoe and leather design department had its
own designers.435
The situation was the same at ODMO in the 1960s, where Zaitsev was,
for example, assigned to design men’s and women’s clothing but also shoes.
Only those ODMO designers who dealt with fur, millinery and underwear
were strictly specialized from the very beginning. There is some evidence
that the tendency towards specialization increased in ODMO, following
world-wide tendencies, from the more “flexible” 1960s to the 1980s. This did
not seem to be the case at the Tallinn House, where majority of the designers
were expected to be ready to design all kinds of clothes every year or even on
a monthly basis.
In 1967, when the House celebrated its 10th anniversary, it had 221
employees. As for professional education, 21 had a diploma from the Estonian
State Academy of Art. They worked quite efficiently. About 1,600 models
were designed during 1967, of which 1,100 were approved for industrial
manufacture. In addition, the House produced 2,700 women’s dresses or
other clothes as well as 400 wool overcoats and 46,500 hats, mostly wool

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

head wear.436 In addition to the Estonian factories, garment manufacturers

from all over the Soviet Union in, for example, Alma-Ata, Dnepropetrovsk,
Tashkent, Moscow, Chelyabinsk, Archangel, Kuzbas, Yerevan, Lugansk and
Smolensk, ordered samples from the Tallinn House. The most significant and
permanent customers came, however, from Estonia. According to the former
head economist of the Tallinn house about 60 percent of the industrial
designs were sold to Estonian factories in the 1960s and 1970s.437 Designs
approved for mass production usually reached the customers in no less than
two years. Such a situation was typical not only in Estonia but in the USSR
as a whole, reflecting the shortcomings of the Soviet bureaucratic system.
Just like all the other Soviet fashion designing bodies, clothes factories
and bigger ateliers, the Tallinn fashion house had an artistic council of its
own which approved or disapproved of all the new designs. As a matter
of fact, several such councils existed side by side. The first one was purely
internal, consisting of the House’s own director, its designers and pattern
makers. It inspected all the designs first and approved of their further use
either in the fashion shows and exhibitions or for industrial production.
Three other bigger councils, one for clothes, one for shoes and one for
head wear design each existed in addition to the one consisting of the
House’s own designers and directors. These bigger councils all had important
representatives from the Estonian textile and garment industry, the trade
organizations, ministries and so on. The first bigger artistic council dedicated
to clothing design was founded in the beginning of 1958, at the very start
of the House. In the beginning, it had 14 members but these soon increased
to 24.438 The following year it was accompanied by another council with 13
members, specializing in leather and shoe designs.439
The protocol of the first meeting of the artistic council took up several
important issues.440 The propagation of fashion was naturally one of the
main tasks of the House. This took place in Tallinn but also in the other big
towns of Estonia like Tartu, Narva and Pärnu. More importantly, the House
was expected to produce similar designs to those that were now imported
– mostly illegally – from abroad, thus diminishing the demand for the
Western, capitalist clothes. By showing that Soviet designs could successfully
compete with Western designs the authorities also hoped to reduce the
general appeal of the Western consumer culture among the population.
In addition, the importance of also designing men’s fashion and working
clothes was emphasized.
The special interest that these councils took, at least ideologically, in the
fashion of men’s and work clothing was also typical of ODMO and all the
other Soviet fashion institutions in the 1960–1970s. It was not a peculiarity
of Tallinn, but a result of general state policy. The members of the council,
understandably, also emphasized the special importance of creating good
relations between the Tallinn house and the central administrations of trade
and industry in Estonia for the success of its future work. Great expectations
were also put on the Tallinn House to analyze and assist in planning the
general perspectives and trends of the garment industry in Estonia, just
as in the case of the central All-Union House of Fashion Design (ODMO)
in Moscow.

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

Just like any Soviet state institution or organization, the Tallinna Moemaja
had its own Communist Party organization. It was formally established in
1961 on the initiative of the three Communist Party members then employed
at the House, its first director Burlaka among them. Only one of these
founding members – she became a long-time Party organizer – had been
a Party member since the 1930s, before Estonia became a Soviet republic.
Following the ordinary procedure, these three members asked, on the
22nd of September, 1961, the Estonian Communist Party for permission
to organize a Party cell at their own workplace.441 During the first years of
its existence the Party organization was very small, with just of a couple of
members. According to the preserved minutes of the Party cell meetings at
the beginning of the 1960s, it had quite a limited impact on the activities
of the House. This might be at least partly due to the fact that the director
of the House was not only a founding member of the rather small Party
organization but was also regularly the one who presented new issues and
problems at the Party meetings. Anita Burlaka, together with the Party
organizer, undersigned the minutes. Thus its activities did not differ much
in practice from the formal administration of the House.
In a typical manner, the meetings took up some minor disciplinary
matters among the workers (for instance, sewing clothes privately for
customers) as well as complaints and problems concerning the relations
between the House and the clothing factories. According to the minutes the
House had problems in particular with the Baltika factory, which accused it
of producing incorrect patterns and instructions. The House in turn claimed
that the Baltika did not and obviously could not follow their patterns at all.442
The Party organization actively recruited new members from among the
workers of the House and by the end of the 1960s the number of its members,
and consequently the number of the Communists working at the institution,
increased to almost twenty.443 Despite obvious increase in the “weight” of the
Party, it seems that its role was not very important at Tallinn compared to,
for instance, the Party organization at GUM.

New Designs and the Artistic Council

The artistic councils inspected all new designs. They were always shown on
live models. It could approve of these designs, disapprove of them or send
them back to the designers to be reworked and improved. If the members
of the council did not agree, a vote was taken and the majority decided the
fate of the design with the chairman’s vote deciding in case of a stalemate. In
Tallinn however, the council seemed to approve almost everything that was
presented to it in its meetings, and it also regularly sent the majority of the
designs presented on to industrial mass production.
In one of the first meetings of the general artistic council it inspected
61 designs and as many as 59 were approved.444 The lists of the new designs
became longer at each regular meeting of the council. For instance, at the
meeting on the 20th of January 1960, it inspected altogether 115 new designs
and all except one were approved. In addition, one out of four designs received

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

the highest quality classification.445 Judging from the documents of these

meetings, in the eyes of the members of the artistic council the general level of
design was obviously quite satisfactory. The work load stabilized on about this
level during the later years. In the mid-1970s, the Tallinna Moamaja produced
1,500 new clothing designs each year.446 One should, however, keep in mind
that, in addition to totally new models, the council also inspected something
called renovated designs as well as duplicates of old designs obviously still
in fashion. The 15–20 designers employed at the House each had a quota of
about 12–13 new fashion designs to fill each month, which was more than the
production norms demanded at, for instance, ODMO.
The head designer distributed the themes each month to each designer.
Some designs were made for the fashion shows, some were destined for small
series production, and some for industrial production in the big factories. As
a rule tasks circulated every half year from one designer to another. This was
an organization of labor that the employees obviously welcomed.
The Tallinn House of Fashion Design had one particular way of
organizing its work which, at least according to the long-time head pattern
maker, was not common among the Soviet fashion houses.447 The pattern
makers took part in the design and construction of the new designs very
early on, right after the designer had presented her or his first drawings and
sketches of the dress to the director or the internal artistic council. After
that the designer and the pattern maker worked in close collaboration until
the final patterns with their detailed technical instructions and calculations
were finished. When the garment was meant for industrial production, the
representatives of the factory could also take part in the planning process
from quite early on, thus making it from the beginning more suitable for
industrial production. Whether these features, partly explained by the close
and long-time collaboration of all those involved, were really unique to the
Tallinn House is difficult to judge. In any event, they were an understandable,
practical measure to try to bridge the gap between the new fashionable
designs created at the houses and the practical and economic restrictions of
the consumer goods industry.
Reading the lists of the new designs presented regularly to the artistic
council, one can see some interesting changes with time, with new items
appearing on the production list of the House. While women’s fashion,
dresses, shirts and overcoats, dominated the lists almost totally, with
a smaller amount of children’s wear, during the first years of its activity,
starting in the mid-1960s, even men’s wear appeared more regularly in the
lists. Just like everywhere else in the world of fashion, men’s fashion design
could never overtake the great original lead of women’s fashion. In 1960,
men’s shirts appeared for the first time for presentation to the artistic council.
In 1961, for instance, the novelties included a wedding dress, men’s trousers
of cotton as well as a women’s beach outfit. Skiing outfits also appeared
regularly in the seasonal collection after this year. More spectacular was
probably the appearance of the first design of women’s trousers to be worn in
public – and not as part of a work outfit – in the presentation to the artistic
council in the same year.448 The first trouser suit for women, however, was
designed in 1968449, the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s can

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

Fig. 7.2. The model Karmen

Talisoo demonstrates
broad–legged trousers with
a top from the summer
collection of the Tallinn
House of Fashion Design
in the Kalevi Sports Hall,
Tallinn, 1971.

in many ways be regarded as a turning point in the liberalization of the

norms of everyday dress culture in the USSR. (Fig. 7.2.)
The general style of the Tallinn House was, as in the case of the Soviet
Union in general, oriented towards functional and practical design. This
was dictated both by the general ideological concerns as well as by the many
practical constraints limiting the availability of textiles, other raw materials
and modern machinery to an equally great degree. The designers and the
pattern makers were, due to their long lasting collaboration, quite well aware
of the limited technical and economic resources of the clothing factories they
mainly cooperated with. The House designed mostly casual wear and a lot
of working clothes and other uniforms, for example school uniforms for the
population of the Republic. One of their main achievements was designing
the uniforms of the whole service personnel for the new flagship of the Soviet
Estonian tourism industry, the hotel Viru, built by the Finns and opened in
1972 in the heart of Tallinn. A regular theme that the director took up at the
meetings of the Party organization, following the general recommendations
of the Soviet Ministry of Light Industry, was the important task of designing
clothes for “big” women.450 Gradually, more festive designs like women’s
evening dresses and coats made their appearance in the fashion shows and

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

even in the product lists of the factories. Judging from the lists of garments
approved for production at the meetings of the artistic council, some clothes,
like overcoats, with their calculated production costs, could sometimes be
very expensive, with prices of well over 1,000 rubles, equal to half a year’s
wages for a worker in the textile industry. Such expensive coats and other
clothes were, however, usually not for sale in ordinary Soviet clothing shops
and were never produced in any great numbers.

The Design Practice of the Tallinn House

The size and structure of the Tallinn House remained more or less the same
from the late 1960s through the 1980s.451 All through its existence it was
situated in the same building in the medieval Old Town of Tallinn. The
building had three floors but was very small and narrow. All the designers,
for instance, had to share one common room.452 To make the situation
bearable, the fashion house rented extra room in other parts of town from
the biggest Estonian fashion atelier of custom made clothes, Lembitu,
where it also had its first show rooms. Lembitu belonged to the Ministry of
Everyday Services and was the best fashion atelier in the system of individual
sewing, belonging to the class “lux,” in Tallinn and in the whole of Estonia.
In the 1960s the Ministry promised the Tallinn House of Fashion a new,
larger building with 14 floors and a lot of office and working space. (This
coincided with the construction of the brand new building for VIALegrpom
in downtown Moscow.) The new house was built accordingly in the center
of the city but was in the end given to another state office. Obviously, despite
the relatively high status enjoyed by fashion in the Soviet Union, there were
other important organizations that could lobby more effectively for their
interests among the local governmental and Party administration.
Even though the House worked under relatively poor conditions it did
not seem to be difficult to employ new designers and other workers and to
keep the old ones on its payroll. The salaries were not very good, close to
the average in many female lower white collar professions. The director, the
head designer and the heads of the other departments as well as some more
qualified workers enjoyed, however, remarkably higher salaries. The pattern
makers had usually graduated from the Tallinn Technological Institute of the
Textile Industry. The chief economist, for instance, came from the same place
of higher learning. Altogether, the workers were recruited locally from among
the Estonian specialists. There seems to have been very little circulation of
designers and pattern makers among the various republican and regional
fashion houses in the Soviet Union. This was at least the case in Tallinn.
Three members of the staff in higher positions had received a diploma of
higher education from the most prestigious institutes of professional higher
education in the All-Union Ministry of Light Industry, two in Leningrad and
one in Moscow. Among these were the main pattern maker, who graduated
from the evening classes of the Moscow Textile Institute in 1976, and the
head designer. They had all by that point served the House for several years
and were sent to Moscow and Leningrad to increase their professional

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

qualifications and status, obviously associated with their leading positions at

the organization. All the other designers and pattern makers were educated
in Tallinn or, to some degree, in Kaunas, in close – by Lithuania. As a rule,
the designers had spent some time, many of them much time, at ODMO
on Kuznetskii Most Street in Moscow on short term working assignments
(usually one month at a time).
A typical feature was the total lack of underwear design at the ordinary
Soviet fashion institutes and houses. Tallinn was no exception in this respect.
Somewhat amazingly, taking into account the generally heavy emphasis
usually put on the centralized nature of Soviet planning, there was no
specialization and no overall plan for the division of labor among the
different fashion institutions in the Soviet Union, not even, say, between
the Baltic Republics and the nearby Leningrad or Minsk houses, to which
the Tallinn designers had otherwise close relations.453 The local fashion
design administrative units, working under the republican ministries of the
consumer goods industry, could thus remain relatively free from central
interference and organize their own work. The central, All-Union institutes
in Moscow were keener to set the general stylistic trends for Soviet fashion
than to interfere in the annual production plans of their local counterparts.
This can be explained at least partly by the fact that the main function of all
these Houses, Tallinn included, was to serve their own republican clothing
industries. Estonia had several big clothing manufacturers which dated
from the pre-war period, the women’s clothing factory Klementi being the
biggest and best known among them. But men’s wear, children’s clothes, and
knitwear were also produced in Estonia. These factories sold their products
partly outside of Estonia too. Likewise, Estonia had its own relatively good
textile factories which produced raw materials for these and other Soviet
garment factories.454
As the old workers of the Tallinn House still remember, getting access
to good textiles and other materials was often a very difficult task which
demanded great personal effort from the designer. Even though the House
had one specially employed worker (tolkach) whose main task was to buy
and get supplies of attractive textiles and other necessary raw materials, all
the designers engaged in these activities themselves too. While visiting their
customers at the factories, fashion conferences or meetings and consultations
in the other cities and republics, they used the opportunity to provide
themselves with new, more fashionable textiles and other raw materials. If
they could not find what they wanted, which was often the case, they would
even make some things themselves, for example dying clothes to get more
fashionable colors.
The Tallinn House designed almost all the new models for all the Estonian
clothing factories. Klementi, the biggest women’s clothing factory in Estonia,
had, however, fashion designers of its own. Klementi’s own designers,
working in its experimental laboratory, were responsible for approximately
half of all the new designs taken into production in this factory. The other
half came from the Tallinn House; in all the other Estonian clothing factories
practically all came from Moemaja’s designers. Baltika produced men’s
costumes, Virulane women’s overcoats, Marat knitwear, and so on. As the

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

representatives of the Tallinn House proudly reported, even though the

Estonian garment factories were its main customers, its designs were popular
and sought after by other Soviet producers too, in Leningrad and Moscow as
well as in many far away locations. Kaliningrad, on the Baltic coast near-by,
had a big clothing factory which was an important customer and to which
new collections were regularly taken and shown. An interesting example of
the Soviet division of labor in the field of fashion was that Moemaja designed
new school uniforms, twice during its lifetime, for all Estonian- speaking
schoolchildren. The Russian-speaking schools in Estonia used the standard
All-Union uniforms designed in Moscow instead.

The Economy and Basic Tasks of the House

According to the long-time head economist of Moemaja, the main income

of the fashion house came from its own fashion journal, Siluett, founded
as early as 1958.455 In addition to its general issues which for the most
part consisted, following the example of the famous international fashion
journals, of women’s fashion, Siluett also regularly published special issues
on children’s fashion and, more rarely, on work clothes. This journal had a
huge Russian edition at its best in the 1970s, and a much smaller edition
in Estonian. Its Russian edition grew from about one hundred to three
hundred thousand (the peak was reached in 1972 after which its edition
somewhat diminished). The Estonian language edition was about 50,000.
A few thousands, in Russian, were even sold abroad, in Czechoslovakia and
the GDR.456 The editorial board of the journal was, not correspondingly,
quite small: it had one regular editor, one assistant editor, a secretary and
a typist on its staff.457 The photographer, just like most of the models, was not
employed permanently at the House but free-lanced for the journal.
The income from the popular fashion journal made up at best about
60 percent of the total annual budget of the Tallinn House of Fashion.
The House did not, however, receive all the net income from the sales of
this journal since the Ministry took care of its distribution and gave only
a certain sum to the House. As everyone was eager to claim, they could
easily have sold many more copies of the journal and made an even better
profit from it. The main restriction was the availability of paper. The journal
was printed first in Riga, Latvia, but later on in a printing house in Tallinn.
As a rule, “our men” traveled personally to the paper factory up North in
the White Sea region, with bottles of the famous Vana Tallinn (Old Tallinn
liqueur) and other similar delicacies from Estonia, not for sale elsewhere,
and brought a train load full of paper back with them.458 The concrete
reason for the final and very abrupt collapse of the whole economy of the
Tallinn House was that after the new independence of Estonia in 1991 it
could not collect the income from the sales of the last issue of Siluett, which
had already been delivered to the subscribers and press agencies in Russia
and the other parts of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the House lost its main
source of income quite abruptly and unexpectedly and was forced to close
down.

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

The other notable sources of income were royalties from the factories that
ordered the designs and the income from the tickets sold for the regularly
organized big fashion shows. Despite the fact that serving the clothing
factories and helping them to produce better and more fashionable clothing
was the main purpose of the whole design enterprise in Tallinn as elsewhere,
according to the long-time head economist of Moemaja this was not
particularly profitable because the pricing was unfavorable to the House.459
This was a common complaint among the Soviet design professionals. It
is difficult to say whether the terms of trade were more favorable in the
bigger central Houses, but the Moscow designers complained too that
their main activity was not profitable either. Another complaint that the
representatives of Soviet fashion voiced constantly was that the centralized
pricing system made the introduction and rapid change of new, fashionable
clothing economically almost impossible. As we have seen elsewhere too, the
local actors tried to solve this problem in many creative ways, both official
and non-official or half-legal. In 1967 the inspectors from the Estonian
Ministry of Light Industry, for instance, suddenly discovered that the
Estonian clothing factories, trade organizations and the Tallinn House of
Fashion Design had established among themselves a price council which
was totally informal and as such illegal. Instead of sending their applications
for new prices to the Ministry, as they should have done according to the
rules, they decided the prices in practice among themselves. This informal
council was consequently abolished on the 27th of November, 1967.460 Only
during the last years of the Soviet Union, in the beginning of the 1980s,
when the factories were allowed to pay an extra premium of 25 percent for
any design which was taken into production as a novelty, did the industrial
design of clothes for mass production became economically more profitable
to the Tallinn House of Fashion as well as to the other Soviet fashion design
organizations. Under the centralized planned economy, the Moemaja had,
however, to turn out a certain amount of new designs for industry every year
whether this was profitable or not. Economic profitability was also only part
of the deal: it was very important for the professional reputation and status
of a house of fashion in the USSR – as well as for its designers and pattern
makers – that the garment factories, even outside the borders of its own
republic, were willing to take the house’s designs into production.
As the previous designers and pattern makers of the Tallinn House told,
the representatives of the factories often came to the House to inspect new
designs. These were also shown in fashion exhibitions in different parts of the
Soviet Union in which such representatives also took part. In addition, the
House took its own collections to show to the factories – or at least this was
done with its more regular and sizable customers. From these reports one
gets the impression that the selling and ordering of new designs mainly took
place on such occasions. The inclusion of designs in All-Union collections
and catalogues or lists of new fashionable clothes was thus of less practical
importance to those included but was certainly very prestigious for the
designer and the house she or he represented.461
In addition to these three basic forms of activities – designs for mass
production, drawings and patterns for the fashion journal and designs for

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

Fig. 7.3. Milliners at

the hat workshop of
Lembitu, the fashion
center of the Estonian
Ministry of Everyday
Services, Tallinn 1963.

both the more regular and exceptional fashion shows and exhibitions – the
House produced small series of clothes. These series could consist of a few
hundred (200–600) examples of different kinds of clothes. These were sold in
several Estonian clothing shops, not only in Tallinn but in Tartu and Pärnu,
too. The Tallinn clothing store Mood (Fashion) opened up in the late 1960s.
It sold fashionable clothes of higher quality, among others clothes produced
in small series at the Tallinn House. It was, however, not Moemaja’s own
“boutique” since it sold clothes from other manufacturers too. The Tallinn
fashion house sold its own production through other regular clothing shops
too. What the economic result of this activity was is not clear, but due to the
relatively small series of clothes sewn it could not be that important in the
whole annual budget. On the other hand, the Tallinn House had a big atelier
of woolen head wear with its own – very few – fashion designers, which
produced tens of thousands of hats a year and which turned out to be quite
profitable. (Fig. 7.3.)
The Tallinn House of Fashion Design did not have an atelier serving
individual customers. However, as most similar Soviet fashion houses,
Moemaja sewed customized clothes for the local political and cultural elite
as well as for the wives of prominent citizens, like those of the Ministers or

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

the members of the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party

despite the fact that it did not have a regular clothing atelier of its own. Just
as the other parts of the Soviet Union, Tallinn and other towns in Estonia
had their own ateliers of individual sewing or custom made clothes which
were organized into three different quality classes. As a rule, they and not
the fashion houses were supposed to take care of all the individual orders of
the population, its political elite included. But the fashion houses serviced
some special individual clients personally too. The same dressmakers who
sewed other clothes for the exhibitions and fashion shows took care of these
individual orders on the side. How general this practice was and to what
extent it varied from one year or decade to another is not known. As an
example, the former workers told a story about the wife of the Minister of
Estonian Agriculture, who claimed that she had the right to order an evening
dress from the Fashion House since her husband was in charge of providing
the fertilizers so essential to Estonian agriculture.462

The Siluett Fashion Journal

The Siluett fashion journal was well known and highly appreciated among its
readers all over the Soviet Union – according to the former editor they often
received readers’ letters from distant places in the Soviet Union, like the
shores of the Pacific Ocean.463 In his history of Russian fashion, Aleksander
Vasil’ev, for instance, mentioned the two Baltic journals of fashion, the Latvian
Rigas modes and even more the Estonian Siluett on several occasions as the
most popular and artistically advanced fashion periodicals in the USSR.464
Other republican fashion houses distributed their own fashion journals too,
like the Ukrainian Krasota i moda, Banga in Lithuania or the Alma-Ata,
Kazakhstan based Modalar, but either they did not have as wide of an All-
Union circulation or their printing was of an inferior quality. Under the
chronic conditions of paper limitations only those Houses that had the best
reputation and could be expected to regularly provide high quality fashion
designs and examples had the privilege of publishing fashion journals of
their own. In some cases the reasons might have been more directly political
too: the journals were published, for example, to prove the existence of the
high standards of Soviet Central Asian fashion and the achievements of that
culture in general.
The editor of the journal explained that there were two main reasons for
the success of Siluett, the first of which was the relatively high quality of its
illustrations and published patterns. The fame of Tallinn among the Soviet
citizens as an almost Western city probably helped too. But its best sales asset
was the detailed drawings of the patterns of the new clothes attached to each
issue of the journal. If we are to believe its editors, Siluett was the only Soviet
fashion journal that regularly provided to its subscribers such drawings and
detailed technical instructions in its special attachments. Therefore it was
extremely useful to its female subscribers and readers. The quality of the
printing depended on the quality of the printing paper and the press and
varied from one year to the next. The journal was always published in good

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

printing houses, first in Latvia, later in Tallinn. The editors made the whole
layout of each issue – drawing, cutting and gluing by hand – in their office.
However, after the layout and the proof copy had been finished, it could take
as long as one and a half years before it was printed and distributed to its
readers – another good example of the relative slowness of the Soviet fashion
system.
Each issue of the journal had several standard parts, mostly dedicated to
new clothing designs – women’s and men’s garments, overcoats, children’s
wear and festive evening dresses – but it also regularly gave space to the
issues of hairdressing, cosmetics, the education of taste and the history of
fashion. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design employed, like all the other
Soviet houses, a “fashion propagandist,” or an art historian. Instructions on
how to keep one’s body fit were also a legitimate and popular subject in the
journal. Just as in other Soviet fashion journals, the demands which different
body figures set for the choice of dress were also a regularly repeated topic
in Siluett.
Before being sent to print, each issue was inspected by a special committee
of external censors who came to the office of the journal where the layout
of the next issue was waiting for them. Among them were high-ranking
members of the Communist Party and representatives of the Ministry.465 The
main representative of the Estonian Communist Party in this Committee
was a woman who had a reputation for being particularly keen on controlling
the sexual decency of the illustrations. Too much bare flesh, like low-cut
dresses, should not be revealed in the pictures! Since the editors knew these
restrictions concerning, for instance, the poses of the models, problems
did not usually occur. Obviously the members of the control committee,
just like almost everyone else involved with the House, served a long time
in their respective positions. Since Soviet fashion was for many a life-long
occupation everyone knew what to expect from each other.
One of the former editors of the journal recalled only one breach of rules
leading to serious reprimands in the history of the journal.466 In 1970, an
illustrator had drawn for purely decorative purposes a cross – like those on
the shields of the Knights Templar – on the corner of the drawing of a new
fashionable design. The inspecting censors had not paid any attention at all
to this “religious symbol” but when the journal had already been printed
and distributed someone alarmed the Central Committee of the Estonian
Communist Party. As a consequence, the director of the House was called to
the Central Committee and seriously reprimanded. The illustrator and the
editor were moved to other, less prestigious tasks in the House. In addition
to such “religious symbols” the color combination of black, blue and white
– symbols of pre-war independent Estonia – was strictly forbidden in the
illustrations. The editors of Siluett knew this quite well since a bulletin of
the local fashion design students had once been confiscated for this reason.
Siluett, like many other Soviet fashion journals, regularly published – usually
on their last pages – pictures of the new foreign and Western fashion designs.
These came mostly from Paris, but could also come from Italy, England, or at
times even from countries less known for their fashion industry like Sweden.
These pictures were copied directly from the Western fashion journals and

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publications without any extra information or explanations. This practice,

however, came to an end in the 1980s when it was officially forbidden.
The editors could be quite innovative in planning the settings of their
photo shoots. Often newly built and still empty buildings, like the brand new
Viru hotel were used as shooting locations, but the views and surroundings
of the medieval old town often served as an interesting background location
too. Even the new “luxurious” lavatory in the hotel could be used as an
interesting, photographic set-up. The editors and illustrators of Siluett even
did some commissioned work for the journal published by the Leningrad
House of Fashion Design. As a sign of the new times and as an attempt to
adapt to the new commercial market, Siluett employed a Finnish fashion
photographer to take the pictures for the issue that then proved to be its last
ever.

Contacts with the Other Soviet Fashion Houses

The workers at the Tallinn House kept up regular contacts with other
Soviet fashion institutions and their colleagues working there. The first
representatives of the Tallinn House visited ODMO in Moscow as early as
February 1958, at the very time of the opening of the House in Tallinn.467
They regularly visited annual and seasonal All-Union or regional meetings
and consultations organized by ODMO or VIALegprom, which usually
met once or twice a year and were arranged according to the special line of
work (like overcoats, women’s dress, children’s wear, etc.) or by professional
specialization (designers, pattern makers, economists, etc.). The pattern
makers and the designers met regularly among themselves at what could
be called courses or meetings for further training in order to keep up their
professional qualifications. These meetings were highly appreciated and the
work organization of the participants took care of all the travel expenses.
They could take place almost anywhere in the Soviet Union, at Tashkent
just as well as at Moscow, and understandably such work trips gave the
participants a welcome opportunity to visit interesting places and sights
as well as socialize with colleagues. As mentioned earlier, many designers
and pattern makers spent a month at ODMO in Moscow in order to get
acquainted with the workings, the new technical and stylistic inventions,
of the best Soviet fashion institutions.468 The representatives of the Tallinn
House naturally took part in the annual or seasonal fashion exhibitions in
Moscow during which the All-Union collections were selected.469
In addition to their colleagues from Moscow (ODMO) Tallinn designers
also had regular contacts with the other fashion houses in the North-West
part of the USSR: Riga, Vilnius and Minsk.470 As a matter of fact ODMO
regularly organized not only All-Union meetings, but also (taking into
account the size of the country) regional meetings of fashion designers
and other specialists in the field, aiming to establish closer cooperation
between “neighbors.” In addition to Minsk, Riga and Vilnius, Tallinn also
had many contacts with the Leningrad House of Fashion Design. Usually
leading specialists from Moscow also came to the regional meetings in

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7. The Tallinn House of Fashion Design: A Gateway to the West

order to discuss mutual problems and to present papers on recent and

prospective fashion trends. One after another these Houses of Fashion
Design hosted such regional events. After formal meetings, informal
parties took place.
A typical All-Union meeting lasted several days. All the participants
took some new designs of their own with them which they presented to
the other participants and discussed collectively. Sometimes the critique
could be rather hard. An artistic council consisting of, among others, the
representatives of the Moscow central fashion institute VIALegprom and
the Ministry of Light Industry took part in these meetings too. Often their
verdict on the new designs was both feared and appreciated. In this way, all
the Soviet head pattern makers or head designers, at least from the same
part of the country, got to know each other quite well. And since they almost
without exception stayed at the same fashion house for the biggest part of
their professional lives these contacts could develop into close friendships
too. These contacts were thus sincerely missed after they were radically
broken off at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In the early 1970s, Tallinn hosted a nationwide seminar on designing and
pattern making for the first time. Obviously Tallinn did not have the honor
of organizing such meetings often. Only during perestroika in the late 1980s
did the Tallinn House start to regularly organize its own Estonian fashion
weeks, inviting guests from all over the Soviet Union. These fashion weeks
came to an end when Estonia declared its independence from the Soviet
Union.

Fashion Shows and Exhibitions

In the popular imagination, Tallinn was a gate to the West. It was therefore

no wonder that the leading designers from all over the Soviet Union, for
example Leningrad, Moscow, and Sverdlovsk, visited it regularly in order
to get inspiration and new ideas about fashion trends. A good proof of the
relatively high esteem of fashion both in the Estonian Ministry of Light
Industry and in the Soviet Union was that its director, Anita Burlaka,
was soon after the founding of her House, sent on a long work mission
to Budapest, Hungary to get acquainted with the Hungarian institutes of
fashion design. The trip, which typically went via Moscow, lasted almost
a month.471 Only the director and the head designer of the Tallinn House,
followed by the best fashion models, ever traveled abroad with its fashion
collections.472 In Tallinn the designers did not follow their own collections
abroad, not even to the other socialist countries.
The collections of the House did not take part in many international
fashion exhibitions. When they traveled abroad they were usually part of
the general Soviet Trade Exhibitions.473 The first exhibition in which the
Tallinn House took part, the World Fair in Brussels, was typical in this
respect. The role of the Estonian fashion designers in the EXPO-67 at
Canada was slightly different. ODMO designed a whole fashion collection
with national motifs from the Estonian, Turkmen, Tadjik and Kirghiz

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Soviet Republics in collaboration with the designers from these republics.

The Estonian designers consequently took part in designing the Estonian
collection.474 Compared to the big houses of fashion design in Moscow,
Tallinn’s international participation and performance was after all rather
modest. But it was understandably extremely important and prestigious to
all those involved.
The task of designing a collection for the World Fair in Brussels in 1958
faced the House at its very founding. Other exhibitions followed in Zagreb,
Yugoslavia and Capri, Italy (in the 1972 “Sea and Fashion” organized by the
Italian-Soviet friendship society). The visit to Capri was understandably a
deeply cherished memory for those involved and everyone remembered it
with great pride. Again, new possibilities opened up with the new political
winds in the 1980s: a fashion exhibition at Izmir in Turkey followed by Basel,
Switzerland.
From the very beginning, the Tallinn House organized big public fashion
shows twice a year in Tallinn for which tickets were sold to the spectators.
They quickly became very popular. After a modest beginning they were
eventually organized at the big Estonia concert hall or the Kalev sports hall.
15,000 spectators at a time saw these shows in the 1970s and 1980s. They
were obviously quite entertaining, with highly ambitious programs. As
a rule, they lasted two hours and were organized twice during three days.
A big orchestra of seven well-known Estonian musicians accompanied
them.475 As early as 1958, the House organized a special course for all its
regular models. A famous Estonian ballerina, Inge Poeder, taught them
how to walk and move their bodies more gracefully on the catwalk when
presenting new clothes.476 These courses became a regular part of the
schooling of new models even during the later years.
Just like other Soviet fashion designing units, the Tallinn House toured
the country and took its popular fashion shows and exhibitions to other
towns, factories or kolkhozes.477 As the main male model of the 1970s, Jüri
Siim, remembered, he had visited almost every corner of Estonia and the
Soviet Union touring with shows and exhibitions. Other Soviet fashion
organizations hired his services too. He cherished the memory of these times
and told that he and his colleagues were treated extremely well all over the
Soviet Union. Being Estonian, tall and blond, and exceptionally fashionably
dressed they were taken to be almost foreigners.478
The new designs presented in these shows were designed just for the shows.
Only exceptionally were any of them taken into industrial production. Each
show had 12 to 13 themes decided by the head designer and each of these
was the responsibility of one designer. Children’s wear as well as costumes
following the national ethnic motifs belonged to the obligatory repertoire of
all these shows. (The designers’ own or their colleagues’ children often acted
as models for the children’s wear.)
The great popularity of these fashion shows can be partly explained by
the fact that they served a very practical purpose for their fashion conscious
spectators, who often directly copied new designs by making their own
drawings of the most interesting ones. It seems obvious that the fashion
shows faced the same dilemma – in miniature – as the whole Soviet fashion

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industry: if the designs were too practically oriented they soon lost their
value as good entertainment and the interest of the consumers. If, on the
other hand, they became too spectacular and extravagant, the customers
did not have any other use for them other than just admiring them like any
work of art. Consequently, when these shows became more extravagant
and artistic in the 1980s during perestroika, and ever more distanced from
industrial production, they lost a great deal of their popularity and audience.

An Almost European House of Fashion

The Tallinn House was famous for its “European” style within the USSR.
Tallinn, like Riga, Vilnius, or Kaunas had, in fact, had a lot of fashion ateliers
and tailors’ shops during its independence before 1940, with close contacts
to the great European centers of fashion in Paris, Berlin and London. More
concretely this reputation was, however, due to the fact that the new fashion
designs from the West often reached the Tallinn House even earlier than
Moscow. The Tallinn Fashion House could not subscribe to any Western
fashion journals. Instead, the central Moscow fashion units, ODMO and
VIALegprom, subscribed to them. One of their main tasks was to circulate
selected examples of useful new Western designs to the republican and other
local fashion houses. It could therefore take a long time before they ever
reached Tallinn or the other “provinces.” The fashion designers in Tallinn
had, however, a more direct and unofficial channel to the new creations and
world-wide trends of Western fashion. Many old Estonians and inhabitants
of Tallinn had close relatives who had emigrated abroad, to Sweden, Canada,
and the USA, and who often sent parcels home, many of them including
such popular fashion journals as Vogue or Burda. They, for their part, often
sold these valuable and rare items to a particular second hand book store in
Tallinn. A particular employee of the Fashion House, in her turn, had the
responsibility of visiting this book store every week and buying all its new
fashion journals for the Fashion House. In this way the designers had direct
and immediate access to the latest news from the Western fashion world.
This practice was, of course, totally unofficial and bordering on illegal. It
was, however, common knowledge to all those included, and also announced
without any further comments in the Party meeting at the House.479 Another
important channel of importing new fashion to Tallinn was the storeroom
of the customs office, with which the House had a similar unofficial deal.
As soon as new clothes or garments were confiscated at the border from
tourists or smugglers, a representative of the House was informed and had
the right to collect these items. This way they could get their hands not only
on pictures of new designs but even on concrete examples of new fashionable
clothes and textiles. Thus there were some very concrete and simple reasons
why the Tallinn designers really were better informed and more up to date
about the latest developments of the world’s great fashion centers than even
the head designers at the central Soviet fashion institutes in Moscow.
The Soviet fashion institutes were in general interested in receiving
not only fashion journals and other information about tendencies in the

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fashion world but also concrete examples of fashionable clothing. Therefore

the Soviet foreign trade organizations in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, and
New York were ordered by the government to help Soviet designers and
pattern makers in the field by collecting samples of fashionable clothing. The
All-Union Chamber of Commerce in Moscow was another important source
or channel of such concrete information. When foreign firms, interested
in establishing cooperation with the USSR and in selling clothes on the
Soviet market, presented examples of the fashionable clothing they aimed
at producing in the near future, the representatives from the Soviet fashion
institutes used them non-officially as a free source of information about the
latest fashion trends.480 In some cases the items were sent from Moscow to the
various regional fashion organizations. Sometimes the items were ripped up
into small pieces in order to better learn their pattern and sewing technology.
From this point of view the Tallinn designers were in a privileged position as
they had almost unlimited access not only to such information (through the
journals and relatives abroad) but also to the fashionable Western items in
the local second hand shops. Fashion designers from ODMO visited Tallinn
regularly, probably in order to enjoy the same “privileges” as their Estonian
colleagues as well as to breathe Tallinn’s European air.481 Moreover, contrary
to, for example, the house of fashion design in the city of Barnaul in the Altai
region, Tallinn was a well-known tourist target with thousands of visitors
who came mainly from near-by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, and it
was enough to see how foreigners were dressed to obtain knowledge of the
novelties in the field of fashion trends. In addition, the habitants of Tallinn
could follow the programs of the Finnish TV.482
Whether it depended on these close and direct contacts to the West, on
its historical heritage or on the particular creativity of its fashion designers,
the Tallinn Fashion House belonged, together with the other Baltic houses,
to the leading fashion institutes in the USSR. When the 23rd Congress
of the Communist Party opened in Moscow in March 1966, Tallinn was,
together with the Moscow ODMO, Leningrad and the other two Baltic
fashion houses, invited to demonstrate its collection – with live models – to
the Party delegates and the official foreign guests in Moscow. It was a special
honor to be selected from among all the Soviet Houses of Fashion design and
invited to participate in this “closed” fashion exhibition.483 This congress was
namely expected to take important economic and political measures in order
to stimulate the growth of the consumer goods industry and fashion in the
USSR. The Tallinn designers, together with their colleagues from the other
five participating houses, had the honor of acting, in this way, as practical
examples of how the rest of the Soviet fashion industry could and should
work in order to fulfill the high expectations invested in it by the Soviet
people and their political leaders.

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds: The Public
Discussion of the Culture of Dress
in the Soviet Press

Fashion in the Press

There never actually was any cohesive or unified ideology of fashion in the
Soviet Union. To the best of our knowledge, the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union never approved of general rules or guidelines concerning
the design and production of fashion, or for the proper relationship to
fashion and fashionable clothing expected from Soviet citizens. The role and
importance of fashion was nevertheless discussed spiritedly at times, both by
specialists and the general public throughout the Soviet period. The general
ideological doctrines on the regulation of the production, distribution
and consumption of material wealth certainly had implications for Soviet
fashion and fashion design institutes too. The coming Communist society
promised general abundance and the fulfillment of all the basic human
needs of its members. One of the main and most theoretically challenging
problems facing Soviet ideologists and theoreticians of fashion was to decide
whether fashion was something that was really needed. Similarly, the moral
code of the builders of the future Communism included several ethical rules
regarding the decent and proper behavior expected from Communists,
which had more or less direct implications for the proper dress code and
the individual’s relationship to his or her outer appearance, as well as for the
world of material goods and pleasures in general. These rules did not remain
the same throughout Soviet history but changed with the times. More
importantly, they left a lot of room for creative interpretation in the more
concrete matters of fashion and fashion design. The hegemonic position
prevailing among the Soviet experts changed, more or less, from a radical
anti-fashion in the late 1920s to the practical acceptance of fashion as an
essential feature of the socialist society. The authorities were consequently
supposed to try both to regulate fashion for the common good and to adapt
themselves to the fashion mechanism as best they could.
As with many other similar everyday institutions, fashion was a multi-
faceted phenomenon. Furthermore, the public response to it changed over
time. In the Soviet Union as elsewhere in the modern world of fashion was in
fact largely regulated by informal social relations, ethical norms of everyday
behavior and ordinary standards of taste. A multitude of factors influenced

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

these changes: the traditions and habits within the different groups of the
Soviet population, generational differences, conflicts in cultural attitudes
and practices and, the urbanization and modernization of society, not to
mention the influence of worldwide tendencies in fashion and consumption
in general. The Soviet authorities and the Communist Party ideologists
believed firmly in social and economic progress. The Soviet citizen was
supposed to take part in this progress by cultivating his or her character
and personality so as to be more civilized and sophisticated. At the same
time, there was a permanent conflict between the ideal goals dictated by the
ideological doctrines and the numerous modifications demanded by the
practical everyday conditions of the society and economy.
By the 1960s, at the latest, the social phenomenon of fashion had
definitely been legitimized in the USSR. This meant that every Soviet citizen
had an acknowledged right to dress himself or herself fashionably and with
freedom of variation in order to cultivate his or her individuality in taste
and style. After this time we hardly ever meet serious arguments suggesting
that socialism could or should do totally without fashion. Nor was there any
further serious suggestion that Soviet fashion designs should be something
totally and radically different from their Western counterparts although
few economists continued to point out that fashion did not really fit in the
planned economy. Nevertheless, we can also follow the gradual formation
of the idea of Soviet or socialist fashion as different from the Western,
bourgeois one. This was, however, more a question of the difference of
degree rather than a radical rupture. In brief, Soviet fashion design was
said to follow three fundamental principles, all of which, at least in the
minds of the Soviet ideologists and theoreticians of fashion, were alien to
bourgeois fashion: First, it followed worldwide trends and tendencies but
always adopted them selectively and moderately, without extremes and
exaggerations. Secondly, it was expected to use national and folk motifs, and
thirdly, it was functional and practical, including in the sense of designing
medically approved “healthy” clothes.484
In the Soviet period, the mass media was considered to be the “mirror
of life” since it was said and expected to reflect the problems that arose in
society and in particular in the everyday life of ordinary citizens. Therefore,
it gave quite a lot of space to the problems of consumption, often in the
form of citizens’ complaints and worries. This chapter is based mainly on
the analysis of the articles on fashion and the culture of dress published
in the Soviet press over a span of almost 30 years – from the end of the
1950s through the 1970s, that is, during the time of the establishment of
the Soviet system of fashion and the maturation of the idea of a genuinely
Soviet fashion.
Our sources are quite unique since we can use a wide range of media
covering almost everything published on the issues of fashion and clothing.
These include journals and newspapers of all kinds, central, local and
professional or departmental press published all over the Soviet Union,
in practically all its regions and national republics, from Kaliningrad and
the Baltic republics in the West to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk in the Far
East, from Archangel in the North to the Central Asian republics. To give

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

Fig. 8.1.
A collage
of fashion
albums and
brochures
published
by various
Soviet
fashion
houses.

a thorough and reliable impression of the concrete issues and the ways of
discussing them as well as of the different arguments and standpoints put
forward by the various agents and discussants, we cite extensively from our
sources, all the different kinds of Soviet printed media involved in the issues
of propagation of fashion design.485
Fashion was keenly discussed in the Soviet press in the post-war decades.
Both All-Union and local newspapers published regularly news as well as
more in–depth articles on the questions of fashion and attractive dressing.
Similarly, many popular journals and women’s magazines in particular
reported regularly on fashion. In addition, fashion was often discussed quite
actively in the periodicals published by the Soviet organizations active in the
textile and garment industry and trade as well as in the applied arts. Finally,
many periodicals specialized in fashion. Several big fashion houses published
a fashion journal of their own. Among them the Zhurnal mod published by
the All-Union Fashion House, ODMO and later by VIALegrpom in Moscow
was the leader. Even smaller republican fashion houses could publish their
fashion journals in large numbers with a circulation covering the whole of
the Soviet Union. Many fashion houses were allowed not only to publish
their regular fashion journals but also separate fashion albums and special
issues. (Fig. 8.1.)

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

These fashion journals were often published in two languages: the local
language like Estonian, Latvian or Kazakh as well as in Russian. At least in
the case of the small Baltic fashion houses the Russian language edition was
as a rule the bigger one, allowing for the journal to be sold and read all over
the Soviet Union and even abroad, which certainly promoted its status and
reputation. These special fashion journals mainly published pictures and
practical instructions about the new seasonal fashion trends and designs but
they also included more general articles on fashion and the proper Soviet
dress code and etiquette of behavior. What made them very popular was
that they often included practical instructions and patterns for some of the
new seasonal models, with the help of which readers could sew their own
clothes at home.
The fashion journalism published in the general newspapers and journals
can be divided basically into five major topics and types of articles and news:
1) changes of season in fashion, 2) fashion events (shows, exhibitions, and
competitions), 3) economic problems of fashion industry, 4) the proper
Soviet dress code, and 5) the role of fashion under socialism.486
First, the Soviet press, just like the periodicals in the West, published
short articles and instructions about the annual and seasonal changes in
fashion. In the local newspapers these short articles often appeared once or
twice each season. The approaching day of school graduation at the end of
May was always, for instance, preceded by both practical comments on the
proper dress code for high school graduates as well as concrete advice on the
newest trends: “how to dress fashionably.” Such practical instructions could
be followed by comments on the proper dress code and reminders of the
common rules of decency as well as on the role of fashion in socialist society.
But more often than not the articles were totally informational and practical
in their advice. When general moral or ideological questions emerged they
were normally treated in quite a standardized manner.
The specialized fashion journals were naturally dedicated almost totally
to the propagation of the latest fashion, but even they could include more
general reflections on the nature of fashion in general and Soviet – or
socialist – fashion in particular. The art historians and aestheticians regularly
employed as the propagandists of fashion at the fashion institutions often
wrote these more principal articles on the aesthetics of dress, as well as the
short overviews of the history of fashion that also belonged to the usual
repertoire of these journals.487 Each body of fashion design had in the 1970s
and 1980s a special department of propagation of fashion responsible for
contacts with the mass media as well as for other fashion education like
public lectures and exhibitions.
The leading Soviet fashion journal Zhurnal mod had as a rule a special
attachment which could include lengthy theoretical treatises on fashion
and good taste written by the main specialists in the field. The periodicals
could also interview the fashion designers or other experts working in the
organizations of fashion, asking their expert advice on questions of the latest
fashion. A few fashion designers became well known Soviet celebrities who
could receive a lot of publicity. The best known among them was Vyacheslav
Zaitsev from ODMO, who became a real Soviet “superstar” in the world of

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fashion in the early 1960s. His name and work were well known to all Soviet
citizens interested in fashion.
The second, larger group of equally regularly published articles had news
about all kinds of fashion events, from fashion shows and exhibitions at home
and abroad to Soviet and international fashion conferences, meetings and
competitions. Naturally, these writings often took up the role and success of
the Soviet fashion units and designers. Similarly, the local press mostly paid
attention to the achievements at their local level, in their own city or region.
Such news could equally well advertise the opening of a new fashion house
or atelier or a new fashionable clothing shop in the local center. Such news
abounded in the Soviet press, fitting well into the general tendency of Soviet
journalism to report the new achievements and successes of the economy
and culture, which were claimed to become bigger and better with each
year that passed under the victorious Soviet planning. In contrast to news
about the annual production targets and their fulfillment on time or even
before – typical of industrial production including the textile and clothing
industries – the news on fashion often reported single unique events which
were impressive due to their high quality and excellent standards. In the best
cases Soviet fashion was reported to have reached the highest international
standards and was claimed to be successfully competing with Parisian
fashion, which set the self-evident bar of excellence even in the minds of
the Soviet fashion propagators and ideologists. In promoting fashion, the
Soviet press hardly ever referred to the Five Year or annual quotas or boasted
about their fulfillment in advance, which was typical in other reports on the
achievements of the Soviet socialist economy. The fashion houses and other
institutes of clothing design certainly had their annual quotas to be fulfilled,
but in their case it was not primarily the production numbers that mattered
but rather the quality of their performance and its practical consequences for
the provisioning of better and more varied clothes. Success in international
and national competitions and exhibitions was the best proof of the high
standards of Soviet fashion design.
The third group of articles, the contents of which often partly overlapped
with the second one, consisted of reports on the economic problems
that the creation and production of new fashionable clothing regularly
encountered. The press often got their inspiration from concrete experienced
shortcomings in production and distribution and the consequent consumer
complaints. These articles could be general ones discussing the relation of
changing fashion to the principles of the socialist planned economy overall
as well as reports on very concrete failures and the mismanagement of the
economic organizations. It was also typical of such articles that they identified
both problems and their presumed causes, often blaming one economic
organization or ministry or another for its inefficiency and negligence. The
retail trade blamed industry or wholesale trade, industry blamed another
sector of industry lower down in the production chain (typically, garment
factories would blame the textile industry or even the manufacturers of
buttons for not delivering the raw materials needed for more fashionable and
beautiful clothes, the textile industry would in its turn blame, for instance,
chemical factories for not producing the chemicals for the right colors, etc.).

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But at times the critical journalism even touched principal features of the
Soviet planned economy. Such critique and regularly published complaints
of the various shortcomings were part of the firmly institutionalized culture
of the Soviet public sphere from the 1960s to the 1980s, just the flip side of
the almost eternally repeated reports of economic successes and more than
fulfilling of the planned targets of production. Such consumers’ complaints
were legitimate and inbuilt into the political system of socialism. They were
an important part of the Soviet bureaucracy’s system of public control. They
often, without doubt, pointed out real problems and even identified their real
causes, but similarly they often made a very schematic impression, repeating
the same diagnosis of the disease and even its remedy almost word for word
one year after another.
The question of proper dress code and common decency in dress was
the fourth repeatedly appearing theme in the Soviet press. All seemed to be
of the same opinion that the general advancement of a decent and attractive
dress code as well as the introduction of the proper Soviet dress code had
two main enemies: the bad quality of the mass produced clothes and the
stiliagis, young people who overdressed themselves, exaggerating fashion.
Both tended to spoil good taste, the one by not offering enough beautiful
examples or individual freedom of choice, the other by exercising too much
of the same. People who totally ignored fashion or were openly critical of
it, whom one could meet in the public press after the war and in the 1950s,
gradually disappeared from publicity in the 1960s. In this way, the fashion
propagators did not have to worry anymore about people who by totally
denying or neglecting fashion would have exaggerated their relation to the
other extreme, anti-fashion. Otherwise, it did not seem to be very clear what
specific demands of proper or decent dress followed from the fact that people
were now living under socialism, in a higher form of society, and would soon
be ready to enter Communism.
Stiliagis came to stand in the Soviet press for almost anything that was
regarded to be an exaggeration and an expression of bad taste.488 Many
articles about the stiliagis or women wearing trousers were written in the
typical style of Soviet investigative journalism. They either commented on
local shocking events or were inspired by the letters of ordinary people.
These articles often propagated the middle of the road approach to style
and fashion by condemning the “extravagant” style of the stiliagi. More
remarkably they, at the same time, mostly distanced themselves from the
cruder demands for intervention in personal dress style. For instance, the
editors of the articles might criticize the local police for arresting or fining
people who in their opinion were not properly dressed. These rather extreme
cases were presented in the press as examples of overreacting. The press in
fact defended young people’s right to a fashionable and more individual
style of dressing. They taught their readers that it was wrong to condemn
the overall moral worth of a youngster simply because his trousers were too
narrow or his colorful shirts hung over his trousers. They agreed among
themselves that such extravagantly stylish dressing was definitely a sign of
bad taste and only an expression of an unhealthy need to show off but that it
was not automatically a sign of a bad, morally depraved character.

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Women wearing trousers were traditionally not an unknown sight in

the Soviet Union, where many women worked in the steel and machine
factories and on big construction sites or even in the armed forces alongside
the men. But as late as the 1960s the fashion experts and journalists strictly
condemned women wearing trousers in public in the city. It was an even
cruder breach of the rules of decency to wear trousers in the evening at a
cultural club, visiting a cinema, a theater or a concert. Women’s trousers
belonged only to some specific work milieus. They could also be allowed for
women exercising or doing sports, like skiing, but definitely not for official
or festive occasions.
The Komsomol newspapers in particular, directed to the younger Soviet
readers, waged almost eternal campaigns against all kinds of expressions of
“stiliagism” and labeled all young people who dressed in a deviant way or
extravagantly as stiliagis. For instance, in one of the first post-war books on
etiquette and proper dress, A. G. Golybina489 presented the stiliagi in a typical
way as a warning example in discussing the ethics of dress, opposing them to
all the genuinely spiritually rich people who had higher cultural standards:

Not by chance are the overwhelming majority of the stiliagis rude people who
ignore the habits and taste of the surrounding society, setting themselves against
the collective, higher above the ‘masses.’ The attempt to dress oneself ‘stylishly’ is
not a proof of any higher cultural standards. On the contrary it is an indication of
the lack of culture, of the poverty of one’s spiritual world, and of the narrowness
of one’s interests.

According to Golybina, real beauty emerges only when external appearance

coincided with a rich inner spiritual world. The appearance becomes
genuinely noble only when supported by inner spiritual beauty.
The fifth group of articles that we shall scrutinize further partly overlapped
with the two previous ones but, at the same time, introduced a theme of
their own. These were questions concerning the nature of fashion in general
and the role of fashion under socialism in particular: was fashion really
needed at all under socialism, and if it was needed, how much and what
kind of fashion was needed? What was the place of fashion, if any, in the
centrally planned economy? How did socialist fashion differ from bourgeois
fashion? Such general questions about the character of fashion and its place
in socialism were eagerly discussed among experts of various kinds in the
professional journals like the Dekorativnoie iskusstvo SSSR (Applied Art in
the USSR), Sovetskaya torgovlia (The Soviet Trade) or Ekonomicheskaya
gazeta (The Economic Newspaper) as well as in the major fashion journals.
Soviet economists, sociologists, art historians, fashion designers, and other
professionals of fashion took part in this discussion, which was waged
particularly actively in the 1960s. Judging from these theoretical discussions
it appears that by the beginning of the 1970s serious attempts were made to
reach some kind of a consensus about the nature of socialist fashion.490 After
this time these questions were no longer raised as regularly or with such
emphasis in the press.

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News and Reports on Seasonal Fashion

News and reports about the new trends in dressing were regularly published
in all the local as well as central newspapers and in the evening and youth
(Komsomol) press in particular. The big Soviet women’s journals, like
Sovetskaya zhenshchina (The Soviet Woman) published reports on fashion
in Russian and several foreign languages. Rabotnitsa (The Working Woman)
published similar reports regularly. Such news and reports naturally
followed the seasonal pattern of fashion change. The approaching spring, for
instance, gave cause for comments on the fashion of the upcoming spring
and summer, and the fashion of the autumn and the winter deserved their
own comments and reports later on in the year. Sometimes these reports
could take up more specific topics like children’s fashion or youth wear. Like
everywhere else in the world, women’s fashion dominated the news, but
often a few lines were also dedicated to men’s wear. The fashion journals paid
attention to the children’s collections too but in the local press such news
appeared rather seldom. These news generally discussed rather technically
and in detail the length of the hem, the breadth of the legs of the trousers,
the general line of the cut of the dress, the fashionable colors of the season,
etc. but they at times also included some standardized, general ideological
comments on proper dress code and the role of fashion in the Soviet dress
culture.
Let us take some examples of such news from the Soviet local press:
In their article “Taste and Fashion”491 S. Kopelman and M. Arpa, both
ordinary pattern makers from the fashion atelier in the city of Uzhgorod
(Ukraine), took up the classic and eternally relevant question of the breadth
of trouser legs. They informed their readers that according to the present
fashion, the width of trouser legs was 24–25 centimeters. They hasten to give
their readers some general advice on proper dress in general too:

This is normal [the breadth-authors]. But while some people rather wear trousers
with the breadth of 24–25 centimeters, others, again, exaggerate in the other
direction and insist on wearing trousers with a width of 45 centimeters. This is
a style of its kind too. But one should not try to cheat the new fashion.

This article is a good example of what was meant by normalcy in the Soviet
aesthetics in applied arts. It was always to be found in the middle, opposed
to the two possible extremes: in the case of the trouser legs, too broad or
too narrow. The proper measure was harmonious and it avoided extremes.
According to this principle some clothes are “always” fashionable, like the
classic “English” suit just because they are harmonious and proportionate.
Therefore they fit almost everyone and are always beautiful and comfortable.
On the other hand, a “sportive” or “free” cut of a costume could be fashionable
too and fit both men and women.
In 1963, E. G. Solov’yeva wrote about what the girls should know.492 The
advice given was typical. It emphasized that, after all, fashion in socialism
was something quite different from fashion in the West. What differed was,
above all, its modesty and lack of extravagance:

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The very word fashion is used among us with another meaning than in the West.
If one dresses fashionably in the West that means that one attempts to draw the
attention of those surrounding one, but with us fashion means above all the
culture of dress, the high standard of aesthetic taste.

At the same time, the article does not leave the reader in any doubt about the
general importance of fashion. It permeates all the details of our dress. Thus,
fashion is quite normal in socialism. As a matter of fact, the article adds up
to a real glorification of fashion:

Fashion exists in order to beautify, to increase the variety in our life. Fashion
renews itself all the time. However beautiful they ever were, the models of five
years ago already outlived themselves, passed by, and therefore cannot any more
satisfy our demands of today. In order to dress oneself fashionably one does not
by any means wear expensive, luxurious things. The main thing is that the design
of the costume is thought through and kept in the modern style. The Soviet
designer works in order to create whole collections of clothing. One should not
forget that in fashion there are no trivialities. Fashion spreads out into every part
of our attire. It is by no means a secret that badly fitting gloves or the wrong kind
of bag can destroy the appearance of any beautifully sewn costume.493

The report from the artist J. Zavishene, published in the evening paper from
Vilnius, Lithuania494 is in many ways typical too but it was more detailed
in its instructions about the present trends, which were quite multifaceted:

The most popular style of dress recommended for all age groups is sportive.
However, already for some time there has existed an elegant style for thirty year
old women which suits the great majority and which is very popular. But we also
recommend the classical style of dress with all its advantages. Tight forms with
deeply cut collars and bodice are also popular. Pockets are bigger, with different
configurations and decorated with buttons. Hooks are fashionable both as single-
breasted and double-breasted. This spring’s color tones are peaceful. Brown, as
well as the colors of violet and tan are recommended as is the classic combination
of black with white. Textiles are most varied in their color and texture . ... As
always, from all the available silhouettes, colors and patterns one should choose
the one that suits one best. Which length to prefer: midi, mini or maxi? Does a
more extravagant dress suit you well? If you are artistically inclined it is perhaps
worth taking the risk. The present character of fashion gives the opportunity to
use your female fancy: an overcoat, a dress, a skirt with a blouse and a vest, a knit
dress (either hand-made or machine made). ... Different textiles can be combined
too: wool with leather or chamois, knitwear with cotton or wool.

By the time of the publication of this article in 1971 trousers had become an
accepted item of women’s dress in the Soviet Union:

Various combinations of clothes have become typical recently: trousers with

a dress coat, trousers with a blouse and a vest, trousers with a knit jumper and
a coat, trousers with a lengthy suit coat, trousers with an overcoat of various
length (also maxi). Anyway, as always, follow the rules of tact and taste. Shoes
are typically massive and decorative.495

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

In the article “Learn How to Dress Beautifully” R. Murasova,496 the chief

engineer of the Stalinabad garment factory No. 1, taught her readers in
Tadzhikistan that

for our energetic youth there is an adequate, new style of dress. It has basically
a sportive character. Therefore it is perplexing when a young girl at the age of
18–20 dresses in a double breasted suit coat with wide curves and clamps with
2–3 buttons. Such a dress coat makes the figure of the girl sturdy and fat.

In a typical way, Murasova ended her treatise on beautiful dress with some
general reflections about fashion and bad taste. In her opinion, fashion
always introduces something new, interesting and light to our dress, but at
the same time demands of us a rational and thoughtful approach: “We met
youngsters who wear trousers with heavily narrowed endings of the legs.
This is a very irrational fashion! And we have to declare a war against such
distortion, conspicuousness and formalism.” On the other hand, Murasova
admitted that it is difficult to demand that a young man or woman at the
age of 16–18 should know all the necessary rules of how to dress beautifully.
Her own maxim of beautiful dressing was, after all, quite abstract and not
much help in making everyday fashion choices: “A dress the material and
the model of which corresponds to our habits and ways of life is always the
best one.”497
Later in the 1960s, J. Zavishene reported in The Evening News (Vechernie
novosti) of the capital of Soviet Lithuania that Russian motifs, like the long
women’s overcoat with fox fur linings and a hat resembling a hussar’s cap,
were now fashionable. As always, the classic style was also “in.”498
A couple of years later, in 1971, the fashion propagandist of the city of Ufa
in Soviet Bashkiria, V. Plenkina, could reassure her readers in her comment
on the eternally relevant theme “the first ball” that now we did not have any
strict limitations on the design of more festive dress.499 This advice was part
of the useful instructions for all mothers and their daughters on how to
dress for the school graduation ball. The report Vesna i moda500 published
a few years later went even further in declaring that now fashion had become
democratic. The main thing was to emphasize one’s individuality.
Despite such reassurances, the proper length of skirts still seemed to
worry Soviet readers in 1973. G. Videnskaya, the artistic consultant of the
fashion house at the city of Gorky, could, however, write in Gor’kovskaya
Pravda501 that this question had been solved once and for all a long time
ago. The length had namely now stabilized within some limits: “above, at
the height of the knees or lower, depending on the age and the figure of the
person as well as the function of the dress.” The same adviser had referred
to the same question a few years earlier in another local newspaper.502
Videnskaya paid close attention to the general instructions of the Soviet
trendsetters who closely followed the changes in international fashion. The
leading Soviet fashion journal published, for instance, in 1971 L. Yefremova’s
report on Paris fashion with the title “No more disputes about the length.”503
In the article, “Fashion – what will it look like”504 the chairman of the
artistic council of the local administration of everyday services, Z. Fomina,

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

declared that the style often called the “new classicism” would determine
the fashion of the next year. She explained that “the main thing is that the
woman should take seriously the task of choosing her dress according to
her age and individual peculiarities.” Even according to Fomina, the recent
heated disputes about the length of the skirt had now cooled down. A long
skirt remained fashionable for particularly formal occasions and also for
domestic leisure.
In its turn the author of Fashionable Silhouettes from the town of Khimki
(Moscow region)505 did not feel obliged to take sides in the equally classic
dispute regarding the supremacy of single-breasted or double-breasted suits
since she simply announced that, according to the fashion designers, both
were equally fashionable now.
These and hundreds of similar reports and news on the fashion of the
upcoming season were regularly published in the Soviet press, just like in
the rest of the world. They were often written either by journalists or the
local experts working in the fashion industry and trade. Journalists could
also interview such specialists. Often the writings were accompanied by an
illustration or two – or alternatively a drawing – taken from a fashion show
or exhibition displaying modern clothing. Just like elsewhere, the photos
and drawings of fashionable clothing patterns dominated the contents of
many Soviet fashion journals, but as a rule they gave detailed instructions
about the tendencies of modern fashion too. The “real” fashion journals were
often more self-conscious in their declarations about fashion and the present
fashion in particular. For instance, Zhurnal mod set the example for all the
other republican and local fashion houses. In winter 1966–1967 it presented
the general guidelines and principles of the fashion of 1967 fully aware of the
seriousness of the future challenges awaiting the modern fashion designer:

The designers (of the Eastern European socialist countries – the authors) have to
think about all the sides of the life of all the three hundred million people living in
the socialist states in Europe. The change of fashion is not as simple as the change
of the sewing and the form of the dress. It is above all a reflection of our reality
– of the laconism of the modern architecture, the rhythm of life, the growing
industry, of the sport and of the conquer of space. All this makes our dress more
businesslike, smaller in size, easier in the composition of the textiles and light in
their silhouette. The basics of the modern fashion are to be found in its simplicity
and laconism. But they hide behind themselves a long range of creative quests
of research in the new and modern materials as well as constructive decisions.506

Vyacheslav Zaitsev – A Celebrity among the Soviet Fashion

Designers

Many Soviet designers, in Moscow and in the Soviet republics as well as

in the provincial centers, were well known to the Soviet citizens interested
in fashion. The professional and popular press publicized their designs
regularly, often conscientiously naming the author of the design as well as
their professional affiliation. It is apparent that at least a dozen top designers

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became real Soviet celebrities, comparable to movie stars or popular singers

in their fame and popularity. We have earlier mentioned some of them and
referred to their well-known creations.
There is, however, one particular fashion designer who was known all
over the Soviet Union and whose reputation reached even people who
ordinarily were not interested in modern fashion design. This person was
Vyacheslav (Slava) Zaitsev. In addition to his own creations becoming
well known to the public through the wide publicity they received, he
was also interviewed regularly in the Soviet press about the latest trends,
developments and sometimes even the problems of fashion design.
Zaitsev was born in 1938 in the city of Ivanovo, well known for its
textile industry. He studied at the Faculty of Applied Arts at the Ivanovo
Polytechnical Institute, from which he graduated in 1956. In the same
year, he moved to Moscow and started his studies as a fashion designer at
the Moscow Textile Institute. He graduated in 1962 after which he began
to work at the design workshop of the factory Babushkino in a suburb of
Moscow. Here he designed a collection with the typical Russian quilted
jacket, felt boots and other work clothes which was presented at the All-
Union methodical meeting in the beginning of 1963. These were meant to
be ordinary peasant women’s work clothes for the collective farmers. Zaitsev
designed them in bright colors and not in the grey and brown tones typical
of ordinary Soviet work clothes. This created a scandal and the collection was
not approved for mass production. However, his collection became famous
because a group of reporters from the Soviet News Publishing House (APN)
visited the exhibition together with a correspondent for the French journal
Paris Match, which presented Zaitsev and his creations to its French and
international readers in February 1963. The article, “He dictates the fashion
in Moscow” declared that Zaitsev had created real novelties in Soviet fashion
which otherwise only imitated Paris and London.507 In 1965, the famous
Paris haute couturiers Pierre Cardin, Mac Bohan (from Dior) and Guy
Laroche visited Moscow and became familiar with Zaitsev and his work.
At this time he was probably even better known among Western fashion
designers and journalists that to the broader public at home.508
Starting in 1965 Zaitsev worked as a designer at ODMO and, by the end
of the decade, he was nominated for a leading post in the system of Soviet
fashion design when he became the deputy artistic director of this fashion
house. He remained in this position, central to the Soviet system of fashion,
until 1978. (Fig. 8.2.) After 1978 he worked in the fashion institutes under
the Russian Ministry of Everyday Services and, in 1983, became the artistic
director and head designer at the one of their leading houses of fashion
design at Prospekt Mira Avenue in Moscow. After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, Zaitsev privatized “his” house, which continues its activities even
today under the formal direction of his son.
Zaitsev’s career is, without a doubt, an almost ideal Soviet success story.509
He came from a working class family in very poor conditions, with a single
mother. Born in a provincial town, with his own talents and efforts, and
obviously with some luck and help from the right people too, he became the
leading professional in his own field. He was a member of the Communist

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

Fig. 8.2. Viacheslav “Slava” Zaitsev gives his opinion about new designs from ODMO
before the members of its artistic council, 1974.

Party and a true Communist who believed in the bright future of his socialist
fatherland. Despite their officially declared aims of successfully competing
with Paris and other centers of world fashion, the Soviet authorities for
some reason did not use Zaitsev’s international reputation in the Soviet
propaganda for fashion, for instance by trying to sell his designs abroad, but
rather downplayed it in later Soviet times. He was not allowed to travel to
the West with his designs, which were exhibited abroad together with those
of his colleagues as part of various Soviet fashion exhibitions in the 1960s
and 1970s.
Inside the Soviet Union Slava Zaitsev became, however, the front figure
of Soviet fashion. From early on in his career at ODMO, Zaitsev appeared
regularly in the Soviet press propagating fashion, giving his personal
opinions and advice on the fashion of the season, and commenting on the
proper dress and good taste in general. Soviet readers became familiar with
his person and his biography as well as his opinions and his achievements in
the world of fashion early on in his career. One of the early examples is the
article published in 1964 in the popular youth journal Smena, “Let’s give the
word to fashion,” which presented Zaitsev – along with some of his typical
fashion designs – as a talented, young designer. The article praised, without
any critical reservations, Zaitsev’s first collection of women’s working clothes,
which had not been taken into production because his superiors had turned
it down. The article left no doubts about the importance of Soviet fashion
and its creators:

The whole factory is youthful and young. It is about three years old. Here is
a friendly collective of enthusiasts, and the possibilities of the creative search do
not meet any limits. Working at the factory helped Slava to find his own style

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

– the ‘Zaitsev style’ (which has already become a concept). Sometimes he made
a remark that fashion is something that is ‘well forgotten.’ This is quite true.510

On the 16th of June, 1967, the newspaper Komsomol’skaya pravda511 pub-

lished a long interview with Zaitsev’s comments on the readers’ letters about
fashion The Moscow youth newspaper Moskovskij komsomolets followed
suit only a couple of weeks later, on the 30th of June.512 The questions oc-
cupying the readers’ minds were many and they varied from the possibility
of the prognostication of fashion and the impact of fashion on the identity
of the person (“How can one retain one’s identity in the face of fashion?”),
to examples of bad fashion which at times could overtake the population of
a whole city, to the relationship of Soviet fashion and Western fashion.
Zaitsev’s answers were interesting, multifaceted and well-reasoned. In his
opinion it was, for instance, much more difficult to see how modern fashion
reflected the specific spirit of the times. This could be done only from the
perspective of the historical changes of style. Similarly, he readily admitted
that there is no way to know why some designs, including “bad” fashion, can
suddenly become very popular. Zaitsev took up two concrete examples of
such changes which had both taken place totally without the contribution of
the fashion designers, and the first one even against their active interference
and advice. His example of the sudden spontaneous popularity of “bad”
fashion was bell-shaped trousers with bright wedges and buttons which
were a total surprise to the designers, and, in his opinion, a real nightmare.
The other, in his opinion positive, surprise was the great and unexpected
popularity enjoyed both at home and abroad by the merino wool caps that
the Soviet sportsmen wore at the winter Olympic Games at Innsbruck. In
Zaitsev’s words, these Soviet sportsmen became real lawgivers of fashion.
Any professional fashion designer could only dream of similar success with
his own individual creations.
Similar interviews with Zaitsev came out often in the following years.513
Thus not only his opinions about fashion but also his face became familiar
to Soviet readers. He even appeared in some provincial newspapers and
informed his readers about, for example, the lively international contacts and
co-operation in which ODMO was engaged, boasting that the French firm
Christian Dior shared their latest constructive instructions “with us.”514 He
even claimed that ODMO sometimes worked on orders from abroad after
its collections had been very well received there. By this time Zaitsev had
become one of the leading designers at ODMO. In these interviews Zaitsev
answered questions about his own role as a fashion designer, about the nature
of fashion in general and current or upcoming fashion in particular. Often
these interviews had a personal flavor and Zaitsev’s ideas were often quite
original. He denied for instance that the designer could dictate the changes
of fashion. All he could do was to support them and help them find their
right directions. Therefore, he invited all people to become his co-authors in
fashion, to start imagining with the designers. But Zaitsev also accepted the
designer’s role as an educator of fashion. In his opinion, such an education
should start in the children’s day care centers. Zaitsev also demanded that
the authority of the designer should be increased in the process of creating

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

Fig. 8.3. Viacheslav “Slava” Zaitsev among his own designs, 1976.

fashion. He complained that under the present circumstances, the artistic

councils consisted of people who as a rule did not have any special artistic
education but who nevertheless thought themselves great experts in the
matters of taste and fashion.515
The titles of the articles and interviews often emphasized both the
importance of the issue and the expertise of Zaitsev. The biggest Soviet
women’s magazine, Rabotnitsa, published an interview with him under the
title “Fashion is a serious issue.”516 These articles propagated fashion, and
particularly Soviet fashion without reservations. But Zaitsev also warned
his readers against typical extravagances and presented warning examples of
bad taste. As Zaitsev argued,517 fashion exists because it answers the natural
striving of man towards regeneration, towards change. And whatever we
might think about fashion, a human being cannot live without it. In the
same article, Zaitsev declared his own ideals of fashion design which he
had learned during his long years of professional experience and which had
guided him in designing clothes: a harmonic composition of the principles
of comfort, practicality, and beauty. (Fig. 8.3.)
Slava Zaitsev’s public role did not restrict itself to interviews with the
press. He had, for instance, his own TV program, “How to dress beautifully”,
(Krasivo odevatsia) which started in 1977.518 He was often portrayed in
the press photographs together with important international guests in the

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

fashion world visiting Moscow.519 Equally important was the fact that his
collections were regularly published and received a lot of space in Zhurnal
mod520 which presented for instance his famous collection of clothing designs
inspired by the motifs of Russian folklore. Perhaps more than anyone else,
Slava Zaitsev gave a “face” to Soviet fashion both at home and abroad.

News about the Fashion Events: From the Domestic Exhibitions

and Shows to the Great Achievements of Soviet Fashion
in the International Arena

In the world of Soviet fashion there were many events to report on since
the fashion bodies organized and took part regularly in all kinds of shows,
exhibitions and professional conferences and meetings both at home and
abroad. The relations between the fashion houses and designers of the Eastern
European socialist countries were close and they met regularly at the fashion
exhibitions and competitions. In 1963 Molodezh Moldavii published news
about the fashion exhibition and congress of the COMECON countries.
Similar news was common and published in many papers in the USSR:

In spring 1964 in Moscow an international forum of designers and artists will be

held which will determine the development of fashion during the following two
years. In a few months, the inhabitants of Moscow will become acquainted with
the work of artists from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary,
and the DDR. And we shall tell you about the new collection of the Soviet artists
today. What will fashion look like in the years 1964–1965?521

The Soviet newspapers also reported on the regularly held annual meetings
and consultations of the Soviet fashion designers and pattern makers
during which both the general guidelines of fashion and the new technical
innovations in industry were discussed. These could often consist of a short
news story simply notifying of the event.522 But the very fact that such events
were worth reporting to the public in the press certainly increased their
status – and the status of fashion – in the eyes of the Soviet public.
On the 5th of September, 1965 the Lithuanian newspaper Sovetskaya
Litva523 reported that the Lithuanian fashion designers had participated in
a COMECON fashion congress in Romania.524 The central newspaper of
the Communist Party of the USSR, Pravda, in turn reported to its readers
in 1969 that a Baltic exhibition of fashion took place in Vilnius with guests
from neighboring Estonia and Latvia (16 January 1969). The Vilnius
evening newspaper Vechernie novosti reported that the representatives of
the fashion atelier from the city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan had visited the
Vilnius fashion house in order to learn from their experience in sewing
clothes.525
News about all kinds of fashion shows and exhibitions that propagated
fashion to the people were considered worth reporting. These shows usually
took place either in the clubs at the factories or kolkhozes or in the local
shops, fashion ateliers and department stores. (Fig. 8.4.)

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

Fig. 8.4. “Trade

knows best what
the customers
want.” A fashion
show on an ad
hoc podium in the
culture club of a
collective farm near
Moscow, 1960.

For instance, Tikhookeanskaya Pravda newspaper, published in the Far

East at Khabarovsk, reported on 6 September 1962 that

last Saturday the workers of the Khabarovsk fashion house took their designs to
one of the most popular places in the city, the Park of Culture and Leisure. The
main artist, Comrade Dreshina, delivered a lecture. On the 30th of June in 1962,
at the same fashion house at Khabarovsk, 400 workers from the local enterprises
listened to a lecture on the culture of dress of the Soviet man and woman. The
lecture was followed by a fashion show.526

In Chelyabinsk (the Urals) the fashion propagators proudly called these

lectures and shows “Universities of the Culture of Dress.” The students of
the University gathered at the local shop Druzhba.527 In Volgograd similar
fashion shows were organized in a café where the visitors could also enjoy
a family lunch while watching the show.528 In Ul’yanovsk, like in many other
places in the Soviet Union, the technologists and pattern makers from the
local clothing factory came to the department store “to consult its customers

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both about the designs of the individual items for sale and about the details
of the clothes, the forms of the products and all the other details of dress.”529
The regional fashion houses of the Ministry of Light Industry were not
alone actively propagating fashion. Many other organizations were eagerly
offering their services to their customers. The local newspaper of the city
Cheboksary in Chuvashia530 reported that in the big hall of the Palace of
Culture with a thousand seats the local clothing factory and repair shop
demonstrated its own new custom made clothing designs. In the club of the
village Churachiki in the Tsivil’skiy region in Chuvashia the clothing factory
of artistic embroidery demonstrated its women’s dresses and men’s shirts
to dozens of eager women who all sat, judging from the published photo,
watching the show wearing their traditional peasant head scarves and long
black dresses.531
The opening of new special clothing shops or ateliers also made typical
news items in the local press. In Vilnius a new special clothing shop opened
next to the republican house of fashion design. As the reporter added, the
designers from the house would regularly work at the shop too giving advice
on how to dress oneself attractively.532Molodoi dal’nevostochnik told its
readers of the grandiose plans to build a fashion house in Khabarovsk “with
a straight lined façade, with glass and cement and a fashionable modernistic
canopy above the entrance.”533 The house did not exist in 1966 but, according
to the newspaper, all the necessary preparations for its building had been
made. “This is the future” the reporter finished his report. In the very same
year the Severnyi rabochii published a report of the opening of a new first
class fashion atelier at Yaroslavl’.534 In Moscow, a special shop for larger
people, called Bogatyr’, opened in 1965. This was important enough news to
be published in the biggest Soviet women’s magazine, Rabotnitsa.535
Finally, the regular tidings of the achievements of Soviet fashion and
fashion designers, internationally and domestically, were eagerly reported in
the press. In 1967, the Soviet monthly journal Ogoniok proudly claimed that
Russian fashion had now conquered Europe. According to the journalist,
this conquest started in 1961 when Russian fur boots arrived at Paris during
the Soviet Industrial and Trade Exhibition. These achievements could
also be more modest but still worth paying special public attention to.536
The newspaper Chelyabinskii rabochii wrote proudly that as many as four
local designs had been approved for the annual All-Soviet fashion design
collection.537 Of these four two were women’s skiing outfits, one a work outfit
and one a cloak. On the other hand, in 1964 it had taken the artistic council
five days to go through all the new designs suggested by all the clothing firms
in the Chelyabinsk, Orenburg and Kuzbass regions. As many as 1800 new
designs were approved for industrial production.538
The International Fashion Festival in Moscow in 1967 with participants
from well over 20 countries, France, the USA, Australia and Sweden among
them, was one of the highlights of Soviet fashion history. It consisted of two
big events: a fashion exhibition at the Sokol’niki Park and fashion shows at
the huge Luzhniki sports arena. They were naturally widely reported and
commented on in the Soviet press and TV and gave ample opportunity for
Soviet fashion experts to reflect on the real achievements of Soviet fashion.

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The Soviet journal of applied arts, Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, published

a whole series of articles with many illustrations to commemorate the event.
Not all the commentators were as enthusiastic about the real achievements of
Soviet fashion as they were in the reports in the popular press. T. Strizhenova
wrote the first report published in the eighth number of Dekorativnoe
iskusstvo SSSR in 1967 shortly after the exhibition was over. Her evaluation
of Soviet achievements was predominantly positive. The exhibition proved
conclusively that the Soviet designers had become creative artists:

Now we can speak not only of the (Soviet-authors) designer who is working
along the lines of the generally accepted direction of fashion but also of an artist
who creates such patterns of dress that in a bright way reveal the tendencies of
tomorrow.539

Among the positive examples of these new achievements she mentioned

the hats that resembled the legendary Red army headwear or budennovki,
the winter sports dress inspired by the highly relevant theme of conquering
space, and finally, Viacheslav Zaitsev’s designs inspired by the ancient
Russian folk motifs, “while being at the same time clearly modern and
original.”540 In pointing out these three positive examples, with quite
different motifs, Strizhenova followed the well-known maxim according to
which the fashion designer can get inspiration from basically three different
sources: from historical dress, from folklore, or finally from the expressions
of modern culture in all the fields of life, like science, technology, art, film,
etc.
Even though generally positive, Strizhenova made the same reservation
that was often heard in the critical discussions about the achievements of
the Soviet fashion industry, according to which there was a big discrepancy
between the achievements and the talents of the designers employed at the
fashion houses and the products that the garment industry could in fact
mass produce.541
The two other comments published shortly after the exhibition in
Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, by V. Kriuchkova542 and I. Golikova,543 were
much more critical and in fact openly revealed the shallowness of the great
promises of Soviet fashion. After describing in great detail the collections of
several of the participating countries, Kriuchkova turned her attention to the
Soviet collection. Her verdict was quite devastating:

Some countries, among them the Soviet Union, showed unique collections in
which the designs served the purpose of artistic expression and were not meant
to be released as mass produced dresses. They do not have a consumer, only a
spectator, and this explains the peculiarity of these designs: their daringly keen
realization, the lavish expressiveness of their basic lines, their almost theatrical,
exaggerated conspicuousness.544

Kriuchkova also had a much more critical attitude to the examples of Soviet
achievements that had been proudly pointed out by Strizhenova and many
other commentators. In Kriuchkova’s opinion, almost all the Soviet fashion

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designers and institutions presented designs that got their inspiration from
the local folklore. Both the folklore inspirations and Red army headgear
were examples of the tendency of overt stylizing which was typical in Soviet
fashion. She suggested that the Soviet designers would do better to study
the Chanel collection instead, also demonstrated at the Exhibition which,
in Kriuchkova’s opinion, was a good example of the successful use of classic
lines and traditional forms. Instead, they tried in vain to cut a dash with
their exotic motifs.545
Golikova was the author of the second review. Her verdict was in general
similar to and as critical as Kriuchkova’s. She complained that the Soviet
collections totally lacked their own style, design or line.

If we empty our collections of those things that had a clear national motif, they
do not differ at all from the mediocre collections of several other participating
countries. With one important difference: this is not a mass produced collection
but single items on exhibition. It is high time to tell everyone that the emperor is
naked, and to start as fast and conscientiously as possible to dress him.546

The solution Golikova offered to the problems of Soviet fashion, which had
now sharply and almost tragically been revealed in front of an international
audience, was not very original or surprising. It was often heard among the
Soviet specialists of fashion. She suggested namely that the Soviet authorities
responsible for the fashion industry should open boutiques belonging to
particular producers and selling small experimental series of clothing.547

Fashion and Customers’ Complaints

The reports of customer complaints concerning the bad quality and avail-
ability of consumer goods were a regular and deeply institutionalized genre
of Soviet journalism. Sometimes these complaints were published in the
form of readers’ letters to the editors, sometimes they were presented as the
starting point of the reports written by investigative journalists revealing the
shortages and corruption to be met in the Soviet trade and consumer goods
industry. On the more concrete local level many articles in newspapers and
journals complained about specific shortcomings and shortages in clothing
shops. These could be about the bad quality and small variety of designs
available at the shops or even about more concrete and alarming shortcom-
ings (only one size of shoes on sale, all the coats only available in one color,
etc.).
The article published in the Smolensk based newspaper Rabochii put’ in
1959548 was typical of such revelations in its almost extreme concreteness:
“Whichever shop you visit you’ll always find exactly the same overcoat,
the same costume, because the garment factory of the Smolensk economic
administration which is the main producer of the ready-made clothes in this
region does not produce anything else at all.” And further: “You cannot buy
trousers without the coat – the factory sews only whole suits.” The journalist
interviewed local representatives of trade and industry: in a typical manner

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they all blamed each other for these shortcomings. Industry claimed that
trade did not order more fashionable clothes, arguing that they did not meet
any demand; trade for its part argued that industry was neither willing nor
able to produce them.
The interviewed representative of industry in his turn blamed the
representatives of the wholesale organization: “the main principle guiding
the workings of the wholesale station is to make things simpler and therefore
this principle even guides the directors of the factories.”
The article ends in a slightly ironic tone typical of such Soviet critical
journalism: “We are not against simplicity. But one should not advance it
to that degree. Why should the inhabitants of Smolensk all wear just one
particular model of clothes just because it happens to be convenient to the
Smolensk wholesale organization of industrial products? Why does the dress
have to be a uniform?”
Finally, the author paid attention to one more typical shortcoming of
the clothing industry: no one paid attention to children’s wear in Smolensk
and therefore it was almost impossible to find a good and relatively cheap
children’s winter coat in any of the shops. The article also makes some
positive suggestions on how to improve the supply of goods and more varied
clothing in Smolensk. Referring to the opinion of the interviewed factory
workers, it suggested increasing specialization as the best solution: one
factory should specialize only in overcoats and suits, men’s, women’s and
children’s. Obviously they could then turn out more varied models of each
particular item of dress they produced.549
In the central newspaper of the Soviet trade ministry, Sovetskaya
torgovlia, Z. Pariskaya,550 a doctor of economics, revealed in 1962 rather
crude examples of the negligence in the clothing industry: “Some garments
are made only in size 50, others only in 46. At some times an overcoat or a
men’s suit is sewn only in black cloth, others in only brown.” In the opinion
of the author, the main problem was that no one knew and followed the real
demand for various kinds of clothes. This was a typical claim often heard
from the representatives of Soviet trade who at the same time let the other
involved parties understand explicitly that the trade organizations should
be given a greater role in economic planning since they, if anyone, knew
what the population really needed and wanted to buy. The shortcomings
that the main Lithuanian newspaper Sovetskaya Litva revealed were even
more serious. According to one author, the designs that the Vilnius House
of Fashion Design had suggested for the year were totally out of proportion.
The size 42–44 overcoat fitted grown women who usually wore sizes 46–48
but at the same time the sleeves were too short for a child.551
Another common type of newspaper report discussed and revealed
serious shortcomings in the planning of the production of essential raw
materials, like buttons or colors, which the garment industry and clothing
production absolutely needed. In the leading Soviet newspaper of economic
matters, Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, Georgii Mariagin took up the burning
problem of the colors of textiles and clothes. The colors were namely very
monotonic. To find out what caused the problem he interviewed prominent
representatives of the chemical and textile industries. Not surprisingly, he

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found out that the supply of the coloring chemicals was not adequate. Many
factories only fulfilled one third of their quotas. The promise of the soon
arriving abundance of coloring chemicals – due to the expected progress in
technology and science – had not been fulfilled. In the whole of Leningrad
there was not a single factory that could produce them as there were not
enough raw materials available. But this was not enough: at any one time
the customer only found clothes for sale in a single color, because different
colors were always produced periodically. During one quarter of the year all
clothes were brown, in the next another color.552
The evening newspaper at the city of Perm (in the Urals) concisely
formulated this basic problem of the Soviet fashion industry in March 1972.
The author was inspired by the Estonian designs published in the Tallinn
fashion journal Siluett:

How we all would like to dress like they do on the pages of Siluett but,
unfortunately, at the time the local house of fashion design is mainly occupied
with its own perspectives and the factory with its own plan. ... And therefore,
who knows, we’ll probably have to meet even this spring dressed in old coats.553

The role of fashion in socialism was keenly discussed in the 1960s in

Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR. The distinguished Soviet economist A. Braver-
man’s article of 1963,554 “Fashion with the Economist’s Eyes,” is a systematic
and sober attempt to analyze the phenomenon of fashion and its place in
a planned economy.555 Braverman realistically identified the basic limitations
facing the social mechanism of fashion under socialism. But what others
could have interpreted to be a serious shortcoming in the production of
fashionable clothing Braverman turned into a legitimate achievement. As
Braverman categorically stated in the beginning of his article, it would
be wrong to expect that socialist industry should clothe the population
according to the latest fashion. It was true that in Communism the needs of
the man would be satisfied, but this promise could not possibly be true of all
the possible needs of man. Only the rational needs of man were worthy of
satisfaction. Obviously, the need for a new fashion which changed itself over
and over again was not a rational need, or at least it shared serious irrational
features. The logical consequence was that the existing system of fashion had
to be adopted to better correspond to the economic conditions of socialism.
One could not simply expect that everything would be solved automatically
with the gradual growth of the socialist economy and industry. Fashion,
as Braverman correctly noted, leads to the artificial and premature ageing
of clothes. In consequence, a coat, for instance, will go out of fashion and
become obsolete sooner than it otherwise would with normal wear and tear.
From this fact Braverman did not, however, draw the logical conclusion that
fashion was an anomaly under socialism and therefore should preferably
be abolished totally. On the contrary, even he seemed to take its existence
for granted and therefore he only suggested that the mechanism of fashion
should be somewhat modified to better fit the conditions of the socialist
economy. It was important to remember that Soviet fashion differed, after all,
from bourgeois fashion in its principles. It was less extravagant and did not

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change as rapidly and as often as its bourgeois counterpart. In Braverman’s

opinion, the logical solution demanded by the Soviet economic system
was therefore to build up a system of periodically and regularly changing
fashions in such a way that a garment, even if it stopped pretending to be
at the top of the fashion cycle anymore, would still guarantee the aesthetic
satisfaction of the man.556
As Braverman reasoned, there is nothing mystical about the workings
of fashion. Since fashion is after all created by living, concrete people it
can be changed by their wills too: consequently, much depends on how the
fashion designers and other specialists understand their own function in
fashion. What is fashionable depends, in Braverman’s opinion, to a great
extent on the decisions of the organizations creating fashion.557 What was
mostly needed was to organize the effective propagation of fashion (on
TV, fashion shows, fashion press, etc.), which would take care to keep the
old designs fashionable longer and to make the shift from one fashion to
another more gradual. The fashion designers were supposed to take care of
this task. In the last instance, Braverman thus implicitly accused the fashion
designers and the organizations responsible for the creation of fashion
of acting politically irresponsibly by too eagerly propagating their own
novelties, thus promoting their own case at the cost of the whole national
economy. Therefore, Braverman demanded a total and quick reorientation
and the consequent establishment of a genuinely Soviet system of fashion
which would mainly take care of preserving the aesthetic value and worth
of clothing longer than was the case at present. Braverman supported the
active promotion of a kind of anti-fashion propaganda. In his opinion, the
necessary decisions needed to be made immediately before it was too late.558
What Braverman suggested, in other words, was that the state should
more effectively and powerfully interfere with the creation of fashion in
order to control and restrain it. This was in line with the aesthetic ideals
and principles of good taste which above all emphasized moderation and
avoidance of all kinds of extravagance. As we have seen, these ideals were
also eagerly propagated by the Soviet fashion consultants and artistic experts,
who often had an academic education in art history and aesthetics.
The other, not necessarily opposite but rather complementary view
put great hopes in the scientific prognoses of fashion changes – or what
would nowadays be called trendsetting. If only the trends of fashion could
be predicted several years in advance, they could naturally also be better
taken into account in the general economic plans. The very founding of
VIALegprom in the late 1960s, for instance, was heavily motivated by such
arguments and followed by great expectations. In his article “On the Concept
of Fashion” A. Zinoviev559 went so far in his belief in the power of science that
he called for a general theory of fashion with the help of which its changes
could be understood and predicted better. Such a general theory would,
out of necessity, be based on a mathematical model. What is interesting in
Zinoviev’s article of 1971 is that he believed that the development of a proper
theory of fashion was all the more important because the phenomenon of
fashion did not restrict its influence to the culture of dress alone. Quite the
contrary, “it cannot be doubted that people act under the influence of fashion

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to a great extent.”560 But while waiting for such a general science of fashion
to materialize itself it was logical to follow Braverman’s advice and just try to
slow down the rhythm of fashion.
The year 1971 saw the publication of two influential experts, A. Levashova’s
and I. Gordon’s article “Fashion and Economics,” which admitted that the
wish to dress fashionably was totally legitimate in the Soviet Union and in
socialism in general. The publication of this principal statement in Pravda,
the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the USSR, gave its arguments special weight and authority in the public
debate. They were not just private scholarly opinions but approved of by
the high party leadership. In writing that “the renewal of dress has become
an aesthetic need to the human being” they raised fashion to the level of a
need, the satisfaction of which, together with the other human needs, the
individual had every right to expect in the socialist society.561
When it came to the bottom line it is easy to agree with V. Dukor’s
opinion, based on the results of the All-Union conference of the workers
and employees of the linen industry. He formulated the basic dilemma of the
Soviet fashion industry very compactly: “In order that all the factories should
be able to turn out such products [as fashionable and as high quality clothes
as the designs of ODMO-authors] two things are necessary: raw materials
and machines.”562

The Question of the Small Series and firmennye magaziny

Throughout the existence of the Soviet fashion houses and other fashion
institutes the representatives of these organizations had one solution
to offer to the problem of how to cope with changing fashions and the
demand for more individual and varied clothes in the system of the planned
economy: this solution, repeated from time to time, was the production of
small experimental series and, even better, small series that would be sold
in the shops of the fashion houses themselves, firmennye magaziny. Such
a system of regularly produced small series could, in the minds of the Soviet
fashion experts, successfully bridge the huge gap that now existed between
the individual designs of garments and the mass production of clothes. As
a matter of fact, these small series and firmennye magaziny can be seen as
a close parallel to the semi-mass fashion which had emerged in the West
shortly before in the form of boutiques selling the designs of a fashion
couturier under its own trademark or brand, common in the Western
fashion market since the 1960s.563
As the Soviet protagonists of such small series argued, under socialism
they would serve at least three main purposes. For the first, fashion
designers could more easily experiment with new designs and make more
rapid changes in their designs when this did not lead to the economically
expensive change of the whole production line in the clothing factory. For
the second, such small series would also introduce more varied designs
into the fashion market. And finally, by “marketing” such small series, the
fashion houses could study the market and the actual demand in practice to

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find out which designs in fact found their interested customers and which
did not. This could, of course, be more easily done in a shop of one’s own
where one could follow the changes in demand from one day to the next.
Obviously, the fashion houses had also calculated that these small series
would be economically profitable to them. Customers could easily identify
with their branded clothing and could better vote with their money for
the more fashionable products. This would lead to increasing competition,
which eventually led to the economic success of some producers at the
cost of others. Since bankruptcy was not possible and unemployment not
tolerated real economic competition could not be encouraged or tolerated
either. As a consequence only a few big, important and more prestigious
factories situated near the city centers, like Bolshevichka or Zhenskaya moda
at Moscow, were allowed to open their own boutiques, usually attached to
their premises.
It is obvious that many Soviet fashion institutes and their designers
had aspirations of producing such small series and they were repeatedly
discussed in the trade press. Even though we do not have reliable overall
statistics about the prevalence of such practices we can safely say that many
fashion houses did engage in the production and selling of their own designs.
To what extent this took place within the limits of the official regulations
and plans, to what extent it depended more or less on the local initiative and
more on the informal entrepreneurship of the heads of the fashion houses
and institutes, is difficult to say. It is, however, obvious that it was almost
impossible to produce such relatively small and rapidly changing series of
fashionable clothes and at the same time not violate or overstep the official
rules and regulations of the planned economy. For instance, the very fact
that all the prices of all new products had to be approved of centrally either
in Moscow or at the republican level – a process which could take well over
half a year – made it almost impossible to experiment with fashion.
The sizes of these suggested – and at times realized – small series also
varied widely, from a couple of dozen to several hundred or even a couple
of thousand items. They could either be produced totally within a fashion
house or in a bigger atelier, or they were ordered using the original designs
from the local clothing industry and workshops.
For instance, in a report on the Tallinn House of Fashion Design, the
Zhurnal mod reported in 1971 that 15–20 items were produced in the House
and sold directly in the shops. As a representative of the House proudly
declared:

Here we shall know if the customers like our designs, what they expect from us
and what they do not want at all. As a matter of fact, the destiny of the future
designs will be totally decided here: will they be taken into production or turned
down.564

According to the author, such experimental parties had become more

important now that economic units had, with the adoption of the new
system of economic planning, to take into account their own profitability
more seriously. The artistic director of the Riga House of Fashion Design,

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A. Gramolina, reported in the journal Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR in 1971

that the Latvian house of fashion design in Riga was “one among the many
which had its own production unit to produce small series.”565 The author
made the quite radical suggestion of widely increasing the role of the special
fashion shops which, if realized, would have opened the Soviet clothing
market to an extensive segmentation according to the different assortment,
quality and price classes of the clothes on sale: some shops would sell only
cheap, mass produced clothes, others more fashionable ones with the
accompanying higher prices.
The same journal discussed problems of socialist design and fashion
eagerly all through the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973 it published an
interview with two important persons in Soviet fashion, Alla Levashova
and Vera Chertovskaya.566 In the beginning of the 1970s Levashova was the
director and Chertovskaya the head engineer of the recently founded Special
Designing Bureau (SKhKB) under the Ministry of Light Industry of the
Russian Federation. Levashova’s opinion was valued in particular since she
had extensive previous experience of working at ODMO. This special bureau
was founded, like many other design organizations before and after it, in
order to bridge the gap between the individual, unique fashion designs and
the mass production of clothes. As the article claimed, the artists working in
the fashion houses usually had fashion shows and exhibitions on their mind.
Therefore the demands of the “broad masses” which should be the natural
goal in designing clothes were often forgotten. According to Levashova, what
was needed in order to remedy this problem was a totally new structure
of fashion design consisting of three different levels of designs: individual
or unique designs, small series, and designs for mass production. By that
time in the Soviet Union only the two extremes, the unique and the mass
production levels existed. In consequence, the necessary link between them
was lacking. According to Levashova, it was not difficult to design beautiful
clothes as such. It was on the other hand very difficult to get them adopted
in the streets. The Soviet designers made a mistake in imagining that in
Paris any design was good enough for industrial production. As Levashova
claimed to know, this was not the case at all.567
The editions of the small series propagated by Levashova were to be 200,
maximally 500 items of any single design. As Levashova explained, it was
quite natural and was to be acknowledged by all involved that not every
item of all the 200 new designs which her institute turned over to the firms
of the Russian Federation would be equally well received by the customers.
It was not that easy to change the appearance of the modern man or woman.
Levashova took up, as a good example of the real successes of Soviet design,
a popular youth design, the suit of the “harvester” which she together with
her colleagues had designed on the order of the Komsomol Youth League
some ten years before. According to her, it was still at the time of the
interview gladly and proudly worn by all the student battalions working on
the big construction projects or in the fields during their summer vacation:
“We hit a need, found a practical garment that was convenient to the industry,
and the rest was done by the students themselves.”568 What made these suits
so remarkable was that the students took an active part in designing them

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by decorating their own work uniforms with all kinds of cooperative signs
identifying their own work unit and place of work.569 These suits were all
identical uniforms of the work battalions but this creative and spontaneous
praxis gave each of them an interesting individual flavor. To Levashova, this
was living proof that these suits had really become a cherished part of the
Soviet popular youth dress culture.
Levashova’s colleague, the main engineer of the Bureau Chertovskaya,
reminded the readers that one of the main problems on the way to
transforming individual fashion designs into industrial mass products was
the extremely complicated process of the price determination of novelties,
which did not at all promote the development of the new rapidly changing
fashions. Any change of design demanded by fashion also presumed as
a rule a different amount of work time and raw materials than the previous
fashionable design even in the case of otherwise almost identical products.
This fact threatened to ruin the whole economy of the fashion organization.
Therefore it was easier not to try to find how the new design would really
appeal to the taste of the masses but rather just to find out how it fit into the
economic plan. Such an approach would naturally not lead to a satisfactory
result from the point of view of the consumer.570
Despite the fact that a clear consensus seems to have reigned regarding the
need for such small, experimental series and special clothing shops among
the Soviet specialists, and despite the fact that hardly anyone openly seemed
to object to the idea, and despite the further fact that many fashion houses
and institutes obviously experimented in practice with them, they were
never, judging from the repeatedly arising suggestions and complaints, made
an integral part of the Soviet fashion system. There was an obvious reason for
the ambivalent attitude towards this issue: the suggested firmennye magasiny
did not really fit into the system of the centrally directed and controlled
planned economy with its centrally controlled prices and production goals.
In addition there was always the danger that the “factory outlets” that had
come into being through the initiative of the local economic actors would
get out of the controlling hands of the central planning organizations and
develop into bigger economic units working beyond the guidelines or at
the margins of the plan and, even more problematically, beyond the direct
control of the central planning and decision making organizations, in the
last instance the Communist Party. The authorities were often suspicious
of such, in themselves quite reasonable and limited, economic experiments
because they obviously feared that they could easily get out of hand and
sow dangerous seeds of private entrepreneurship and profit making, always
lurking at the margins of the socialist, planned economy.

The Rules of Decency and the Proper Soviet Dress Code

Most of the Soviet experts and instructors took it for granted that one should
follow fashion in one’s dress. The article “Do you want the dress beautifully?”
from Kazakhstan explained in 1963 in a typical manner to its young readers
why one should not ignore fashion: “Sooner or later the surrounding

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people will think that you look funny. As a matter of fact, don’t you also
think that such women are funny who cannot live without an overcoat with
cotton shoulder pads or leather flowers? Nothing is worse in fashion than
standardization. If you all wore similar costumes, what a dull picture that
would be.”571
According to the usual advice one should by no means follow every whim
of fashion. This warning was regularly heard in the press, for instance in the
Party newspaper of the city of Zaporozhye (Ukraine). In “How to Dress with
Taste” the author explained that

we call caprices of fashion all kinds of strange exaggerations and deviances from
the generally accepted norms. These should be avoided by all means in the dress.
This is relevant in relation to the length or width of the dress or skirt as well as the
size of the collar and the form of the arms. Such designs, patterns or details which
do not have any practical function only draw, because of their inutility, attention
to themselves. Such caprices of fashion will rapidly pass away, as unnecessary
and contingent, not resulting from the demands of beauty and practicality, and,
instead, the basic and generally accepted lines will stay.572

To many Soviet fashion advisers, functionality and practicality, and the

adjoining rule of modesty, were the ultimate principles of Soviet fashion
which they thought separated it from fashion in the West. In a similar way,
A. Tikhonov, a design engineer of the fashion house of the Ministry of
Everyday Services at Cherkessk in the Caucasus, wrote in Leninskoe znamia
that in opposition to the typical extravagances of Western fashion, modern
Soviet fashion relied on pleasant, functional and beautiful forms: “One
should follow fashion, but one should remember also that beautiful is above
all something which is modest, and does not demand too much attention.”573
Warnings against “too much or too trivial fashion” were very common in
these reports. An artistic consultant from Moscow, E. Semenova, wrote in the
Belorussian youth newspaper that one should “remember that something that
is in fashion a short time is not necessarily beautiful as such.” The author took
up some concrete warning examples of such short lived fads. “Fashionable”
huge English pins once appeared suddenly for sale. They were supposed to
be used as hooks. In the opinion of the author, such pins of ordinary size
are very useful but when enlarged to the measures of caricature they are not
beautiful anymore. Similarly, huge sparkling spiders are not beautiful either:
“They hardly make a dress more beautiful at all.”574 Typically, while raising
a warning finger the article at the same time encouraged people to follow
fashion in general in order to dress more beautifully. The “warnings” were
directed not against fashion as such but only against particular examples of
too excessive or extraordinary taste.
In answering in 1960 the oft-posed question “Is it worthwhile to follow
fashion?” Kustanaiskii komsomolets, a youth newspaper from Kazakhstan,
felt it necessary to point out that the solution to beauty is not fashion alone.
Instead of blindly following fashion, one has to know what best suits one
and how to wear it:

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Yes, but not simply blindly to follow it but to follow it with reason, not to give
way to the occasional deviances, not to try to grasp every novelty but to evaluate
with dignity every novelty designed by designers. This is important, in particular,
because not every novelty makes every individual beautiful. Of two people, both
dressed equally fashionably, one can be tastelessly and unattractively dressed, the
other beautifully and with good taste.575

Such rather general and admittedly abstract advice was common enough
in the Soviet press in those days: they all ended up recommending great
moderation and personal reflection, that is, not to follow fashion blindly but
to adapt every single fashion to one’s personal style. Similar recommendations
were quite common in many Western ladies’ journals and fashion columns
in newspapers at the same time.
Ural’skii rabochii, from the city of Sverdlovsk, explained in 1960 to
its readers that any new fashion can in the beginning feel strange and
repugnant simply because it is new and therefore people are not used to it.
In consequence, disputes about fashion are quite natural:

A new fashion is introduced into life in steps at the same time that the old one has
already achieved the power of a habit. This explains the vehement disputes about
the beauty of ‘wide shoulders’ or ‘narrowed trousers.’ Often such disputes do not
concern so much the new lines or silhouettes of the dress but the violations of
proportion.576

The same popular theme of the right proportions, harmony and moderation
was continued in L. Tikhovskaya’s article “To have a beautiful look everywhere
and everyplace.” Tikhovskaya was a well-known art director. She presented
a long list of extravagances which some people took to be fashionable but
which in fact were only proof of the bad taste of their wearer:

Once I happened to meet on the street a young person. All passersby involuntarily
stared in his direction disapprovingly. Narrow, short trousers with huge cuffs. The
shirt which was hanging over the trousers had an unbelievable scale of colors. On
the tie some apes or perhaps crocodiles. Boots completed the whole picture with
their almost one quarter of a meter long points, and a tiny moustache on a very
young face looked as if it had been glued on it. This young man was, obviously,
quite convinced that he was dressed according to the latest fashion.577

In the author’s opinion, these were all examples of dress which unnecessarily
exaggerated all kinds of fashionable details, thus in fact producing an
impression of bad taste. This, as well as many similar outbursts of worry
concerning such extreme forms of youth fashion, often had a strong
moralizing tone too. The way people dressed was not only a question of
beauty but also an expression of their inner moral worth and decency. On
the other hand, almost all the authors hurried to deny that they would have
advocated a style of clothing without any change or variation. As they
reminded, those who thought that grey, boring clothes and old fashions were
adequate for the youth should know better that “our industry makes for our
youth in particular light, bright and joyous clothes.” The Soviet man and

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

woman who also possessed inner spiritual beauty had both a right and an
obligation to strive after beauty even in their clothing and outer appearance.
Quite rightly, “now everything possible is done in our country that she could
dress herself according to her increasing demands and in accordance with
her physical and age peculiarities.”578
The Soviet disputes about fashion and good taste often fluently blended
the issues of beauty with issues of moral decency. Thus, a beautiful dress
should not violate the rules of common decency. Otherwise it could not
be regarded as genuinely beautiful. Women wearing trousers, breaking the
ancient rule regulating difference between women’s and men’s dress, was the
hot topic in the Soviet press in the 1960s.579 Women’s trousers and pant suits
were extremely important and, in the beginning, quite controversial cultural
innovations in the 1960s in the capitalist West too.580
In 1960 the newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya Karaganda (Kazakhstan) took
a clear stance against women wearing trousers in public places, at the same
time admitting that trousers did not spoil a woman if the situation demanded
wearing them (work, tourism, sports and exercise) “but to go to an institute,
cinema or a canteen in trousers is not appropriate at all.” The article gives
detailed advice about the proper women’s dress in other aspects too: “To visit
a club of culture one should select a dark toned dress proper to the style. If
the dress is slightly low-necked then one should cover one’s shoulders with
a scarf.”581
In 1959 the artistic director of the Rostov house of fashion design,
T. I. Ostrovskii, took up the same question of women’s trousers in the youth
paper Komsomolets, published in Rostov-na-Donu. This was obviously
one of the hot topics of the years 1959–1960. He corrected some general
misconceptions concerning proper women’s dress:

For some reason some girls think that one can wear trousers in the evening at
the club, or in the dances. This is not true. As a costume for going out trousers
are not suitable at all. In dressing, like in everything else, one should follow the
right sense of proportion.582

In addition to the questions of decency associated with sexual morality

another burning question was whether the fact that people were living under
socialism set any particular or new demands on the proper dress code. In
the evening paper Vecherniaya gazeta M. Gaimanova, the artistic director
of the Kirghiz House of Fashion Design, admitted in her turn in 1959 that

a new fashion can, at first glance, look very extravagant, and many think that it
does not at all fit everyone. Such an impression is typical only in the beginning,
when one sees totally new lines and one does not know them in detail. Almost
every new fashion looks strange and even ugly in the beginning.583

The article in general presented a cautious defense of fashion in socialist

society. It ended with a rather interesting comparison and an attempt to
distinguish between bourgeois and socialist fashion:

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A part of our population thinks that the dress of a Soviet man or woman should
be totally different from the dress of other countries. However we know that
in the bourgeois society two cultures exist side by side – a bourgeois culture
and a people’s culture. The one is aimed at the peak of the bourgeois society,
and it advertises extravagant, often exaggerated forms which can develop into
absurdity. The other – the dress of the working population connects utility,
comfort and simplicity with the artistic taste. And these same demands we
promote as the basic principles of the Soviet design. Our designers make use of
the new trends suggested by foreign designers only when they conform to our
perceptions about the dress suitable to our working way of life.

“Fashion – a year ahead” was similarly convinced that the Soviet designers
worked only for the people – in contrast to the designers of the capitalist
countries who usually did not care about the demands of the wider circles of
society and only catered to the rich:

And even if our designers do not so far have enough experience in order to
determine the main direction of fashion in adapting fashion practically to the
demands of everyday life, in creating practical, necessary and various clothes
for everyone’s demand they, without doubt, can and should win the golden palm
leaf.584

Once again, the main features which distinguished the socialist dress from
the capitalist were practicality, functionality and modesty which all, in
practice, amounted to the avoidance of extravagance.
At first glance it might seem strange that the public discussions and
debates about fashion in the Soviet press did not often refer to the norms
of sexual morality. It seems that these questions were taken more or less for
granted. They were hardly ever challenged publicly. Fashion and sexuality
were without a doubt closely related in the Soviet Union just like everywhere
else.

The Everlasting Campaign against Bad Taste

One of the most peculiar reports in the campaign against the stiliagis was
published in the Party newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda on 31 March
1959.585 Its title alone was provocative: “One should dispute about the
matters of taste!” The article characteristically took up a concrete case which
had raised moral concerns among the citizens of Leninogorsk, a mining
town in Kazakhstan. A young worker and Komsomol activist from a village
in the Leninogorsk district, Gennadii Sidorov, got the questionable honor
of personalizing a serious moral dilemma. Sidorov’s portrait had namely
appeared in a caricature in the local satirical wall paper heavily criticizing the
stiliagi. In addition to being shown with the typical characteristics of stiliagi
he had been portrayed as a drunkard and a hooligan, and the caricature had
been displayed in the shop window on the main street of the district center.
(Fig. 8.5.)

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

Fig. 8.5. “Even apes laugh at

stiliagi!” A typical caricature
published in the Soviet press.

When the journalist of the Party paper who had been sent to the village
with the mission to investigate the case asked the editor of the wall paper he
admitted that he had never seen Sidorov drunk or engaged in any other kind
of anti-Soviet, punishable behavior. The only reason why he was presented
in this manner seemed therefore to be the way he dressed himself, and in
particular the width of his trousers, the usual sign and sin of a stiliagi. As
the journalist continued his investigations it turned out that the head of the
local militia, who had also been active in publicly condemning Sidorov, had
in fact a very peculiar idea of what it meant to dress oneself properly. He
did not, for instance, approve of a young worker wearing a tie. Neither did
he think that a Mackintosh rain coat could ever be an appropriate garment.
And if he met any youngster wearing trousers narrower than 30 centimeters
at the local cinema he automatically expelled them from the hall and kicked
them out on the street.
As the investigation continued the reader also learned that Sidorov
had become good friends with Igor Skachkov, who had graduated from
the House Construction Institute in the Kazakhstan capital city Alma-Ata.
Skachkov had decided to change his profession and had come to work in the
same mineshaft as Sidorov. According to the local witnesses, at the beginning
of their friendship everything was just as before but gradually Sidorov’s
character started to change. He did not want to live at the dormitory anymore,
since there was too much noise. Most notably, he did not like the rule that
visitors were not allowed in the evenings. Sidorov and Skachkov therefore
moved into the hotel actually reserved only for “educated specialists.” The

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

room was expensive but it allowed them to go out at night because the keeper
of the hotel did not interfere in their comings and goings. What was even
more serious, they did not care about their previous friends and work mates
anymore and passed them in the street in their stylish clothes and specially
done hair, totally refusing to recognize them. Because of all these strange
changes in their behavior the townspeople started to call them stiliagis.
So far the story was quite typical and could be told about many youngsters
in the various corners of the Soviet Union who in one way or another rebelled
against the social norms which they experienced to be too restrictive. What
made this particular case especially interesting was that the two young men
had not been willing to adopt the label of stiliagis that the local guardians
of proper behavior wanted to paste on them. During a hearing arranged by
the local Komsomol organization, Sidorov defended himself steadfastly and
convincingly against the accusations of being a stiliagi. “What kind of stiliagi
are we just because we want to dress ourselves fashionably?” he asked. “We
do not drink, we do not harass girls, but work diligently at our mine shaft.
And if we dress according to the fashion, what’s wrong with that after all?”
he continued.
After hearing Sidorov’s defense the local Komsomol Committee had to
admit that it was not wrong for a young person to dress fashionably. But why
did he have to break up with his previous friends? In this respect Sidorov
admitted his mistake and to make up for it he kindly invited his whole work
brigade to the factory canteen to celebrate his birthday under very pleasant
conditions. In consequence, he became almost a local hero among his work
mates. The question remained whether the head of the local militia had
been wrong in this case in too eagerly condemning these youngsters simply
because of their extravagantly fashionable dress.
In order to be sure that his judgement would be as well-founded and
impartial as possible the “investigative” reporter of the Party newspaper paid
a visit to Sidorov and his comrade Skachkov in their hotel room. Sidorov was
well prepared and did not have anything to hide: “Please, take a look, said
Sidorov opening the clothes closet. As you can see everything here is sewn
according to the patterns of the Moscow fashion journal. We subscribe to
it.”586 Since their clothes were thus authorized by the central fashion experts
of Moscow there could hardly be anything wrong with them.
But the case could not yet be judged conclusively in favor of Sidorov
and his friend. The clothes closet was namely not the only thing that the
reporter observed in their room that raised his curiosity. He saw kinds
of other interesting things, too, speaking both in favor of and against the
good character of the boys. For instance, their skis proved that the boys
were active sportsmen – another proof of the good character expected from
a proper Komsomol youth. But something else, more suspect turned up:
above the bed hung a rather crude oil painting with an openly obscene
subject. According to Sidorov, it was a present from a friend. As if this were
not enough to question the moral character of the boys, a couple of the works
of the Western abstractionists lay among the fashion journals on the table.
When asked whether they really liked the pictures, Skachkov, obviously the
“expert on art” among the two, answered affirmatively that the works were

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

very interesting. As he argued, the unexpected combination of the colors

raised various associations. Next the journalist’s attention was directed to
the window sill on which he recognized a record player and a tape recorder
together with some gramophone discs with foreign labels. “We like jazz
music,” Skachkov hurried to explain.587
With the accumulation of the “evidence” for and against the boys
it gradually became evident to the journalist why the local authorities
did not approve of Sidorov’s and Skachkov’s taste and why they thought
it was harmful enough to be worth a serious public reprimand. As the
article advances, the boys are connected to almost all the possible – and
in the Soviet minds, standard – dangerous signs of a character spoiled by
bourgeois taste in almost all fields of culture, from clothes to art and music.
The investigative journalist could now finally summarize his report and read
his final verdict:

Now it becomes quite clear why the two good working kids, the two Komsomol
boys started to favor the taste that is alien to the Soviet youth. No, the question is
not about the line of the suit coat nor of the width of the trousers! In Leninogorsk
many youngsters dress up according to fashion and take care of their appearance.
But only Sidorov and Skachkov, only these two, paid all their attention and
thoughts to a “chic” tie, to the new foreign gramophone discs of boogie-
boogie and the hair cut like an overgrown cocoon. Their false thoughts about
originality led Sidorov and Skachkov to the point when they started to avoid
their work comrades. How come! Only they two get lost in the novelties of the
abstractionists, only they can tell how to dance the hula-hula.588

If their only “crime” had been their fashionable dress, looking like a stiliagi,
this would not have been a real problem. But at the same time they had
developed a “strange” or foreign taste which was apparent in their preference
for abstract art and American jazz music. The only thing that strongly spoke
in their favor was that they were good workmen who did not get drunk, did
not harass girls or end up in any fights in the streets. In many ways Sidorov
and Skachkov were thus decent, ordinary guys after all. No one was claiming
that they would have committed any crimes. The case investigated here was
made complicated by the fact that the characters of the two suspects were
not painted only in black or white but were obviously more complex and,
above all, quite ambivalent. Therefore the journalist was faced with a serious
dilemma: how could one explain that the boys were good, work-loving
citizens of the Soviet Union and at the same time had a highly suspicious,
corrupted bourgeois taste? And what should one do about it?
The most interesting thing about this article published in 1959 in this
central party newspaper of the Republic is that the reporter does not propose
any straightforward solution to the problem. He admits that Sidorov’s and
Skachkov’s taste is a problem. It is alien to the Soviet youth. Furthermore it
is “dangerous too because it looks like they are not alone but have ‘followers’
among the local youth: A group of young men gather around Sidorov and
Skachkov who think that rock’n roll and cocktail drinks are the highest
achievements of culture.”589

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The article does not suggest direct reprimands towards the boys but
neither does it propose that the local Komsomol organisation should leave
the boys to their own “private hobbies.” As a matter of fact, the reporter
supported a proposal made earlier by Skachkov himself. He had offered to
engage in a public debate about the kind of music the young people really
liked, the kind broadcasted by the All-Union radio station or the kind
recorded on the tapes by Skachkov. The reporter actively supported the
idea that the local Komsomol organization should engage more often in
such open disputes in order to finally make Sidorov and Skachkov – and all
their ilk – understand their mistakes and regain the respect of their working
collective.
There are at least three lessons to be learned from this multifaceted history
recorded in great detail in the Kazakhstan Communist Party newspaper. The
first point is that it was not a crime in itself to dress fashionably anymore.
The second point is that one was not supposed to judge a person’s character
on the basis of his or her outer appearance alone even though in this respect
the message of the paper is somewhat ambivalent: taste in dress was not
dangerous as such but it could obviously develop into a problem when
spreading to other areas like music or art. Then it would obviously indicate
some serious problems in the character of the young man. The third point
is that the best way to cope with such problems of deviant behavior was not
public humiliation and punishment but education of taste and propagation
of fashion in a public dialogue with the persons concerned and the Soviet
youth in particular.
A similar stance on this important question of the politics of taste
was expressed in 1960 in the Moscow-based newspaper Komsomol’skaya
Pravda,590 the main organ of the Soviet Communist Youth League, which
commented on the recent activities of the overzealous Komsomol activists
at the famous Soviet summer resort Sochi on the Black Sea coast. The article
was based on readers’ letters reporting their own experiences, another
common method of dealing with difficult moral issues in the Soviet press.
A highly respected citizen and laureate of the Stalin prize, Docent Leviatin
from Leningrad, had witnessed how the local druzhinniki (voluntary street
militia) of the Komsomol activists had not only forbidden men to wear
brightly colored shirts and women to wear trousers but even tore them to
pieces when met in the streets of Sochi. The writer of the letter admits that
he, in his advanced age, is personally not a great friend of such youth fashion
but wonders if the reactions of the local Komsomol activists were really the
right way to tackle the problem. A lawyer from Lithuania, D. Freishmanene,
wonders on her part why girls were not allowed to wear trousers in Sochi.
This was strange, in particular since such a habit was in her opinion quite
common in the Baltic Soviet Republics. She had, however, learned that the
prohibition on women’s trousers in public places, like streets, was part of the
official regulations of the local authorities of the city of Sochi. The author of
the article in Komsomol’skaya Pravda regarded such reactions and measures
as signs of intolerance. In her opinion they were, unfortunately, not only
typical of Sochi. In the same article, two girls from the Amur region in the

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Far East reported, for instance, that in their village anyone who differed
from the common mass was treated as a stiliagi. Their regional Komsomol
Committee even told them in an authoritarian manner to dress so that they
would not differ from the rest, not to show off.
The journalist Koleshnikova who compiled and commented on these
readers’ letters did not propose any clear cut measures, neither did she
engage in the dispute over what really is good taste and what is really decent
and proper. It was, however, obvious that her sympathies were on the side
of young people who wanted to wear trousers or bright colors and dress up
more fashionably. Above all, the article published in this main Komsomol
newspaper of the USSR clearly condemns the aggressive manner in which
the local Komsomol militia at the popular holiday resort of Sochi, which
every year gathered millions of visitors from all over the Soviet Union,
reacted to the visitors who dressed themselves in a new and slightly more
daring manner. At the same time she, in a typically balanced way, also admits
that the youth can and – often do – outdo themselves by taking to all kinds
of extravagance thus breaking the norms of good taste. In these matters the
article puts its hope in the Soviet propaganda for good taste and, even more
than that, in the power of the good example:

Right now in the center of Sochi, on the Kurort Porspekt, they finish the building
of the new fashion house [of the Ministry of Everyday Services – the authors].
We’d like to believe that this building in the modern light and plain style will
become a real propagator machine of the best ways of dressing. How useful it
would be to organize regularly in the atelier exhibitions about the new models of
the season with the title ‘This is fashionable with us.’ It would also be a good idea
to hang alongside it examples of the opposite, silly style.

As she concluded, what makes these questions important is that they do not
touch upon the issues of fashion alone: “We talk too little about the questions
of culture, ethics and aesthetics with our youth, with our Komsomol. The
time has come to start to seriously think about this!”591
These two articles show in a clear way the dilemmas facing the Soviet
political, aesthetic and ethical educators and the guardians of popular morals
in reacting to the cautious signs of the emergence of an unofficial youth
culture, with its more spontaneous and individualistic style of dress. They
were certainly not the only ones published in the Soviet press at about the
same time.
By the beginning of the 1960s the Soviet commentators on fashion
seemed to agree on the right answer to the general question of whether
fashion and the style of dress, even such extravagances as those typical of the
stiliagi, could be regarded as reliable signs of one’s moral character. According
to this consensus, one should not pay undue attention to details of the dress
or draw far-reaching conclusions about them but, at the same time, general
questions of good taste did matter. This position was formulated clearly and
in an exemplary manner in 1961 in “Some remarks on the beautiful dress”
in the Voronezh based youth newspaper Kommuna:

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In the vehemence of the struggle against the stiliagi one often pays attention to
such things as the width of the trousers, the length of the garment, etc. As matter
of fact, there is nothing wrong as such with such modern lines, or fashionable
details. The real danger lies in the lack of proper measure and in the silly manner
of wearing a costume.... We can and must educate people in good taste.592

In another youth newspaper, Komsomolets Turkmenistana, E. Palienko,

a geomorphologist from the Central Complex Expedition came to the
same conclusion even more convincingly.593 The author reminded his
readers in 1959 that men are more inclined to lag behind in fashion. One
reason obviously was that prejudices prevailed about the moral character
of “too fashionable” men. In his opinion one should be careful not to blend
fashionable dressing with bad character, or in general to draw any direct
conclusions about the moral character of the man from his outer appearance.
He used, unsurprisingly, the example of stiliagis, well known to his readers,
in order to illustrate the point:

One does not become a ‘stiliag’ simply by dressing fashionably. Stiliagi are people
who have the narrow mentality of the petite-bourgeoisie, who are without any
proper occupation, in particular, good-for-nothings, drunkards, lewd or base
people. Should one therefore count a working young man in the same group as
a lazy lecher, just because their appearance happens to resemble each other to
an extent?594

Palienko openly welcomes the new men’s fashion even in its more extrava-
gant expressions:

One has to admit that it is a pleasure to look at a young man in blue trousers
with narrowing down legs and with a shirt of the same tone hanging outside the
trousers. Now many young people wear such trouser shirts. But just a year ago
they were openly laughed at.

Finally, he reminds his readers that it is only natural that they should
become more open to the novelties of fashion as a natural companion of the
advancing abundance of the socialist society: “Many might not agree with
me, defending the old. But does not our life get richer, fuller of contents, and
at the same time do not our views about beauty grow and change?”595
Published a couple of years later in the central Soviet newspaper Izvestiya,
“The case of the sarafan, the light, sleeveless women’s summer dress”596 was
openly directed against all overly eager protectors of public order and the
decency of the dress code. It told the story of a woman who on her way to
a concert in Odessa was stopped and fined by a militiaman simply because
she was not – in the eyes of the militiaman – properly dressed. According to
the official city regulations of public order one could get a 10 ruble fine for
wearing a sleeveless summer dress, or sarafan, in any public place because it
was too revealing. The woman’s crime was that she wore just such a sarafan.
The article shows clearly that such crude events of official interferences into
the dress code and proper behavior of ordinary people were not, in the early
1960s, restricted only to remote or provincial towns or villages. The article

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adopts, in a typical way, a double strategy in solving such dilemmas: it

condemns these crude measures of disciplining the taste of the citizens
and at the same time asks for the public education of taste instead so that
Soviet citizens – and the youth in particular – might learn how to dress
both fashionably and with style. To wear a sarafan should be no crime and
the reaction of the militiaman was wrong. On the other hand, as the article
let us understand, we should all be on the alert against the cruder violations
of good taste and common decency which are not at all that rare either.
As the author concluded, these are, in the end, matters of public opinion
and not of the penal code, and we should find the best ways to influence
it with means other than fines and other punishments. Strict prohibitions
and disciplinary measures will in such delicate matters only lead to disaster
and strengthen opposing reactions. Such administrative measures would
only give cause to further carelessness and “primitivism” by encouraging
people to recognize each other by their dress. They would start to think that
a sarafan, narrow trousers or a fashionable beard and hair-do were signs
of a good-for-nothing. This was not true at all, as the author concluded his
reflections.597
The stiliagis were in the 1940s and 1950s associated with a very specific
detail of dress, the extremely narrow legs of men’s trousers. This question of
the proper breadth of the trousers worried many Soviet citizens for a long
time, and they therefore asked the press for advice. The Soviet fashion created
by the state fashion institutions and their designers generally followed
international trends. Consequently, men’s trousers did get narrower and
broader cyclically – this seemed to cause a lot of uncertainty and it worried
many ordinary citizens who had traditionally gotten used to one or the other
in the breadth of their trousers. The “official” answer to this question was the
same as always: best to stay in the middle.
V. Solomatin from the city of Khabarovsk in the Far East suggested in
1960 in his letter to the Sovetskaya torgovlia newspaper a practical solution
to the problem of the proper breadth of the legs of trousers. In his opinion
the width of the trousers should correlate with the size of the shoes. The
bigger one’s shoe number the wider one’s trouser legs should be. This, as
a reasonable rule which could have solved the problem once and for all, was,
however, not approved of by the newspaper’s editors: “It is naturally not at
all necessary that the breadth of the trousers should follow the size of the
shoe!”598
Whereas the questions of women’s trousers and the breadth of trouser
legs were “evergreens” in the Soviet public discourse from the 1950s to
1970s, sometimes the experts’ advice on the proper dress code could be quite
esoteric too. Young people walking outside without a hat in the winter cold
was, in the memory of one of the authors of this book, one of the big issues in
the education of proper manners in Finland in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The same “fashion” had obviously spread to the northern parts of the
Soviet Union too, judging from a reader’s letter published in 1961 in the
youth newspaper Smena. A retired man, A. Ivanov, wondered whether
the strange habit among “our” youth of going without any hat in the cold
outdoors had come from the West and were “our” youngsters thus simply

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trying to imitate a harmful Western fashion not suitable to the northern

Russian climate.599
The answer to this as such reasonable inquiry was rather amazing. It was
not written by a fashion expert as usual but by a certain K. Smirnov, who was
a professor of medicine and, as a matter of fact, the head of the department
of physical culture at the State Institute of the Education of Physicians in
Leningrad. He explained that to go bareheaded outdoors is actually one of
the best ways to harden one’s body. The habit was, therefore, quite reasonable
and could be recommended to all. But the professor was clever enough to
remind his readers that even in this issue one should exercise moderation
and avoid going to extremes. In his medical expert’s opinion, when the
temperature was below zero to five degrees Celsius it was definitely not to be
recommended anymore.

The Soviet Ideology of Fashion

N. Versakov, a technologist from Zlatoust in the Urals, explicitly posed the

question in the newspaper Zlatoustovskii rabochii in 1962 of what fashion is,
after all, really about. Could one speak of the progress of fashion in the same
way as in science and technology?

Some comrades connect fashion with the progress of science and technology
... But why would just something like narrow trousers and one button on the
jacket more than anything else, in their opinion, correspond to scientific and
technological progress? In my mind this is absurd. Fashion must be rational,
corresponding to our culture and ethics.600

In Versakov’s opinion it was natural that every man and woman wanted to
dress beautifully. This was typical of all normal people. But it was bad if this
turned into an effort to dress fashionably at any cost and became the main
purpose of the life of a young man or woman. Then he or she would turn
into a slave of his or her own entertainment because everything else would
become subordinate to the wish not to lag behind in fashion. Fortunately
such people were not numerous. As Versakov concluded, “after all, even
they will have to enter with us into Communism!”601
If anything, the Soviet ideologists and theorists of fashion were unified
in their conception that neither the Soviet fashion designers nor ordinary
consumers should blindly follow just any fashion, but rather should show
moderation in their relation to fashion and, above all, avoid all kinds of
extravagance and caprice in their dress. In the Soviet Union as well as in
socialism in general fashion changes should be gradual rather than sudden.
This stance was repeated again and again, in slightly different formulations
and with slightly different emphasis, in almost all the popular writings and
lectures on fashion. It was presented as the practical rule guiding universal
good taste, for instance, when discussing how to relate to the stiliagi. As we
have seen, the mistake of the stiliagi was not in trying to be fashionable as
such but their preferences for extravagance and unnecessary “showing off ”

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in an attempt to get the attention of others. This also meant that the fashion
designers should avoid all extravagance and useless details which did not
serve any practical purpose but only served as eye catchers. Even more
importantly, Soviet fashion developed and changed slowly.
N. Zheleznova, a fashion specialist from Moscow, argued in 1963 in her
article “When everyone is young”602 that one should not expect any sudden
disruptions in the future Soviet fashion. Its development was balanced
and consequential. The journal Krest’yanka claimed quite categorically
a couple of years earlier that “in our country, fashion changes without
any disruptions.”603 According to T. Larina’s practical instructions in the
evening newspaper in the city of Perm’,604 an abundance of clothing as well
as overwhelmingly abundant decorations were a sign of bad taste and not
of very high cultural standards as sometimes believed. Her advice on how
to relate to fashion was classical, following the best traditions of European
humanistic culture or Bildung: one should not try to achieve what is in
fashion at all costs but rather try to have a style of one’s own, at the same time
as not deviating from the general trends. If you choose your style taking into
account your profession and your figure then you would, in Larina’s opinion,
always be regarded as a fashionable woman. E. Rozenfel’d argued in 1959
in the Altaiskaya Pravda that some people still thought that the beauty of
a costume could be measured by its price, that everything that was expensive
and luxurious was also beautiful. This was, in his opinion, deeply wrong.605
K. Smolentseva, the chief engineer of the local sewing factory in Yalta,
argued, following the general line, in the Kurortnaya Gazeta that it was not
the unnecessary luxury and excessive decorations of a garment that made
it beautiful but, on the contrary, its modesty, functionality and the rational
following of fashion.606
It would, of course, be tempting to interpret these and hundreds of
similar statements expressed in the Soviet press emphasizing the modesty
and functionality of dress as opposed to extravagance and luxury as simply
legitimating the shortcomings of the Soviet garment industry and its chronic
incapacity to produce more varied and fashionable clothes for the great
majority of its population. On the other hand, similar and often quite
categorical statements about the standards of good taste could equally well
be read in the Western European books of etiquette of proper, cultured
behavior, which always recommended to their readers to above all not
become slaves to fashion, its frivolousness and fancy, but, instead, to preserve
their own style and thus make rational use of each fashionable style to their
own personal purposes. This was the classical stance of a civilized European
person, the cultural heroes of whom were Goethe, Kant or Schiller – or
in Russia Pushkin – and who was educated in the spirit of the classical
humanist tradition.
Whereas all the previous instructions referred to universal standards
of good taste, some Soviet experts on fashion pointed, in their similarly
oriented recommendations about the simplicity and functionality of dress,
more directly to the demands that modern times posed to the modern
person. They claimed or demanded that the principles of Soviet fashion
should follow from the particular demands of modern times. Soviet fashion

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should distinguish itself by its functionality and simplicity, since this was
the adequate expression of such a phenomenon of modernity. The modesty
– or simplicity, if you like – of Soviet fashion thus became not a drawback
but, on the contrary, its greatest asset.607 Similarly, in the opinion of many
Soviet fashion experts it was reasonable to demand that Soviet fashion
should follow the example of international or Western designers, but this
was advisable only insofar as their patterns corresponded with Soviet views
of dressing and with the demands of their “industrious way of life.”608
In the same spirit, the Soviet Karelian youth newspaper Komsomolets
from Petrozavodsk defended changes of fashion by arguing that the Soviet
designers were deeply convinced that one could not dress beautifully without
being fashionable since each time has its own demands and conceptions of
beauty. Somewhat surprisingly, these same suggestions of adapting fashion
to the spirit of modernity could end up recommending the classical style or
the “English style” which the Soviet experts on fashion thought to be elegant
and eternally beautiful while best corresponding to their ideals of modesty,
simplicity and harmony.609
The more theoretical articles published regularly, for instance in the
Zhurnal Mod, often argued even more convincingly and categorically for
the principal modernity of Soviet fashion. The editorial of the Zhurnal
Mod referred to earlier610 propagated, for instance, the fashion of the year
1966–1967 by claiming that the modern tempo of the present life made dress
more businesslike, smaller and lighter in its silhouette. The editorial of the
previous issue of the same journal stated that one could hear the voice of the
times passing, the past and future, in every costume.611 The new demands of
life presumed changing fashion and turned down all outdated forms, old-
fashioned views, and yesterday’s demands. What this voice of the present
in fact dictated to the fashion designers became somewhat clearer in an
editorial published a few years later:

Such a [modern-the authors] person is very busy and has little time. He is seldom
alone. He prefers freedom of movement and needs attire that is both light and
dynamic, expressing the characteristics of the twentieth century, expressing the
unexpected discoveries of the artistic search and the simplicity of its realization.612

A recurring theme in the writings about fashion was the individuality of dress
and fashion, or rather the question of what the Soviet fashion designers and
her customers should think about the question of individuality. There was no
doubt among the Soviet theoreticians of fashion that even under socialism
fashion was somehow important for the expressions and development of the
individuality of the person. In 1969 A. Kamenskiy argued in Zhurnal mod
that in looking for the social meaning of fashion we should, above all, pay
attention to two factors: first, to its aspiration to naturalness and artfulness,
and second, to the freedom to express one’s own individuality of taste.
Individuality of taste was also understood to be an essential part of modern
society. On the other hand, as we have also seen, too daring expressions of
individuality, deviating from the social mean or the normal, were usually
regarded with suspicion.613

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What this really meant and what the role of the need or demand for
individuality meant in the Soviet world of fashion more concretely was
a question to which no simple or self-evident answers were to be found. It
is interesting that, at the time, the new and fashionable science of sociology
offered its advice to the Soviet fashion designers too. Y. Davydov (1939–
2007), one of the leading Soviet sociologists and an expert on social theory,
presented some general ideas of the sociology of aesthetics and art in the
journal.614 The article was quite abstract and it is not easy to see what it
contributed to the understanding of fashion. According to another theorist,
the philosopher and author A. Zinoviev, a theory of fashion was definitely
needed but he did not have any concrete suggestions for what such a theory
would look like.615 One of the most interesting contributions published in
the Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR in those times was V. Terin’s “Fashion and
Sociology”616 which presented to the Soviet readers in a very learned manner
two basic sociological texts on fashion, Georg Simmel’s and Herbert Blumer’s
articles. Simmel is one of the few recognized classics of sociology who
wrote about fashion at the turn of the 20th century. The article by Herbert
Blumer, one of the founding fathers of symbolic interactionism, has become
a standard reference in any sociological study of fashion since its publication.
In 1970 it had just come out in the Sociological Quarterly in the USA (1969).
The question of the relation between the collective and individual taste,
between social imitation and cultural distinctions were the basic questions of
interest to both Simmel and Blumer. To both of them fashion is an extremely
interesting and important social phenomenon which helps to bridge the gap
between the individual and the social, or between the individual taste and
the collective taste. Terin presented only the basic ideas of these two fashion
theorists and does not in his article draw any explicit conclusions about the
role of fashion or about the more general questions regarding the relations
between the individual and collective in the socialist society. He leaves it
totally up to his readers to do so.
There are two more articles that deserve special attention because of
their theoretical originality and the seriousness of their effort in openly
posing and trying to solve the problem of the role of fashion and the
individuality of taste in society at large and in socialist society in particular.
The first one, written by the philosopher V. Tolstykh, was published in
Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR in 1970.617 The second article was published
in the same year in the special “theoretical” supplement that was regularly
attached to Zhurnal mod. The author of this article, published in the same
year, was the art historian V. Kriuchkova. It was called “Fashion as a Form
of Consumption.”618 Even though the general solutions offered by these two
authors did not differ that much from each other they did, however, differ
to an important extent in their evaluations of the social role and cultural
meaning of fashion under socialism. The particular need to analyze the nature
of fashion under socialism and the coming Communism was presumably a
late reflection of the general public discussion which the adoption of the
Third Program of the Communist Party of the USSR inspired. This program
promised in 1961 that the Soviet Union would enter the last and highest
stage of social development, Communism, no later than 1980. The public

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discussion of what Communism was really like and what it demanded

from the development of the Soviet society and Soviet people continued
all through the 1960s. Tolstykh understood fashion as not just an aesthetic
phenomenon and therefore it is of great importance to discuss and analyze
the scientific grounds on which the Soviet politics of fashion was in fact
based.619 Tolstykh does not expect fashion to carry any extraordinary social
ballast with it. What was needed was therefore to openly pose the question
of whether fashion is, in fact, able to satisfy the “simple demands” of an
individual in harmony with the higher human needs of life. This should
be the crucial question both to those who make fashion as well as to those
who consume it. In this way, the question of fashion should be answered
from the point of view of the nature of the future Communist society. As
Tolstykh argued, in the Communist society the individual human person is
at the same time at one with his own human nature which can thus “fill” his
particular individuality with real human contents.620
Tosltykh’s main point is that in contrast to the artificial nature of
individuality in a bourgeois society which bourgeois fashion supports –
fashion is after all shallow and does not really touch the inner self of the
person – in socialism the relation of one’s individuality to clothing is more
profound. Tosltykh basically argued for the estranged nature of human
beings under capitalism. In fact, his whole critical analysis of fashion rests
on this claim. In his opinion, bourgeois fashion is created for the purpose
of keeping up the sense of one’s social uniqueness with the help of the rapid
changes of as such rather unimportant external matters of appearance, like
dress, etc. This politics of capitalist fashion is indeed effective in its own
right. It works very effectively with people who have a born tendency to
fall under the spell of the illusory hope that by changing the label of their
dress they can change themselves too.621 In the socialist society, fashion has
a totally different function because, in Tosltykh’s opinion, under socialism
the interests of the society and those of the individual are the same and
the individuality of the person is formed on the basis of the real human
culture, the appropriation of which creates a genuine rather than an ugly
and artificial individuality like under capitalism. Tolstykh refers to the
authority of Immanuel Kant, according to whom the very sociality of men
has the “effect of respect” as its goal. Obviously, Tosltykh argued, this kind
of Kantian mutual respect for the unique personality of each man can only
be reached under socialism. Fashion can only give the false promise of such
mutual recognition.
The criteria which Tolstykh referred to in distinguishing the good-
socialist-fashion from the bad-bourgeois-fashion, or a proper relation to
fashion from a bad relation to fashion, in fact had to do with the preservation
and strengthening of individual freedom in the face of the natural force
of fashion which threatened to subvert genuine individual freedom and
substitute a kind of a pseudo-freedom of choice for it. As Tolstykh admits,
fashion always, even under socialism, has an element of outer constraint,
but it can preserve its “humanity” if it fulfils some conditions such as not to
“speculate” on or manipulate the natural, lower animal instincts and traits
of man. Most importantly, fashion should not turn the various kinds of

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external, social conditions under which we live into the criteria of the real
worth of a person’s personality and individuality. Fashion will be successful
in the aesthetic sense too only if it does not give any false promises of being
the “most beautiful” but rather guarantees everyone their “uniqueness
among their equals.”
Read closely, Tolstykh did not have all that much to say about socialist
fashion as such. His critical analysis of the estranged nature of fashion
under capitalism does not give any specific means in analyzing the social
role of fashion under socialism, that is, in addition to being a remnant of
the bourgeois society. As was common in everyday parlance, Tolstykh does
not explicitly distinguish between the meaning of fashion as the way people
dress themselves at any one point in time and the social mechanism of
the eternally changing fashion. It seems that to him fashion in the second
meaning was not an essential part of socialism but rather something external
to it. For some reason, socialism simply had to take into account and try
to cope with the phenomenon of fashion. As far as the first meaning of
fashion is concerned, it is obvious that just as in any social formation even
in socialism people have some relation to their outer appearance and have to
be clothed. Once again the propagation and education of fashion is offered
as the practical solution to the questions of good taste and fashion. Socialist
fashion should educate men in the right relation to their outer appearance
and their dress. By cultivating one’s taste, fashion could be made to serve
the development of human spiritual growth. In Tolstykh’s optimistic words,
a time will come when dress will lose all the connotations of social prestige
and all its other symbolic functions. Then, he claimed, artists will realize that
it is much more difficult to dress the man than to decorate him, which they
did under capitalism.622
V. Kriuchkova took up the same basic questions in her thorough article
in Zhurnal mod.623 Not surprisingly, she shared with Tolstykh the idea of
the nature of a genuine socialist individuality, as opposed to an artificial
individuality in capitalism. Her general conclusions and recommendations
hardly differed from those of Tolstykh. According to Kriuchkova, the main
difference between the new socialist and the old capitalist societies is that in
the new society the value of each human being is not determined by his or
her personal utility but the value becomes rather his or her social attribute.
Under socialism, the human being is not the “owner” of the features that
are typical of him but only their “carrier.” Therefore, other people can and
are obliged to turn them into their own personal properties too. This idea,
which is not easy to understand, somehow explains to Kriuchkova why the
social mechanism of fashion would more or less disappear in the future in
socialism. The relative weakness of fashion in the present socialist society
was therefore a sign of its progressive development even if it did not yet quite
conclusively prove that the world view typical of bourgeois fashion was dying
out with the increasing dominance of the socialist social relations. What is
more important from the practical point of view, Kriuchkova admitted that
in the foreseeable future fashion would continue to operate in the Soviet
Union and had to be taken fully into account by aesthetic educators and
economic planners alike.624

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Despite her postulation about the different nature of human individuality

in capitalism and socialism respectively and despite her rather predictable
and among the Soviet experts rather standard conclusions about the
future of fashion under Communism, Kriuchkova’s more concrete analysis
and discussion about the social character of fashion are quite interesting
and multifaceted. She understood fashion to be a really central social
phenomenon.
Kriuchkova namely goes through a long list of the possible interpretations
of the social phenomenon of fashion familiar from classical sociology
and the philosophical literature on fashion.625 She presents them without,
unfortunately, explicitly drawing any conclusions about them in order
to answer the question of the role of fashion under socialism. The first
interpretation takes fashion to be basically a phenomenon of modernity. As
such it is a kind of last resort or some kind of weak common social standard
of taste in the lack of any stronger, traditional moral or social rules in a world
characterized by a great degree of individual freedom in morals, the state
and the society. In this sense the community of fashion becomes a kind of
a substitute for the community based on strong social norms or the last
symbol of social cohesion, even if only a weak form of cohesion.626
Kriuchkova’s first interpretation was strongly reminiscent of Georg
Simmel’s classical position.627 She argued that it looks as if human beings are
not quite ready to take full responsibility for their freedom. They try to find
at least some support for their choices in the social world surrounding them.
This is, according to her, understandable because just during the lifetime of
a single generation a society changes so much, its culture, the amount and the
quality of scientific knowledge, as well as the material world have all changed
drastically. It is understandable that under such circumstances a man or
a woman cannot find any support in old social traditions. All stable tastes
and habits become obsolete. Only the rapidly changing and highly contingent
standard of fashion remains to guide him or her in choices of style.
According to the second interpretation which Kriuchkova took up, this
can also be seen as a sign of a weak development of individuality, or, as
a matter of fact, a total lack of individuality. One could also interpret it as
a sign of mass society where all the individuals do is look for guidance in
each other by simply passively imitating each other’s external behavior.628 But
it is also possible to think along the lines of the third interpretation discussed
by Kriuchkova, according to which the modern man needs fashion mainly
in order to combat the monotony of his daily life.
Unfortunately, Kriuchkova does not draw any conclusions about socialist
fashion from these three interesting, possible theoretical interpretations of
the social function of fashion under modernity. Interestingly Kriuchkova
understood that fashion has penetrated our society in a much broader sense
than is usually thought of. As she argued we can identify fashions – obviously
in the Soviet Union too –

in the antiques, in the art market, in tourism towards the Northern provinces,
in the reading of philosophical or science fiction literature, in the popular
expressions like ‘the flow of information,’ in table manners, etc. To wear a beard,

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to attend a church service, to cook exotic food, to sing to the accompaniment of

a guitar, to dance a certain way, to visit or not to visit a café, to drink or not to
drink vodka, to be interested in Antonioni or in ice hockey, etc., are all equally
questions of fashion.629

In the end, even to Kriuchkova, fashion seemed to be only a substitute for

the real freedom that was essentially missing in bourgeois society. According
to her, fashion becomes accentuated in bourgeois society because it offers
a strong impetus to reach the same kind of independence as the realization
of oneself in any socially useful activity, an alternative which is usually not
open to an ordinary man under capitalism. Therefore he tries to realize
his own individuality in the only and narrow sphere that is under his own
control: in his private life, in his dress, manners, entertainment, or dance.
Under these conditions fashion can also at times become a form of social
protest.630
Kriuchkova argued along the same lines as Tolstykh in claiming that
the effects of fashion are restricted to man’s outer appearance and behavior.
Fashion touches only the very surface of man and, unlike true spiritual
culture, leaves the “real” human being unchanged. One changes one’s fashion
just as one throws away an old coat and starts to wear a new one. According
to this view, the appropriation of a deeper, spiritual culture necessarily leads
to the transformation of one’s personality. Since fashion is appropriated
only imitatively it does not have strong impact on the human inner life.631
Kriuchkova, in all essentials, thus made a dual claim about fashion: it is only
a trivial and shallow social and cultural phenomenon but at the same time
obviously typical of and even inevitable to the modern world, stretching its
effects over almost all spheres of culture.
If fashion is a phenomenon of modernity, appearing in times of rapid
change and in the absence of solid norms and standards of behavior, what
happens to it in socialist society? Kriuchkova’s answer is already familiar to
us: in her opinion, fashion is not such a big problem. Since the man can better
express his own individuality in other, more serious fields of social life, he is
not faced with the necessity to compete for external symbols of distinction in
order to prove his right to his autonomy. This was according to Kriuchkova
the real explanation why fashion was less extravagant and exaggerated
under socialism than under capitalism. It did not appeal to extravagant
tastes as was typical of bourgeois fashion. Neither was there any need for the
abrupt and rapid changes of fashion in socialism.632 Somewhat surprisingly,
neither Tolstykh nor Kriuchkova referred to the presumably greater degree
of equality under socialism which could, in Simmel’s reasoning, restrict
the need to distinguish oneself through fashion from others. For Simmel,
women are more attracted to and dependent on fashion than men because
they have fewer possibilities open to them to distinguish themselves by other
means in other more serious fields of life. Therefore they tend to express their
individuality in fashion instead.633
In the end, both Kriuchkova and Tolstykh are more loyal to the classical
European tradition of Bildung than Simmel in their critique of the spiritual
shallowness of fashion. Simmel did welcome fashion as the necessary

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condition and companion of modernity with its lighter and rapidly changing
forms of “sociation” – or “solidarity” – which helped to create social order
and cohesion and from which there was no return to the strong and stable
social ties of the more traditional society. Neither Tolstykh nor Kriuchkova
give any serious social function to fashion because they believed that in the
genuine socialist or Communist society the relation between the individual
and his or her social whole would somehow be solved once and for all, thus
abolishing all the tensions between the individual and society. In Simmel’s
opinion the tensions could, however, only ever be solved provisionally in
modern society, with the help of the social mechanism of fashion among
others. There was no permanent solution in sight and therefore the modern
individual had to learn to live with the ambivalence of modernity. The
Soviet fashion theorists’ claim about the future society, which could be seen
in its infancy in the socialism of their times, presumed that each and every
individual both represents an equal share of the collective culture of mankind
and can at the same time freely make use of any of its parts which he or she
has already made his or her own. This does not take place at the cost of others
but recognizing the equal social worth and right of everyone to do the same.
As the Soviet fashion theoreticians thought, this final consolidation would be
possible under Communism when each individual finally lived in harmony
with both his and her social surroundings and human nature.
Kriuchkova’s and Tolstykh’s theoretical reflections on fashion and taste
are probably the most developed to be found in the professional press in the
USSR. On the other hand, as we have seen, the practical advice which they
gave concerning fashion in socialism was repeated in numerous instructions
published in the Soviet press in these times: one should not follow all the
whims of fashion but turn fashion into one’s own personal style by selectively
adopting it according to one’s own individual taste. To make this possible,
fashion should not change too often or too drastically.

Street Fashion and Youth Fashion

In the beginning of the 1970s, the Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR published

two extensive treatises on fashion which both in their own way proved
that the Soviet fashion theorists were well informed of the developments
and discussions in the West, where the youth revolution of the 1960s had
revolutionized the fashion system by elevating spontaneous street fashion
and its various unique styles to the status of fashion leaders, thus seriously
undermining the authority of the big European fashion houses.634
In 1971, Alla Levashova, the influential head of the Special Designing
Bureau under the Russian Ministry of Light Industry published an interesting
article on the dressing style of the ordinary Moscovites walking the streets
of the Soviet capital.635 Unlike the many typical fashion pictures taken
in the studios or in the fashion exhibitions idealizing their objects, the
photos published in this article were the closest one came in the Soviet
press to concrete and realistic reporting on how ordinary people dressed
themselves in public. To our knowledge this is the only article of its kind

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which systematically tried to analyze and describe the style of everyday

clothes, or street fashion, in Moscow or, for that matter, in the USSR.
As a result of her keen observations, Levashova could report that
younger Muscovites were generally much better dressed than older ones.
The generation who spent their youth in the war or grew up in the immediate
post-war years under the conditions of the heavy shortages of almost all
kinds of clothing had simply not had enough concrete possibilities to develop
their own style of dressing and therefore they related to fashion with great
pleasure but without being able to make any proper distinctions. The more
general problem was, however, that the Soviet garment industry and trade
had not really learned how to cope with the complex emotional disposition
of the human being. Therefore, they produced mainly fashion of mediocre
quality which could not seriously compete with the spontaneous creativity of
the youth, who preferred to design their own self-made clothes.636 According
to the author’s observations, Soviet street fashion had one particular feature
without correspondence abroad: the real specialty of Soviet street fashion
in 1971 was the popularity of knitwear of all kinds. Levashova interpreted
this as an expression of genuinely Russian taste which did not have a direct
counterpart in Western fashion. As a matter of fact, this was not really
true, since knitwear enjoyed popularity among Western women as well. In
addition, the author did not explicitly refer to another possible reason for the
popularity of knitwear among Soviet women: any woman could easily knit
her own jumpers, scarves or hats. When the fashion changed, the yarn from
the knit garment could be used anew to knit another more fashionable piece
of clothing according to the patterns published, for instance, in the latest
issue of Zhurnal mod.
Another interesting article about the more spontaneous developments of
fashion also came out in Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR at about the same time
in 1969. M. Kalling from Tallinn, Estonia wrote a very informative report
about the latest tendencies in the youth and street fashion of the West.637
The report is totally free of ideological or moralizing overtones and it paints
a very interesting and well-informed picture of the newest tendencies and
trends of youth fashion. The new youthful fashion, which had come into
being in the 1960s in the West, was, according to the author, a totally new
kind of phenomenon. Kalling gives a very enthusiastic picture of the new
developments. What was new was particularly the fact that clothing did not
express one’s social status anymore. Now in the 1960s, for instance, a student
was often dressed in exactly the same way as any unskilled worker. One’s
dress became all the more an object of creativity and a confirmation of one’s
individuality.638
Further, the new relationship that the youth had to fashion was a strong
weapon against old-fashioned traditions. It was democratic by its nature and
had a tendency to gradually overcome all age barriers. Older women were
ready to follow the example of the young girls but men had not yet quite
decided how to relate to these new phenomena of fashion and were thus
lagging behind. In Kalling’s opinion, fashion had long ago stopped being
an object of hypocrisy and ambition, of discipline and punishment. Now
we were just waiting for the art of dress to finally become the object of the

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genuine creativity of the masses. According to the author, “we” were now
firmly on our way in that new direction.639
Interestingly, although the article mainly dealt with developments in
the West, the author’s optimistic predictions about the future of the more
democratic and spontaneous fashion are quite universal, not making any
distinctions between the bourgeois and socialist countries and fashion in this
respect. On the contrary, the new developments of the youth fashion of the
West were presented with hardly any critical comments or doubts as “our”
own too. In other words, at least implicitly supported by the conclusions
presented in Levashova’s contribution on street fashion in Moscow, Kalling
welcomed the new democratic, unpretentious and spontaneous fashion
of the Western youth as the bright future of fashion in general and Soviet
fashion in particular.

Fashion: For or Against

From the 1960s onwards, one could summarize the main maxim of the
Soviet ideology and politics of fashion with the slogan “to dress, beautifully,
fashionably and with modesty.” Despite the fact that the Soviet ideologists
and propagators of fashion had, by the 1970s at the latest, developed
and adopted a more or less unified aesthetic stance towards fashion and
the external decoration of man, in practice acknowledging fashion, it
theoretically remained an anomaly in the socialist, planned economy.
While practicing fashion designers and the artistic consultants employed
in the fashion houses and other institutes were understandably in general
positively inclined to the phenomenon of fashion, its novelties and its
change, even they often felt uncertain about the future destiny of fashion
in a highly developed socialist society, not to speak of Communism: was it
needed after all in fully-fledged socialism? The more theoretically oriented
commentators were obviously even more at a loss in judging the role of
fashion in the construction of socialism.
As we have seen, in the late 1960s and in the beginning of the 1970s the
main women’s journals as well as journals of applied art and fashion gave
a lot of space to serious theoretical considerations about the nature of fashion.
A remarkable achievement in this respect was the publication of a collection
of controversial essays on fashion in 1973: Fashion: For or Against.640 Its
editor was Valentin Tolstykh, one of the Soviet theoreticians on fashion to
whom we have referred earlier. As Tolstykh argued in his introduction it was
important to take a stance on the basic principles of socialist fashion: should
it clothe the man or make him attractive, make him beautiful or help him to
stand out among his “likes?”641 It is possible that this compilation of essays
on fashion, written by a great number of specialists representing different
fields of science, was meant to be a kind of theoretical groundwork towards
the development of an official political program or statement on fashion
which, however, never came into being. If anything, this work proved that
no unified position reigned among the scientific experts and, most likely, this
was true of the leading ideologists of the Communist Party too. Instead of

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strictly regulating this undoubtedly important ideological issue with official

Party declarations or statements, a relatively loose consensus or compromise
reigned among the experts in the field. It left, however, a lot of room for
different individual interpretations and changes of emphasis.
The different positions of the essays published in Fashion: For and Against
were typical in the plurality of their standpoints. The arguments “for” fashion
were, however, clearly in the majority. Whereas the majority took fashion
seriously and acknowledged the need to develop an adequate understanding
of its role both in general and in the socialist society in particular, one can
also find reminders of an ideological position that was more common
in the early Stalin era. For instance, the distinguished philosopher and
art historian K. M. Kantor wondered whether anyone had any time to
deal with fashion and take it seriously in general. As he added, “we have
enough important work and worries even without it.”642 The editor Tolstykh
wrote in his own introduction that fashion is on the contrary a very simple
phenomenon, though it does not come into being because of any simple
causes. It rests on sociological and socio-psychological principles which
are worth serious scientific analysis.643 He even put great hopes in the new,
fashionable science, systems theory or cybernetics, as the adequate solution
to a really comprehensive analysis of fashion.
As was often the case, the authors of the essays more easily agreed on
what the “real” Soviet fashion was not or what it should not be than on their
understanding of its actual nature. As usual they demarcated it from its
bourgeois counterpart – or at least contrasted it to the idea of bourgeois fashion
which they had in mind. Their conceptions about the nature of bourgeois
fashion did not necessarily coincide either. For instance, while it was common
to blame bourgeois fashion for its extravagance and elitism – it served only
the ruling classes – Raisa V. Zakharzhevskaya, a well-known art historian,
saw its problem mainly in its mass character.644 Since it was in her opinion
mainly oriented towards the “middle” and only satisfied the standard medium
taste, Western fashion could never reach the spiritual peaks of mankind’s
aesthetic achievements. With all the means of advertising and marketing at
its disposal Western fashion aimed at establishing these mediocre aesthetic
values of the masses as the general social standards. Zakharzhevskaya accused
bourgeois fashion of being anti-human: “The fashion industry, with the help
of the latest methods of advertising and propaganda, inspired by competition
and the laws of profits, drains them of their human nature every year, every
month, every hour, and every minute.”645 It would be much better to use these
extra resources spent on fashion for the real benefit of the society and its
members. The socialist fashion was to be, contrastingly, deeply humanistic. It
was directed by the state and its cultural institutes; it oriented itself according
to the higher ideals of beauty and taste. The state should take care of fashion
in order to elevate the citizens to the higher achievements of human cultural
progress. Therefore, the task that remained for the socialist state to take care
of was how to better regulate fashion and its changes. In the same spirit, E. Y.
Basin, professor of philosophy, and a psychologist, V. M. Krasin, emphasized
in their own contribution that “the decisive thing is to make use of the
symbolic means of the genuine cultural values.”646

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8. Fashion in People’s Minds

What the Soviet ideologists of fashion basically seemed to agree upon

among themselves, despite the differences in their evaluations of the social
and cultural role of fashion, was that whereas bourgeois fashion served the
principle of profit and was characterized by its extravagance and elitism – or
alternatively by its mediocrity – Soviet fashion was democratic and served
the genuine principles of beauty. The art of clothing design, just like any
form of art, was in the Soviet Union regarded as contributing to the general
cultural growth and progress of mankind, and as such it was an important
aspect of the art of governing and planning social development. The idea
of progress was thus transformed from basically technical and economic
progress to the field of aesthetic achievements. In consequence, fashion was
considered totally legitimate if it contributed to the general beautification of
society and promoted its gradual approach to the ideal of beauty. What this
meant more concretely was naturally far from clear. Understandably, it was
much easier to understand what technical progress meant than what was real
progress in beauty.

The Unanimity and the Diversity of the Public Discussion

on Soviet Fashion
The close reading and analysis of the public writings about fashion in the
Soviet Union in the decades after Stalin’s death proves that it was characterized
by many viewpoints and even disagreements and, at the same time, it took
place in a certain general, broader framework which was more or less taken
for granted and not questioned openly. An interesting question remains of
to what extent this discussion and the resulting Soviet discourse on fashion
was in fact centrally regulated and the main positions effectively imposed on
the authors by the ideological authorities, and to what extent the viewpoints
genuinely expressed the private opinions of their authors and the eventual
consensus resulting from the public dialogue. Without claiming to be able to
give a final answer to this question we would venture to claim that the right
answer is to be found somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. On
the one hand, there were obvious limits to the freedom of opinion even in the
questions of fashion. For instance, no one ever suggested publicly that the
centrally planned economy should be abolished, the Soviet fashion institutes
privatized and fashion left to the care of the private market. This would have
been totally out of the question in the Soviet Union. Neither did almost
anyone, from the late 1950s onward, maintain that there was absolutely no
place for fashion and the fashion institutes in the USSR even though many
still regarded fashion as a rather trivial or even harmful social phenomenon
with very limited importance. Official censorship existed in the Soviet
Union too but it mostly regulated the public expression of politically more
sensitive issues. As far as fashion was concerned, the censors mostly tried to
identify and control the use of politically sensitive nationalistic or religious
symbols and understandably had little to say about aesthetic issues as such.
They also made sure that the norms of sexual decency were not exceeded.
On the other hand, such general restrictions undoubtedly left a lot of room

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for various interpretations and alternative standpoints, and the more so the
closer to the concrete aesthetic and economic problems of fashion design
one came. More than any official ideological principles of Communism
expressed in the Party Programs, the principles and standards that were
supposed to guide both the Soviet fashion designers and their customers
followed from the general and mostly informal and rather traditional ethical
and aesthetic ideas that were common in Soviet society – particularly among
its better educated members – and regulated the proper behavior and decency
of the outer appearance of its members. It was no wonder that these rules and
standards were problematized and did not stay the same in a society like the
Soviet Union, which was undergoing exceptionally rapid social, economic
and cultural change, and which transformed from a society of peasants
into a modern urban and industrial society within one generation. This
transformation and its consequences were by all means felt with different
force and timing in the different geographical regions and areas of the big
country as well as in the different social groups of society.
Another natural question is whether we could in our press data identify
any systematic differences in the arguments and standpoints published in the
local and regional press compared to the central press. Did the provinces, for
instance, “lag behind” in the changing aesthetic and ethical rules of beauty
and decency? Using the data at our disposal, the answer is negative. As we
know, at least officially and in principle the propaganda of fashion was led
from the central Moscow institutes of fashion – ODMO and VIALegprom –
which regularly sent their instructions and trend prognoses to the regional
and local fashion houses. On the other hand, we also know that these
only had the character of recommendations. The local fashion designers
and propagandists did not have strict obligation to follow them. Similarly,
many fashion reports and news stories originally written and published
in the central press circulated and were published anew in the local press.
But the articles published in the local press could equally well, and more
often, originate from the pen of or from interviews with the artistic leaders
and designers of the local fashion houses and garment factories. A bigger
and clearer difference than between the local and the central press existed
between the professional journals – or Soviet “trade press” – and the popular
press, for instance, to take two extremes, between local evening papers like
Vecherniaya Perm’ or the Lithuanian Vechernie novosti, on the one side,
and Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR or Sovetskaya torgovlia on the other. In
addition to being more compressed and “light” the reports published in the
local, popular press were rather standardized or almost stereotypical in their
formulations, their titles included, whereas the professional press followed
mainly by the experts was much more critical and open to discussion and the
expression of various conflicting views. The articles published in the bigger
central (All-Union) popular journals, like Ogoniok and Smena, as well as
such newspapers as Izvestiya and Komsomol’skaya Pravda were mostly in
between these two extremes.

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9. Conclusion

T he Soviet system of administration had an innate tendency towards

establishing increasingly differentiated but parallel organizations. The
case of Soviet fashion is a good example of this development. By the end
of the 1960s, there were four, largely overlapping organizations of fashion
design in the Soviet Union, each under a different ministry. The first and
most extensive system of the houses of fashion design worked under the
Ministry of Light Industry. The Ministry of Trade supervised the numerous
institutes of fashion design at the Soviet department stores. The real Soviet
specialty, with no equivalent in Western countries, was the Ministry of
Everyday Services which had its own, extensive network of fashion ateliers,
often placed in the bigger service units in cities or rural centers, which had
their own institutes of fashion design which designed clothes for them.
Finally, the Ministry of Local Industry was responsible for fashion design
in the numerous and mostly smaller economic enterprises at the local level.
All these parallel structures had the hierarchical organization typical of
all respective administrative units on the All-Union, republican and local,
regional level.
In principle, the four organizations should have dedicated themselves
to different functions, in accordance with their specialty. The main purpose
of the institutes of fashion design at the Ministry of Light Industry was
to service the big garment manufacturers with new designs for industrial
mass production. The fashion institutes attached to the system of the
department stores were meant to service their own fashion ateliers and
smaller production units with new designs. Similarly, the system at the
Ministry of Everyday Services had its specific goal of designing clothes for
their own fashion ateliers engaged in sewing custom made clothes following
individual patterns or using a semi-fabricated product. Finally, the fashion
institutes under the Ministry of Local Industry designed clothes for relatively
small local enterprises. The same tendencies of centralization and further
specialization made themselves felt in all these branches. Big was beautiful
throughout the Soviet economy.
These organizations were created sequentially with the fashion houses
of light industry appearing first. One cannot avoid the impression that by
establishing a new system the authorities were trying to compensate for

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9. Conclusion

the shortcomings of the previous systems – only to realize quickly that

the same problems repeated themselves in the new organization. Their
division of labor worked only partially however and soon became evident
that these parallel organizations had great ambitions to design their own
industrially manufactured clothes both in large, mass produced quantities
and in smaller series to be sold in their own or local clothing shops. They all
also sewed small quantities of clothing unofficially in their own ateliers for
a set of privileged clients – select members of the political and cultural elite
of the locality. These organizations all engaged actively in the propagation of
fashion and the proper dress codes from the beginning by publishing their
own fashion journals and catalogues, organizing their own fashion shows
and exhibitions, presenting their own patterns and views on fashion in the
All-Union and local press, on the radio and later, increasingly, on TV. Many
Soviet fashion designers, models and fashion consultants thus became local
and even national celebrities.
The importance of the existence of these parallel, and to some extent
competing organizations was soon acknowledged officially: their best
designs tended to be integrated into the seasonal collections which were
meant to be the trendsetters of Soviet fashion, thus setting the new trends for
the whole of the Soviet fashion industry. Their designs were also approved for
the collections representing Soviet fashion abroad, both in the other socialist
countries of Europe and in the capitalist West.
Despite their many parallel, overlapping functions and the increasing
competition between them, both the All-Union House of Fashion Design
and later the VIALegprom, both under the Ministry of the Light (or
Consumer Goods) Industry, preserved their role as the leading Soviet
institutes of fashion design over the years. Even though these organizations
had no legitimate means of imposing their directives on any of the other
institutes, they were supposed to set the general trends of Soviet fashion
which both the local organizations and fashion houses in turn, under their
own and the other administrative units, were expected to follow. This was
accomplished by organizing meetings and seminars, by offering further
training to the designers visiting from the other fashion organizations,
and by spreading information about international and Soviet fashion
trends. These central organizations had, at least in principle, a monopoly
on information about the new international fashion trends, which they
acquired by subscribing to fashion journals as well as by touring regularly
to show their own collections at international exhibitions. They were then
supposed to deliver this information selectively to the other, less central,
less important organizations. More importantly, the representatives of these
organizations had the right to act as final judges in selecting the designs
approved for the annual and seasonal All-Union collections, thus rewarding
the designers and organizations whose work they considered to be the
best. As the example of the Tallinn House of Fashion Design shows, even
relatively small regional houses could become recognized fashion leaders
under particularly favorable and, in this case, rather exceptional conditions
relating to their direct access to Western fashion and the publication of their
own high quality journal.

245
9. Conclusion

The question of how Soviet, socialist fashion was distinct and particular
as opposed to the examples of Western, capitalist fashion occupied the minds
of Soviet fashion experts and specialists throughout the Soviet period. After
the radical stance that did not recognize any place at all for fashion under
socialism shifted in the 1930s the question became relevant but proved to be
quite hard to answer in any systematic or convincing way. Despite the fact that
some Soviet economists declared even as late as the 1970s that the fashion
cycles were only disrupting economic planning and growth, other authorities
and experts took them more or less for granted. The Soviet economic system
simply had to learn to live with fashion and, within reasonable limits, to
promote it. It is difficult to give any definite answer as to why fashion was
taken for granted as far as the self-understanding of the Soviet authorities
and ideologists was concerned. The explicit reasons given were not very
enlightening and mostly almost tautological. Fashion was either claimed to
be something without which Soviet people, and particularly women, simply
could not live. Or it was “brought” from the, admittedly, more developed
economy of the West as part of the modern culture of consumption which
was seen as worth copying selectively, just as was the case with many other
examples of technical progress that the Soviet Government imported from
the USA and Western Europe. The increasing pressure to compete with the
West caused by the gradual opening of the borders from the 1960s onwards
was felt also in the field of popular culture and consumption. This could
certainly escalate the process of imitation and have a quite decisive impact
on the adoption of some concrete forms of fashion, like, for example, the
decision to start mass producing Soviet jeans in the 1970s. But to a great
extent, Soviet fashion, both in its official and even illegal versions, was
copied from the West. The difference between official and unofficial fashion
was related to who made the decisions and exercised their judgment about
what was to be copied. Was it the fashion experts and designers or some
spontaneous “fashion leaders” among the Soviet population – perhaps its
youth, or a combination of both?
The Soviet designers relied on the same sources of inspiration in their
search for new creative solutions as their Western counterparts: they followed
and copied international trends and studied historical costumes as well as the
folk dress preserved in ethnographic collections in museums representing
the different nationalities of the Soviet Union. The adaptation of folk designs
of various kinds, as well as the use of handmade details like embroideries,
soon became an essential part of any Soviet collection of fashion. The latter
fitted particularly well into the populist image that Soviet fashion wanted to
deliver to its admirers. (Fig 9.1.)
In practice the advice given to the fashion designers and other creators of
fashion as well as to ordinary consumers was the same: try to avoid extremes
and abrupt changes. The highest principle which, in the minds of many
experts and propagandists, should guide both Soviet fashion design and
the consumer in selecting fitting attire was that of harmony. The post-war
Soviet ideology of fashion was thus basically inspired by the European classic
humanistic tradition of Bildung, personified by such European cultural
heroes as Kant and Schiller. Reference could, however, be made to the

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9. Conclusion

Fig. 9.1. A knitwear

dress designed by
the Moscow House
of Design under the
Ministry of Everyday
Services.

Russian cultural tradition and its idols such as Pushkin or Chekhov. Had
not Pushkin contrasted Jevgeniy Onegin’s London dandyism with Tatiana’s
natural beauty and modesty? And had not Chekhov let one of his main
characters, the doctor Astrov, formulate the maxim, which then became
the leading principle of the Soviet cultural policy – fashion included? “In
a human being everything should be beautiful: his face, and dress, and the
spirit, and the thoughts.”
However, if one, had to name one classical source that acted more than
any other as an ideal for Soviet aesthetics and the etiquette of fashion, it
would without a doubt be Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who expressed, in the
words of one of his characters in La Nouvelle Heloise, the basic contradiction,
between fashion, extravagance and luxury, on the one hand, and good taste,
simplicity and modesty, on the other hand. These words came to characterize
the Soviet ideology of fashion:

As the laws of fashion are inconstant and destructive, hers (Julie’s-authors) is

economical and lasting. What true taste once approves must always be good, and
though it is seldom in the mode, it is, on the other hand, never improper. Thus
in her modest simplicity, she deduces, from the use and fitness of things, such
sure and unalterable rules as will stand their ground when the vanity of fashion
is no more.647

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9. Conclusion

Soviet fashion was moderate and modest in another respect too: it was never
sexually provocative, emphasizing the rules of common decency. Warnings
against wearing low-necked dresses or daring, sleeveless summer sarafans
in public were commonly heard both in the fashion columns of the popular
Soviet press and in the more professional fashion journals. The wearing of
trousers by women, widely experienced as threatening common decency by
blurring the clear, traditional borders between male and female, was one of
the big issues in the 1960s. In many ways, similar moral and aesthetic worries
and questions were raised in the popular press and women’s magazines in the
West at the same time. The miniskirt of the 1960s, which entered the Soviet
world of fashion with a couple of years delay, caused something of a moral
panic in Western societies too. Alongside the slow pace of change in Soviet
fashion, the biggest differences between these two worlds of fashion were first,
that the relationship between sexuality and fashion was not openly discussed
in the Soviet Union.648 Everyone seemed or pretended to know what was
proper and what was not, what was presentable and what was not. Soviet
models, for instance, learned never to strike sexually provocative poses in
their photo sessions. Lingerie, underwear and the more-daring beach fashion,
such as bikinis, were ordinarily not shown on the pages of journals or in
fashion shows. Secondly, commercial advertisements and promotions on the
pages of journals and magazines were relatively rare in the Soviet context. The
socialist advertisements that existed were less persuasive and less aggressively
competitive than Western, capitalist advertisements. Soviet fashion journals
did, for instance, openly promote and propagate the designs of particular
fashion houses and even particular fashion designers by presenting their
clothes to readers as examples of good taste and thus worth wearing. Most of
the designs presented on the pages of fashion journals and in fashion shows
were however totally out of the reach of ordinary readers. They could only
dream of sewing a simpler copy of the designs by following the published
instructions as best they could with the resources they had at their disposal.
There was, therefore, certainly some truth in the claims of the Soviet fashion
theoreticians that Soviet fashion, in contrast to its Western counterpart, did
not have to try to appeal to the “base and lower instincts of the man” with the
sole purpose of seducing him or her to buy the garment advertised.
The Soviet fashion designers and their customers more often faced
another kind of a dilemma: what was the purpose or use of designing and
propagating new, beautiful and fashionable clothes if they were nowhere
for sale? The other side of the coin was the question of what should be done
with all the millions of those industrially mass produced clothes and dresses
which were a far cry from the creations of fashion shown on the journals’
pages and which people only bought if absolutely nothing else was available
to them. As we have seen, this dilemma was discussed almost eternally and
various solutions were offered for it in the Soviet press, without much result.
The great Parisian fashion houses, the House of Dior in particular,
had been the main models inspiring many generations of Soviet fashion
designers. Almost paradoxically, the big Soviet houses soon faced the same
dilemma as their Parisian and other Western role models: they produced
Soviet haute couture and thus, instead of effectively improving the designs

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9. Conclusion

of mass produced clothes, they increasingly created individual examples of

beautiful new designs that hardly anyone could buy or wear. Increasingly,
they did so in order to compete with the West but they would never succeed
in conquering the rival or even seriously challenging it. Whereas the Western
fashion houses could realize these aesthetic achievements by selling their
name as a brand for various mass produced items of luxury consumption like
perfumes and other cosmetics, this option was not open to the Soviet houses.
Their favorite solution was to demand the right to produce small series of
clothes using their own designs, which would be sold in something roughly
translated as Soviet clothing boutiques (firmennye magaziny). Even though
many fashion institutes in the consumer goods industry, trade and everyday
services experimented with such series, the central Soviet economic agencies
and decision-makers at best only tolerated, and would never wholeheartedly
support them. They remained to a great extent a part of the unofficial
economy of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union had, by the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the
1970s, built up a huge organization of fashion design, which remained largely
intact up to the fall of the Soviet Union, only to collapse totally with it. Soviet
fashion designers, throughout this period, faced the almost impossible task
of satisfying the increasingly multifaceted and individualized demand for
new, attractive, and fashionable clothes. The complaints of the consumers
did not by any means disappear with economic growth and the increasing
material well-being of Soviet citizens but, on the contrary, tended to increase.
The unsatisfied consumer was a legitimate figure in socialist politics whose
complaints were regularly voiced in the Soviet public sphere. The authorities
answered these complaints and the subsequent expressions of distrust with
repeated efforts to strengthen the organizational basis of Soviet fashion
design.
An important change or at least reorientation took place in Soviet
discourse on fashion sometime during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Instead of moralizing about spontaneous fashion designs which supposedly
corrupted Soviet youth in the shape of the stiliagis – by misleading them with
Western ideals and idols – the Soviet gatekeepers of morality and common
decency increasingly started to warn their readers against drawing hasty and
simplistic conclusions about the moral character of a person based only on
his or her dress or outer appearance. A young man looking like the notorious
stiliagis in his individualistic and exaggerated style of dress could be found
to be following the latest “official Soviet” fashion which he or she had simply
copied from the pages of the Zhurnal mod or some other popular fashion
journal. Despite the fact that he or she was dressed in a highly exaggerated
manner, thus breaking the rules of good taste, this did not necessarily mean
that he or she would be a total good-for-nothing or a lazy drunkard. Quite
the contrary, he could just as well turn out to be an excellent workman and
a completely honest and decent member of the Communist Youth League.
The warning examples of stiliagis heatedly and repeatedly discussed in the
Soviet press had their female counterparts with the same purpose of acting
as instructive cases in drawing the moral boundaries of common decency. In
the case of women, these rules were more openly sexual, concerning issues

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9. Conclusion

relating to revealing dresses or overstepping the traditional borders between

male and female dress as in the wearing of trousers. In both respects,
Soviet rules of decency and the proper dress code gradually became more
liberal during the 1960s. The strict prohibitions, which had even been
controlled with the help of voluntary citizen patrols, gave way to more
flexible instructions both allowing and expecting more independent decision
making from the individual with regard to what was appropriate under the
circumstances and in the company in question.
The cultivation of more individual style of dress, together with higher
cultural standards among the population, was considered to be an effective
means of protecting Soviet consumers from the seductiveness of Western
mass culture which, in the opinion of the Soviet ideologists, only captured the
lower instincts of man. However, such individualization was a double edged-
sword since it could threaten the spirit of collectivism and equality that
was supposed to reign in the Soviet Union. One could, however, with some
reservations, speak of processes of informalization and individualization
even in the Soviet Union resembling the developments in the Western
European and North American cultures where they were mostly associated
with the youth and consumer revolutions of the 1960s.649 The Soviet process
was less directly associated with the cultural differentiation of society in the
form of the different sub (youth) cultures and remained more restricted
and clandestine. The simplistic label of the stiliagi followed the members of
youth cultures until the end of the Soviet Union. Thus, as with Soviet fashion
overall, this process of informalization was in many ways comparable to the
same process in the West but slower, somewhat moderated.
The Soviet ideologists of fashion continuously warned their audience of
the danger of getting carried away by the caprices of fashion which would
lead to unnecessary extravagance with the sole purpose of showing off, by
distinguishing oneself from one’s peers. To let oneself be seduced in this
way by the commodities of material culture was, in the opinion of these
experts, a typical sign and harmful remnant of the petit bourgeois mentality
(meshchanstvo) which was supposed to have been rooted out from socialist
society and culture, where higher goals and values were expected to reign
sovereign. Paradoxically, if we are to believe the historical and empirical
studies about the taste of different social classes and groups in the bourgeois
society in Europe, the advice and attitude recommended by these experts
to their Soviet audience did follow the most typical petit bourgeois attitude
towards consumer culture.650 In reality, the petite bourgeoisie or the middle
classes of the bourgeois societies were historically not disposed towards
general extravagance, nor were they inclined to freely experiment with
novelties. These extravagant attitudes, if held by anyone, were typical of
the new economic elites, whereas the second position, which the Soviet
propaganda associated with the petite bourgeoisie, was typical of the new
cultural and economic elites of the bourgeois society. The petite bourgeoisie
and particularly its socially declining part appreciated precisely the values
propagated by the Soviet experts on taste and fashion: in work it valued
order, rigor and care, in its aesthetics austere and traditional values. The
new “executant” petit bourgeois – the lower civil servants – preferred in

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9. Conclusion

their turn, according to Pierre Bourdieu, most of all “sober and correct”
clothes.651 In other words, the official Soviet, socialist aesthetics of dress – and
consumption in general – and its maxims of good taste with their emphasis
on moderation and harmony were, if anything, petit bourgeois!
The best proof that Soviet consumers were increasingly dissatisfied with
the modest role ascribed to them by the authorities and propagators of
fashion, and the relatively limited supply of fashionable clothes offered to
them in the Soviet department stores and ateliers was their great interest in
and demand for all imported consumer goods, clothes and shoes included,
particularly from the West. The prices paid on the official and unofficial –
or black-markets for these foreign goods were proof of the lack of any real
alternatives. Soviet fashion designers and organizations were certainly both
able and willing to meet this increasing demand for the range of expressions
of individual taste. However, the institutional limitations inherent in the
Soviet planned economy often effectively restricted the realization of many
well-meant attempts at improvement.
Fashion design was also harnessed to serve the Soviet efforts to compete
peacefully with the West, but this competition remained mainly ideological
and not really economic at all. No serious attempts were made to export
Soviet fashion to the West and importation from the West was always heavily
restricted, making up just a very small part of the whole clothing market
in the country. With the notable exception of the wide scale collaboration
with the other socialist countries in Europe within the organization of
COMECON, Soviet fashion remained largely an internal affair.
This honorable attempt to become largely self-sufficient, and at the
same time world leading in the field of fashion design, as well as in many
other fields of economic activity – partly – explained the great efforts and
remarkable investments made in fashion during the post-war decades in
the Soviet Union. Soviet fashion designers and their organizations played
an important role in this ideological competition – in legitimating the
superiority of the socialist system to the inhabitants of the first socialist
country in the world. At the same time, the challenge – of being the best in
the world of fashion – proved to be just too much.
Soviet experts and authorities were aware of the basic problems and
limitations inherent in their system of fashion design quite early, but
repeatedly offered the same solutions. Even at their best, however, these
remained half measures, soon to be forgotten and only to be taken up again
later as ‘new’ remedies to the same old problems. Soviet fashion designers
and other experts were continuously confronted with the basic principles
of the centrally planned economy which could effectively concentrate its
resources to solve its problems. They never really challenged the final right of
the central planning organs of the Soviet Government and the leadership of
the Communist Party to regulate the input and the output of its production
down to the smallest details, leaving only limited room for creativity. Under
these circumstances fashion designers could either adapt themselves to
the limitations and filled their quotas, or they could give free rein to their
imaginations by creating unique works of art which had very little impact on
the general culture of dress.

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9. Conclusion

The system of fashion under socialism was imbedded in a wider moral

discourse about the rational needs of a human being and the ideal type of
Soviet personality which in many ways moderated the social and cultural
impact of fashion. The incompatibility of fashion with the principles of
planned economy challenged the moral order of the socialist society. In this
respect fashion resembled monetary relations which, at least in the minds
of the authorities, constantly threatened to get out of hand and take on a life
of their own, changing the priorities of the socialist order. This appeared
concretely in the character of the speculator or black market dealer putting
private economic interests before the common good. Just as with monetary
relations, the authorities tolerated, and at times encouraged, the operations
of the fashion system. By developing their own huge system of fashion
design and industry they both acknowledged the social power of fashion
and tried to control and restrict it. They adapted the moral standards of the
old European Bildungsbürger who fought with the whole integrity of his
own good taste against the corrupting influence of money and all the new
temptations offered on the rapidly growing consumer goods market. As we
know now, the Soviets lost their fight both on the aesthetic and the ethical
fronts just like the old Bildungsbürger before them. However, for some time
the outcome of this “moral battle” was uncertain. During the Soviet Union’s
70 years of existence, numerous protagonists of socialist fashion suggested
ideas and promoted methods for how to reach a truce or at least a working
compromise between the increasing individual aspirations of the modern
man and woman and the spirit of collectivism integral to the principles
of the centrally planned economy. The suggested solutions kept repeating
themselves but the problems did not disappear.
If the experience of ambivalence is a sign of modernity, the Soviet
Union was a modern society, albeit not quite the same kind as those under
capitalism. Instead of choosing between frivolous fashion and centralized
economic planning the Soviets had to learn to live with both. Of the two sides
of modernity, the Soviet ideology emphasized the ideals of rationality and
scientific control of the world, the social world included. The Soviet citizen
was expected to develop her individual, material and spiritual needs as well
as to recognize and control them rationally. This was perfectly in line with
the ideals of the first modernity. The other side of modernity, typical of its
second stage and expressed in the Romantic tradition of thought following
the Enlightenment, added to these ideals the right of each person to their
self-realization and self-expression. This Romantic spirit was very much
alive in the Soviet Union in, for example, the cult of genius, expressed via the
numerous official awards and honorific titles glorifying the ‘exceptional talents
and achievements’ of some great personalities in the world of art, science and
politics. For the ordinary man and woman the bureaucratic administration
of large economic and political organizations as well as the rather dull world
of mass consumption offered much less space for individual self-expression.
The contrast between the two forms of modernity was perhaps nowhere as
keenly felt as in the Soviet world of fashion which tried to balance between
the – ‘rational’– demands of planned economy and the growing – ‘irrational’
– individual aspirations, only more diversified as time went by.

252
Notes

Chapter 1
1 See e.g. Osokina, E., Our Daily Bread. The System of Distribution and the Art of
Survival in Stalin's Russia 1927–1941. Armonk, N.Y.:M.E.Sharpe, 2001; Gronow,
J., Caviar with Champagne. The Common Luxury and the Ideals of Good Life
in Stalin’s Russia. London and New York: Berg, 2003 and Siegelbaum, L., Cars
for Comrades. The Life of the Soviet Automobile. Ithaca and London: Cornell
University Press, 2008.
2 Kotkin, S., Modern Times: The Soviet Union and the Interwar Conjecture. In:
kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 2 (2001): 1, pp. 111–164;
Kotkin, S., The Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization. Berkeley 1995. For
a recent bibliography and debates on the nature of Soviet modernity see Hoffman,
David L. Stalinist Values: the Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917–1941.
Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003.
3 Fitzpatrick, S,. Introduction, in: Stalinism: New Directions. Ed. by Sheila
Fitzpatrick. London and New York, 2000.
4 David–Fox, M., Multiple modernities vs. Neo–traditionalism. On recent debates
in Russian and Soviet History. In: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 54
(2006), pp. 535–555.
5 Simmel, G., Philosophie der Mode. Berlin: Pan 1905.
6 Bourdieu, P., Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London:
Routledge, 1984.
7 We have not found any programmatic statements of the Communist Party or the
Soviet Government about fashion. However, in 1961 the Prime Minister Alexei
Kosygin, who had a background in the Soviet textile industry, declared at a session
of the Soviet Supreme Council: “The retail network must always have a variety
of contemporary fashionable goods and cuts.” (cited in Natalie Chernyshova’s
Soviet Consumer Culture in the Brezhnev Era. London: Routledge 2014, 146.) By
contemporary fashionable Kosygin presumably referred to stylish and beautiful as
well as to new and modern.
8 Gronow, J., Sociology of Taste. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
9 Hoffmann, David L. Peasant Metropolis. Social identities in Moscow, 1929–1941.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994 and Hoffmann, David L., Stalinist Values:
The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917–1941. Ithaca: Cornell University
press, 2003.
10 Zakharova, L., Kazhdoi sovetskoi zhenshchine–platie ot Diora!. Frantsuskoie
vliyanie v sovetskoi mode 1950–1960–kh gg. In: Sotsial’naia istoria. Yezhegodnik,
2004, pp. 347–353; Zakharova, L., Dior in Moscow: A taste for luxury in Soviet

253
Notes

fashion under Khrushchev. In Read, S. and Crowley, D. (eds.), Pleasures in

Socialism, Leisure and Luxury in the Bloc. Evenston, Ill.: Northwestern University
Press, 2010, pp. 95–120; Zakharova, L., Soviet fashion in the 1950s–1960s.
Regimentation, Western influences, and consumption strategies. In Kozlov, D.,
and Gilburn, E. (eds.), The Thaw. Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and
1960s. Toronto; Univesity of Toronto Press, 2013.
11 Gronow, J. and Zhuravlev, S., Soviet luxuries from champagne to private cars. In
Crowley, D. and S.E.Reid (eds.): Pleasures in Socialism. 2010, pp. 121–146.
12 Gronow, J. and Zhuravlev, S., The book of tasty and healthy food: The establishment
of Soviet haute cuisine. In Strong, Jeremy (ed.): Educating tastes. Lincoln, NE.:
University of Nebraska Press, 2011.
13 The literal translation of Dom modelei is a house of prototypes (or patterns). In the
following we use consequently the expression “a house of fashion design” which in
our opinion characterizes far better the nature of the wide range of their activities.
14 Crane, D. Fashion and its Social Agendas. Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 135.
15 In fact, even the bigger Parisian fashion houses increasingly since the 1970s
design clothes not for sale but for the purpose of promoting their brands which
mostly sell other consumer goods, like perfumes and jewelry. The number of
customers of their elite fashion is, after all, extremely small. The main purpose
of their spectacular fashion shows is to advertise and promote their trademark,
which is used to market all kinds of products apart from fashionable clothing, such
as perfumes, jewels, various other kinds of accessories to clothing, etc. (Crane,
Fashion and its Social Agendas, p. 144–147). In the Soviet Union, the fashion
houses understandably did not primarily promote their own trademarks – it is
questionable if one can speak of them at all in this context – but mainly propagated
Soviet fashion and clothing culture in general.
16 See Gronow, J. and Zhuravlev, S. Soviet Luxuries from Champagne to Private Cars,
in: Pleasures in Socialism, 2010, pp.121–146; Siegelbaum, L. Cars for Comrades:
the life of the Soviet automobile. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
2008; and Zhuravlev, S.V., Zezina, M.R., Pikhoia, R.G. and Sokolov A.K.: AvtoVAZ
mezhdu proshlym i budushchim, Istoriya Volzhskogo avtozavoda, 1967–2006
Moskva: RAGS 2006.
17 In 1935, Chanel had 4000 employees (Crane, D., Fashion and its Social Agendas.
p. 141).
18 For first–hand evidence of the leading Soviet designers see: Andreeva, Iren.
Chastnaya zhizn’ pri sotsializme: otchet sovetskogo obyvatelia. Moskva: NLO,
2009; Jushkova Anastasia. Alexander Igmand: “Ya odeval Brezhneva...”. Moskva:
NLO, 2008; Shchipakina, Alla. Moda v SSSR. Sovetskii Kuznetskii,14. Moskva:
Slovo, 2009; Zaitsev, Slava. Tainy obmana. Moskva: Iskusstvo–XX vek, 2006.
19 Komarov, V.E. and Cherniavskii, U.G.: Dokhody i potreblenie naselenia SSR.
Moskva: Nauka, 1973.
20 Kiaer, C.: Imagine no Possessions. The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism.
Cambridge, Ma. and London: MIT Press 2005, pp. 89–142.
21 Zhuravlev, S.V. and Gronow, J., Krasota pod kontrolem gosudarstva: osobennosti
i etapy stanovlenia sovetskoi mody. In: The Soviet and Post–Soviet Review 32
(2005), 1, pp. 1–92.
22 For the best examples of recent studies on everyday life and public attitudes in the
Soviet Union during Khrushchev’s times see: Aksiutin, Jury. Khrushchevsakaya
“ottepel’” i obshchestvennye nastroeniya v SSSR v 1953–1964 gg. Moskva:
ROSSPEN 2004; Lebina, N.B., Chistikov A.N. Obyvatel’ i reformy. Kartiny
povsednevnoi zhizni gorozhan v gody nepa i khrushchevskogo desiatiletiya. SPb:
Dmitry Bulanin, 2003.

254
Notes

23 Bestuzhev–Lada, I.V., Moda i promyshlennoe modelirovanie odezhdy. Teksty i

tezisy dokladov na Vsesoyuznoi nauchnoi konferentsii 16–18 yanvarya 1979 g.
Moskva: Moskovskii tekstil’nyi institut, 1979, p. 4.
24 “Stiliagis” had several meanings in Soviet public and official discourses. One
referred to stiliagis as “stylish people”. Another came from jazzmen’s slang, in
which “stiliat’” (from English verb to steal) meant to ïîäðàæàòú – to follow or
copy somebody’s style. The term became widespread in the Soviet society as a
symbol to the Western values after publication D.G. Beliaev’s feuilleton“Stiliagi” in
the popular Soviet satirical journal “Krokodil” (1949, 7, March). See also: Kristin
Rot–Ai: Kto na Piedestale, a kto v tolpe? Stiliagi i ideya sovetskoi “molodezhnoi
kul’tury” v epokhy “ottopeli”. Magazines.russ.ru and Vainshtein, O., Dendi. Moda,
literatura, stil’ zhizni. Moskva: NLO 2005.
25 The latest stage in the myth building process which started with the early
caricatures in the comical journal Krokodil in the late 1940s was the release of the
new musical movie Stiliagi in 2008.
26 See for example Kozlov, A., Kozel na sakes–I tak vsiu zhizn’ (jazz–jazz.
ru/?category=interesting&altname...kozlov...na_sakse; Saul’ski, Yu., Kokteil–holl
i Shestigrannik (http:www.schukra.ru/bio.php?show&id=4.).
27 Edele, M., Strange young men in Stalin’s Moscow: the birth and life of a stiliagi,
1945–1953. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 50 (2002),1, pp. 37–61. See
also Vainshtain, O., Dendi. Moda, literatura, stil’ zhizni 2005, pp. 527–539.
28 Kimerling, A., Platforma protiv kalosh, ili stiliagi na ulitsakh sovetskogo goroda.
Teoriya modi 2007, 3, pp. 81–99. See also Fürst, J., The arrival of spring? Changes
and continuities in Soviet culture and policy between Stalin and Khrushchev. In
Jones, P.(ed.), The Dilemma of De–Stalinization. Negotiating Cultural and Social
Change in the Khrushchev Era. London and New York: Routledge, 2006, pp.
135–153.
29 For a standard Soviet commentary on stiliagis in the late 1950s, see Golybina, A.G.,
Iskusstvo odevat’sia. Leningrad: Lenizdat 1959, p. 243. See also useful sources in
the internet, documentaries and an agitation movie from the late 1950s, as well
as recent comments on stiliagis: www.proza.ru/2009/10/27/732; www.bujhm.
livejournal.com/383320.htms
30 Soviet women who engaged in manual work, tourism and sports – which they
were encouraged to do in great numbers – naturally wore trousers even earlier.
31 Dan Healey’s Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia. The Regulation of
Gender and Sexual Dissent (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 2001) is the only systematic study of homosexuality in the USSR. It has
a comprehensive bibliography on Soviet sexuality and homosexuality. Healey
destroys quite effectively the prevailing myth of the USSR as a country of
heterosexuals and puritan morality. The questions about the number of people
with “non–traditional” sexual orientations and how typical the cases he describes
in fact were remain, however, largely open.
32 See however Zdravomyslova, Yelena and Temkina, Anna, Rossiskaya
transformatsiya i seksual’naya zhizn’. In Zdravomyslova, Ye., and Temkina, A.
(eds.), V poiskakh seksual’nosti. St.Peterburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2002, p. 11.
33 S.I.Golod, one of the few specialists in this area, points out the fragmented
nature of many research results as well as their constructivist approach and the
use of predominantly qualitative methods. (See Golod, S.I., Shto bylo porokami,
stalo nravami. Lektsii po sotsiologii seksual’nosti. Moskva: Ladomir. 2005, p.
5–6.) In I.S. Kon’s opinion contemporary surveys conducted among elderly
people about their sexual behavior in their youth in the USSR suffer from serious
methodological problems. They can reasonably be used to pose further questions
and as illustrations of general tendencies but not to get scientifically reliable

255
Notes

results. (Kon, I.S., Rol’ i mesto seksual’noi kultury i stanovlenii tsivilizovannogo

gosudarstva. St.Peterburg: SbP GUP, 1999, p. 72.)
34 Laura Engelstein, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in
Fin–de–Siecle Russia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.
35 Golod, S.I., Shto bylo porokami, stalo nravami. 2005, p. 77.
36 I.S.Kon has paid attention to the fact that these negative connotations of sex and
sexuality have long roots in Russian culture: The Orthodox Church as well as
such influential Russian authors as Lev Tolstoy together with many revolutionary
democrats all agreed that sexuality was something bad as such. (Kon, I.S., Rol’
i mesto seksual’noi kul’tury v stanovlenii tsivilizirovannogo gosudarstvo. 1999,
p. 61.)
37 Rotkirch, Anna, The Man Question. Love and Lives in Late 20th Century Russia.
University of Helsinki, Department of Social Policy. Research Reports 2000:1.
38 Kon, I.S., Seksual’nost i kul’tura, 2004, p. 49 and Rotkich, A., The Man Question,
2000.
39 For scholarly debates on the future of Soviet fashion see: Moda i promyshlennoe
modelirovanie odezhdy. Tezisy dokladov Vsesojuznoi nauchnoi konferentsii,
16–18 of January, 1979. Moskva: Moskovskii tekstil’nyi institut 1979.
40 Cf. Blumer, H., Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection. In: The
Sociological Quarterly 10 (1969), 1, pp. 275–91.
41 Yasinskaya, I., Soviet Textile Design of the Revolutionary Period. London: Thames
and Hudson, 1983.
42 Strizhenova, T., and Bowlt, J.E., Costume Revolution. Textiles, Clothing and
Costume of the Soviet Union in the 1920s. 1989.
43 Strizhenova, T., Soviet Costume and Textiles. 1917–1945. Paris:Flammarion, 1991.
See also Huber, E., Mode in der Sowjetunion 1917–1953. Wien: Praesens Verlag, 2011.
44 Vasiliev, A., Beauty in Exile.: The Artists, Models, and Nobility Who Fled the
Russian Revolution and Influenced the World of Fashion. New York: Harry
N. Abrams, 2000 and Vasiliev, A., Russkaia moda. 150 let v fotografiyakh.
Moskva:Slovo 2004.
45 Ruane, C., The Empire’s New Clothes. A History of Russian Fashion Industry,
1700–1917. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009.
46 Zakharova, L.V., S’Habiller ả la Soviétique. La Moda et le Dégelen URSS. Paris:
CNRS Edition, 2011. See also Zakharova, L.V., “Naibolee rasprostranennoi
yavliaetsia forma priamogo pal’to s odnobortnoi zastezhkoi”, 2006; Zakharova,
L.V., Dior in Moscow, 2010, pp. 95–120. and Zakharov, L.V., Defilirovat’ po–
sovetski. Teoriya mody 2006–2007, 1, pp. 59–74; Zakharova, L.V., Soviet fashion
in the 1950s–1960s: regimentation, 2013, pp. 402–435.
47 Vainshtain, O., “Moye liubimoe plat’ye”: portnikha kak kul’turnyi geroi v
Sovetskoi Rossii. Teoriya mody. Odezhda, telo, kul’tura, 3 (2007), pp. 101–127,
Vains´htain, O., Female fashion, Soviet Style: Bodies of Ideology. In Goscilo,
H., and Holmgren, B. (eds.), Russia. Women. Culture. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1996, pp. 64–94. and Vainshtain, O., Fashioning women: the
dressmaker as cultural producer in Soviet Russia. In Marcus. G.E., (ed.), Para–
Sites. A Casebook Against Cynical Reason. University of Chicago Press: Chicago
and London, 2000.
48 Vainshtain, O., Dendi. Moda, literature, stil’ zhizni 2005.
49 Chernyshova, Natalya, Soviet Consumer Culture in the Brezhnev Era, 2014.
50 Gurova, Olga, Fashion and Consumer Revolution in Contemporary Russia.
London: Rotledge, 2014. p. 45.
51 Bartlett, D., FashionEast. The Spectre that Haunted Socialism. Cambridge, MA. &
London: MIT Press, 2010.
52 Stitziel, J., Fashioning Socialism. Clothing, Politics, and Consumer Culture in East
Germany. London & New York: Berg, 2005.

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Notes

53 See for instance, Finnare, A., Changing Clothes in China. Fashion, History, Nation.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2008 and Wu J., Chinese Fashion. From
Mao to Now. Oxford & New York: Berg, 2009.
54 See for instance Steele, V., Paris Fashion: a Cultural History. Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988; Steele, V., Women of Fashion: Twentieth–century
Designers. New York: Rizzoli, 1991; Steele, V., Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to
Now. New haven: Yale University Press, 1997; Mendes, V., and Haye, A.de la, 20th
Century Fashion. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.
55 Wilson, E., Adorned in Dreams. London: Virago, 1985.
56 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000; see also Joanne Entwistle, The
Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2000.
57 Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990.
58 For an interesting discussion based on the memories of ordinary Russian women,
see Gurova, Olga, Fashion and Consumer Revolution in Contemporary Russia,
2014.
59 Osokina, E., Our Daily Bread. The System of Distribution and the Art of Survival
in Stalin's Russia 1927–1941. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E.Shrarpe, 2001. Hessler, J., A
Social History of Soviet Trade. Trade Policy, Retail Practices and Consumption,
1917–1953. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004; Randall. A., The Soviet
Dream World of Retail Trade and Consumption in the 1930s. 2008; Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan; Gronow, J., Caviar with Champagne. Common Luxury and
the Ideals of Good Life in Stalin’s Russia. Oxfod and New York: Berg, 2003.
60 The historical development of East German consumer goods and consumer culture
in the post–war years has been explored more systematically and extensively than
any other country of the East European socialist bloc. See Wunderwirtschaft.
DDR–konsumkultur in den 60er Jahren. Herausgegeben von Neue Gesellschaft für
Bildende Kunst. Köln, Weimer and Wien: Böhlau Verglag, 1996; Merkel, I., Utopie
und Bedürfnis. Die Geschichte der Konsumkultur in der DDR. Köln, Weimar and
Wien: Böhlau Verlag; Pence, Katherine and Betts, Paul (eds.), Socialist Modern.
East German Everyday Culture and Politics. Ann Arbor, MI.: The University of
Michigan Press, 2008 and Rubin, Eli, Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship
in the German Democratic Republic. Chapel Hill, NC.: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2009.
61 Chernyshova, N., Soviet Consumer Culture in the Brezhnev Era, 2014; Siegelbaum,
L., Cars for Comrades, 2008.

Chapter 2.
62 For a detailed account of the different aspects of the establishment of the fashion
industry in pre–revolutionary Russia, see Ruane, Christine, The Empire’s New
Clothes. A History of the Russian Fashion Industry, 1700–1917. New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2009.
63 Larin, Yu., Intelligentsiia i sovety. Khoziaistvo, burzhuaziya, revoliutsiya,
gosapparat. Moskva:Gosizdat, 1924, p. 4.
64 Maier, N., Sluzhba v Komissariate yustitsii i narodnom sude, In Arkhiv russkoi
revolutsii. T. VIII. Berlin 1923, pp. 56, 98.
65 Budennyi, S.M., Proidennyi put’. V 2–kh kn. Kn.1. Moskva: Voenizdat, 1958, pp.
294–295. For a detailed account of public attitudes during the Russian Revolution
and the Civil War, see Buldakov, V.P. Krasnaya smuta: Priroda i posledtsviya
revolutsionnogo nasiliya. Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2010.
66 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 27.9. 1919. p. 1.

257
Notes

67 See for instance, GARF. F.R–393, Op.13,D.219,LL.131.300.305.352; Ibid. F.R.–

1240, Op.1.D–99–L.40–41.
68 For the typical expressions of such an approach to culture, see the issues of the
journals Gryadushcheyo and Iskusstvo kommuny published in 1918–1919.
69 In later times, the concept of anti–fashion is often associated with the post–war
tendencies in the West when self–made street fashion and various social protest
movements challenged the creations of the professional designers and their “haute
couture.” It united tendencies which did not fit into the official fashion or existed
side–by–side with it. The hippie movement offered a characteristic example of
anti–fashion with its decorative clothes and hairstyles inspired by folk art. Anti–
fashion had its pre–revolutionary ancestors in the radical political movements, in
particular among the radical movements of women’s liberation which claimed that
fashion was just one more means of oppressing women.
70 The world famous sculptor, V. I. Mukhina, as well as the designers N. P. Lamanova,
A. A. Ekster and E. I. Pribyl’skaya among others, all cherished such progressive
ideals. See Strizhenova, T. K., Iz istorii sovetskogo kostiuma. Moskva. Sovetskii
khudozhnik, 1972; Mertsalova, M.N. Istoriya kostiuma. Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1972;
Kirsanova, R., Vtoroi Shlyapin ve svoyem dele. Rodina nr. 4, 2004.
71 For early feminist and other radical critique of fashion in Russia, see Ruane,
Christine, The Empire’s New Clothes. A History of the Russian Fashion Industry,
1700–1917. 2009, pp. 209–14.
72 Ruane, C., The Empire’s New Clothes. A History of Russian Fashion Industry,
1700–1917. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2009, p. 241.
73 Ibid. p. 209.
74 Izvestiya VTsIK, March 1l, 1923, p. 4.
75 Komsomol’skaya pravda, 10.10.1926, p. 4.
76 Zaitsev, V.M., ‘Etot mnogolikii mir mody.’ Sovetskaya Rossiya (Moskva), 1982, p.
58.
77 Zaitsev, V.M., ibid. p. 58. About Soviet fashion in the 1920s see also Vasilyev,
Alexander, ‘Art–Deco v sovetskoi mode!’ www.moda.ru/content/id/7363/20290/
78 Bartlett, Djurdja, FashionEast. The Spectre that Haunted Socialism. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2010, p. 15.
79 Ibid. p. 18.
80 Strizhenova, T., ‘Sud’ba Nadezhdy Lamanovoi.’ Zhurnal mod 1989, nr. 4; See also
Strizhenova, T., ‘Iz istorii sovetskogo kostyuma.’ Moskva 1972.
81 Lamanova, N., ‘Russkaya moda.’ Krasnaya niva, 1923, nr. 30. See also Lamanova,
N., ‘O sovremennom kostyume.’ Krasnaya niva 1924, nr. 27.
82 Bartlett, FashionEast, 2010, p. 42.
83 Vasilieva, L.N, Kremlevskia zheny. Moskva:Vagrius. 1994, p. 123.
84 Ibid. p. 262.
85 Ibid. pp. 102–103.
86 Zhuravlev, S.V. NKVD naprasno ne sazhaet...., Sotsial’naja istorija, Yezhegodnik
2004. Moskva: Rosspen, pp. 371–400.
87 Moskva–Washington: politika i diplomatiya Kremlia, 1921–1941. Sbornik
dokumentov v 3-kh tomakh pod redaktsiei G. Sevost’yanova. Vol. 2. Moskva:
Nauka, 2009, pp. 11–17.
88 Vasilieva, L.N, Kremlevskia zheny. Moskva: Vagrius, 1994, p. 145.
89 Osokina, E., Za fasadom ‘stalinskogo izobiliya’. Raspredelenie i rynok v snabzhenii
naseleniya v gody indsutrializatsii, 1927–1941. Moskva: ROSSPEN, 1998.
90 See Gronow, J., Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the
Good Life in Stalin’s Russia, 2003, pp. 87–97.
91 The minutes of the meeting of the Narkomat Vnutrennei torgovli on the work of
the exemplary department stores, 23.2.1935– RGAE. F. 7971. Op.1.D.80.L.32.
92 TsMAM. F.1953.Op.1.D.9.L.3.

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Notes

93 Commercial trade was common in the first half of the 1920s. It was officially
allowed again in the cities for a short period between April 1944 and December
1947. The prices in commercial trade were not market prices but set by the
State planning offices. They were however much higher than the prices of goods
distributed through rationing and in many cases reflected their costs of production.
The share of commercial trade in the distribution of consumer goods remained
quite modest: by the end of 1945 only 10 percent of all the state–produced goods
were sold through it and the remaining 90 percent distributed through the system
of rationing for remarkably lower prices. In December 1947 both rationing and
commercial trade were shut down and equal state prices were introduced for all
consumer goods. After that the prices of foodstuffs and drinks remained almost
as low as in the previous war–time rationing system, whereas the prices of clothes,
shoes and textiles were much higher but still about three times lower than in the
short lived commercial shops. (See Hessler, J., A Social History of Soviet Trade.
Trade Policy, Retail Practices and Consumption, 1917–1953. Princeton, NJ. and
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004.)
94 The letter of the director of the factory Magnezit of the Trust Ogneupor NKTP
SSSR Tabakov to V.M. Molotov, 1.11.1934 (RGAE.F.7971.Op.1.D.16.L.54–54
ob.)
95 Widdis, Emma, Sew yourself Soviet: The pleasures of textile in the machine age.
In Balina, M. And Dobrenko, E.(eds.), Petrified Utopia. Happiness Soviet Style.
London: Athen Press, 2009, pp. 115–132.
96 The new governments tried in many ways to regulate and influence politically
and ideologically the fashion designers and enterprises both in Fascist Italy and
Nazi Germany in the 1930s (see Guenther, I., Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in
the Third Reich. Oxford: Berg, 2004 and Paulicelli, E., Fashion under Fascism:
Beyond the Black Shirt. Oxford: Berg, 2004). These measures were, however, more
restricted than in the Socialist countries which created from their own needs – in
a centrally planned way – a totally new, huge state owned system of fashion design
from the very beginning. Both in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy the fashion
industry remained largely in private hands.
97 The figures are from Roger Markwick: ‘Women, War and ”Totalitarism”: Soviet
and Nazi Experiences compared.’ The 20th Congress of Historical Sciences, 3–9–
July. Programme, Sydney 2005, p. 104.
98 Kantor, K.M., Moda kak stil’ zhizni. In Tosltykh,V. (red.), Moda: za i protiv.
Moskva:Iskusstvo, 1971, p. 141. See also Kantor, K.M., Krasota i pol’za.
Sotsiologitseskie problemy material’no–khudozhestvennoi kultury. Moskva:
Iskusstvo 1967.

Chapter 3.
99 Davies, R.W., Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 59–61.
100 Ibid. p. 65.
101 Ibid. p. 59.
102 These commercial shops were in the Soviet Union state owned or cooperatives.
They sold their goods for prices fixed by the state. They were commercial in the
sense that any customer who had money at his or her disposal could enter them
and buy any goods on sale within the limits of his or her wallet. A large and
varying share of the major consumer goods, food and clothes included, were
always distributed to the Soviet citizens through other channels, so called closed
shops were attached to various economic or state organizations and open only to

259
Notes

a restricted clientele. Gronow, J., Caviar with champagne, 2003 and Julie Hessler,
A Social History of Soviet Trade, 2004.
103 Osokina, E., Za fasadom ‘stalinskogo izobiliya. 1998.
104 See Matthews, Mervyn, Privilege in the Soviet Union. A Study of Elite Life–Styles
under Communism. London: Georg Allen & Unwin, 1978.
105 Taubman, W., Khrushchev. The Man – his Era. London: Free Press, 2005, pp. 305–
06.
106 Gronow, J., Complaining in the USSR: Consumer dissatisfaction and the legitimacy
of the Soviet rule. In Kahla, E., (ed.), Between Utopia and Apocalypse, Essays on
Social Theory and Russia. Aleksanteri series 1, 2011, pp. 305–315.
107 Inkeles, A. and Geiger, K., Critical letters to the editors of the Soviet Press. Areas
and modes of complaints. American Sociological Review 17 (1952), 6, pp. 694–703.
108 Bogdanova, E., Obrashsheniia grazhdan v organy vlasti kak opyt otstaivania
svoikh interesov v usloviyakh pozdnesovetskogo perioda (1960–1970–e gg.).
Avtoreferat na soiskanie nauchnoi stepeni kandidata sotsiologicheskikh nauk
po spetsial’nosti 22.00.04– sotsial’naya struktura, sotrial’nye instituty i sotsial’nie
protsessy. St:Petersburh, Norma, 2008.
109 Soviet organizations of trade engaged in real market research quite early on,
beginning in the late 1940s. After the founding of a separate All–Union market
research institute under the Ministry of Trade (VVNIIKS) in 1965 this activity
gained well–organized, regular forms. It had branches in all bigger Soviet cities and
regional centers. (See the order of the SM SSSR nr. 157, 13.3.1965. In Postanovlenie
SM SSSR I VSNKh SSSR. Sbornik dokumentov. March 1965, p.64.)
110 See for instance Arzamastev, A.M., Shto ponimaetsia pod razumnimi
potrebnostami. Nautsniy kommunizm, 1980, 1. pp.
111 Ekonomicheskaya gazeta. 1969, nr. 41, p. 3.
112 Moda i promyshlennoe modelirovanie odezhdy. Tezisi dokladov na vsesojuznoi
nauchnoi konferentsii 16–18 janvaria 1979 goda. Moskva: Moskovskii tekstyl’nyi
institut, 1979.
113 In his article about the standards of private consumption in the USSR published
in 1962 M.E.Rubin concluded that in 1958 the per capita consumption of textiles,
clothes and footwear was well below the rational standards and even in 1965 would
be attained for only some of them. (Private Consumption in the USSR: Changes in
the assortment of goods 1940–1959. Soviet Studies 3 (1962): 13, pp. 237–253.)
114 Samoregulyatsiya i prognozirovanie sotsial’noi povedeniya yunosti. Leningrad:
Nauka, 1979.
115 Davies, R.W., Soviet Economic Development, p. 69.
116 Ibid.
117 As compared to the capitalist states, the income statistics in the USSR did not
include any income from property. Neither do the statistics include income from
the informal economy which in the Soviet Union was quite high. Nevertheless,
one can draw the general conclusion that the share of the highest income groups
compared to the lowest was much higher in the Soviet Union than in the capitalist
countries in the middle of the 1950s.
118 Davies, R.W. Soviet Economic Development, p. 68.
119 Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR za 70 let. Moskva 1987, p. 8.
120 Cf. Elena Zubkova’s analysis of the great hopes and disappointments of the post–
war expectations in the late 1940s (Zubkova, E.Ju, Russia after the War. Hopes,
Illusions and Disappointments, 1945–1957. N.Y.: Armonk, 1998.)
121 Davies, R.W., Soviet Economic Development, p. 70.
122 Harrison, M., Economic growth and slowdown. In Bacon, E. and M.Sandle (eds.),
Brezhnev Reconsidered. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2002, pp. 203–277.
123 Zhuravlev, S.V., Zezina, M.R., Pikhoya R.G. and. Sokolov, A.K., Avtovaz mezhdu
proshlym i budushchim. Moskva: RAGS, 2006.

260
Notes

124 Hanson, Philip, The Rise and Fall of Soviet Economy: an Economic History of
the USSR from 1945. Harlow: Longman, 2003, pp. 84–5. See also Nove, A., Soviet
agriculture under Brezhnev. Slavic Review, 29:3. pp. 379–410.
125 Hanson, P., The Rise and Fall of Soviet Economy, p. 50.
126 Ibid. p.65.
127 Ibid. p. 115.
128 Joint Economic Committee. Congress of the United States. USSR: Measures of
Economic Growth and Development, 1950–1980. Washington, Government
Printing Office, 1980.
129 Narodnoe khozaistvo SSSR v 1990. Moskva: Statistika, 1991, p.135.
130 Joint Economic Committee. Congress of the United States. Annual Economic
Indicators of the U.S.S.R. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1964.
131 Small amounts of shoes were imported from capitalist countries, such as Finland
and Italy, but most imports came from other socialist countries, such as Poland.
For the small share of some other imported clothes items, see Narodnoe khozaistvo
SSSR v 1990. Moskva 1990, pp. 654 and 657.
132 Narodnoe khozaistvo SSSR v 1980. Moskva: Statistika 1981, p. 540.
133 Hanson, Philip, The Rise and Fall of Soviet Economy, p. 115. See also Roth–Eye,
Kristen, Finding a home for television in the USSR. 1950–1970. Slavic Review 6
(2007): 2, pp. 278–306.
134 Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR za 70 let. Moskva: Statistika, 1987, p. 472.
135 Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR v 1980. Moskva: Statistika, 1981, pp. 441–443.
136 Bokarev, Yu.P., SSSR i stanovlenie postindustrial’nogo obshchestva na Zapade.
1970–1980–e gody. Moskva: Nauka, 2007, p. 207.
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid.p. 209.
139 Narodnoe khozaistvo SSSR v 1960 g. Moskva 1961, p. 341; Narodrnoe khozaistvo
SSSR v 1970 g. Moskva. Statistika, 1971, p.1971 and Narodnoe khozaistvo SSSR v
1980. Moskva: Statistika, 1981, p. 449.
140 Narodnoe khozaistvo SSR v 1990. Moskva: Statistika, 1991, p. 680–681.
141 See for instance, Promyshlennost’ SSSR. Statisticheskii sbornik. Statistika: Moskva,
1964, pp. 84–85.
142 Bokarev, Yu.P., SSSR i stanovlenie postindustrial’nogo obshchestva na Zapade.
1970–1980–e gody, 2007, pp. 40–41.
143 Kravtsov, N. and Kuznetsov, I., Firmy–khorosho! Moskva 1962, pp.10 and 70.
144 Aleksei Kosygin (1904–1980) was an important politician in the USSR who
started his career in the Soviet Government as the Minister of Light Industry
during Stalin’s regime. He was a long time minister in the USSR and its prime
minister in 1964–1980. An engineer by education, he had earlier experience in the
administration of textile industry and was therefore regarded as an expert on the
consumer goods industry, among others.
145 Hanson, P., The Rise and Fall of Soviet Economy, p 104.
146 Ibid. p. 106.
147 Ibid. p. 107. This was, in fact, accomplished in Hungary in 1968, but even there,
since enterprises could not be allowed to fail (that is, go bankrupt) and they were
always “bailed out” by the state, this did not lead to the increase in more effective
allocation of resources and increasing productivity, as wished.
148 Hanson, P., The Rise and Fall of Soviet Economy, p. 108.
149 Dunham, V., In Stalin’s Time: Middle Class values in Soviet Literature. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976.
150 Millar, J.R., ’The Little Deal’: Brezhnev’s contribution to acquisitive socialism.
Slavic Review 1985,40:4, p. 697.
151 Schwartz, C.A., Economic crime in the U.S.S.R.: A comparison of the Khrushchev
and Brezhnev eras. The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 1981, 30:2,

261
Notes

pp. 281–96; Clark, W.A., Crime and punishment in Soviet officialdom, 1965–1990.
Europe–Asia Studies 1993, 45:2, pp. 239–257.
152 Bokarev, Yu.P., SSSR i stanovleniya postindustrial’nogo obshestva na zapade.
1970–1980–e gody, p. 212.
153 O’Hearn, Dennis, The Consumer second economy. Size and effect. Soviet Studies
32 (1980), 2, pp. 218–234.
154 Duhamel, L., The last campaign against corruption in Soviet Moscow. Europe–
Asia Studies, 2004, 56:2, p. 188.
155 Millar, J.R., ‘The Little Deal.’ 1985, p. 704.
156 See however Doklad upravdelami TsK KPSS N.Ye.Kruchiny i otvety na voprosy
delegatov. In Materialy XXVIII s’ezda KPSS. Stenograficeskii otchet. Moskva:
Partizdat,1991. For earlier times, see also Matthews, M., Pivileges in the Soviet
Union, p. 38–43.
157 As the correspondent for The New York Times put it in 1966 (May 22): “The
problem of high prices and low quality have now taken the place of the former
major problem of acute shortages of practically everything.”
158 Vihavainen, T.. Vnutrennii vrag. Bor’ba s meshchastvom kak moral’naya missiya
russkoi intelligentsia. Sankt–Peterburg: Kolo, 2004.
159 One of the authors remembers that the standard black market price of American
jeans was 100 roubles in Kiev in the early 1970s – more than half the average
monthly wages of a worker.
160 Miss’ on farkku Suomi? (Where is jeans Finland?). Image 5.11.2014.
161 Kostin, L., Proizvodstvo tovarov narodnogo potrebleniya (Sotial’no–ekoniomi-
cheskii aspekt). Moskva: Ekonomika, 1980 and Lebina, N., Entsiklopediya banal’nos-
tei. Sovetskaya povsednevnost’: kontury, simvoly, znaki. St.Peterburg, 2006, p. 125.
162 Bartlett, D., FashionEast, 2010, p. 269–270. See also Chernishova, N., Soviet
Consumer Culture, 2014, p. 154–155.
163 hht://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php4?st
164 Bauman, Z. ’Communism: a post mortem.’ Praxis International 1990–1991, 10:3–
4, pp.185–92.

Chapter 4.
165 RGAE. F.523.Op.1.D.3.L.7. See also the directives of the Collegium of the People’s
Comissariat of Light Industry RSFSR, 18.4.1945.
166 RGAE. F.523.Op.1.D.23.
167 The Minister of Light Industry, A.N.Kosygin confirmed the directive of ODMO
by undersigning the order nr. 338 on the 24th of May, 1948 (RGAE.F.523.
Op.1.D.19.L.2–2ob.)
168 As early as 1944, the enterprises of the Novosibirsk region had taken into
production 15, the Chelyabinsk region 16 and L’vov 11 new designs from MDMO
(RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.7.L.11).
169 RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.3.L.7. MDMO sewed for sale in 1945 3100 male and 1100
female overcoats and suits, 20 600 pieces of various kinds of female clothes, 2600
clothes for young girls, 400 children’s outerwear as well as 200 sets of underwear
and head wear and 4700 military shirts. (Ibid. D.7.L.6.)
170 Hessler, J., A Social History of Soviet Trade, 2004, 279–290.
171 RGAE.F.198.Op.1.D.222.L.86.
172 RGAE.F.198.Op.1.D.222.L.13.
173 RGAE.F.198.Op.1.D.223.
174 RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.3.L.9.
175 Ibid. D.7.L.9. As a matter of fact many of the designs in 1945 were not highly

262
Notes

original at all but resembled in many ways pre–war designs in their silhouettes and
construction. They had only been slightly renewed and styled in order to better
follow the fashion trends. Of all the 963 new items of design which the designers
at MDMO offered to the industry, the factories in the capital region took into
production 225, more peripheral garment factories another 408. MDM’s own
production units produced 81 on the orders of the Glavosobtorg, and the atelier of
individual sewing at the trust Mosindodezhda received 209. The cinema company
Mosfil’m ordered an additional 40. (RGAE. F. 523.Op.1.D.7.L.9).
176 See the annual report of ODMO for 1950 (RGAE. F.523.Op.1.D.47.L.7.)
177 RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.7.L.14–14 ob.
178 Ibid. D.47.L.27.
179 Ibid. L.10.
180 RGAE. F.523.Op.1.D.13. L.8–11.15.
181 Ibid. D.13.L.7.
182 Ibid. D.7.L.11 ob.
183 Ibid..D.37.L.19.
184 Ibid.
185 In particular, in 1945 the workers at MDMO were engaged in compiling collections
of publications from the foreign journals of fashion which they received in their
library. They followed with special interest the appearance of Russian motifs and
other folk traditions in international fashion.
186 RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.7.L.6 ob.
187 The first All–Union methodical meeting or consultation which ODMO organized
with leading fashion designers, pattern makers and other representatives of the
local houses of fashion design and the garment shops, etc. took place in Moscow
in June, 1949.
188 RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.47.L.8.
189 Ibid..D.37.L.69.
190 Ibid. D.7.L.7 ob.
191 Ibid.
192 Ibid. D.13.L.6.
193 Ibid. D.7.L.10.
194 Ibid. D.13.L.5.
195 Ibid. D.13.L.5.
196 Ibid. D. 37.L.23. The explanatory text attached to the annual report of 1947 also
took up the importance of the role of the Soviet designer in forming the taste of
the population and extending their qualified help to them in the questions of the
choice of clothing style. (Ibid.D.13.L.1,9.)
197 Ibid. D.37.L.71–73.
198 Ibid. D.7.L.11 ob. In 1947 over 12 thousand people visited such shows. (RGAE.F.523.
Op.1.D.13.L.19.)
199 Ibid. D.7.L.10 ob.
200 Ibid. D.37.L.10.
201 The order on ODMO nr. 84, 18.4.1951. (Ibid. D.61.L.108.)
202 Ibid. D.3.L.9.
203 Ibid. D.7.L.9.
204 Ibid. D.7.L.11 ob.
205 Ibid. D.32.
206 Similar artistic councils were established in other kinds of creative organizations
and institutes of culture. For instance, the responsible artistic councils went
through all Soviet theater plays and artistic films. Only after such an inspection
were they allowed to be publicly shown.
207 RGAE.F.523.Op.1.D.13.L.12–13.
208 Ibid. D.13.L.12–13.
209 Ibid. D.24.L.65.
263
Notes

Chapter 5.
210 Shveinaya promyshlennost’ 1965, 2, p. 2.
211 These official figures come from the former employee of VIAlegprom N. M.
Agarevskaya, who kindly made them available to the authors.
212 With the exception of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Republics, the other
Soviet republics had only a single house of fashion design with multiple functions
under their own Ministries of Light Industry.
213 RGAE F.198.Op.1.D.223.
214 For the realization of this decree at VIALegrpom in 1962 see, for instance,
RGAE.F.198.Op.1.D.147.L.39.
215 Pravda 27.11.1964.
216 Pravda 14.2.1970.
217 RGAE F.198.Op.1.D.815. L.89; D.467.L.33.
218 http://www.cniishp.ru/index.php?pp=stat/Babadjanov
219 The applications for the new designs came from the factories to ODMO over a year
in advance: for instance, the order for the spring–summer season 1966 came in on
the 15th of January 1965.
220 RGAE F.198.Op.1.D.1638.L.14.
221 Zakharova, Larisa, “Naibolieye rasprostranennoi yavliaetsia forma priamogo pal’to
s odnobortnoi zastezhkoi. O sovetskoi mode epokhi ’ottepeli’”. Nepriskosnovennyi
zapas, 45, 2006:1 (15.2.2006) and Zakharova, Larisa, Dior in Moscow. A taste for
luxury in Soviet fashion under N. S. Khrushchev. 2010, pp. 95–119.
222 “Dior Clothes May be Made in the Soviet,” The New York Times 11 December,
1963.
223 In the documents of ODMO, the obligation to follow the international level in
the new designs and patterns of clothes can be read repeatedly, like a refrain. It
was thus no accident that in 1966 the labor collective of ODMO faced the task of
“advancing to the application of the designs which are designed on the highest
technical level of the best domestic and international standards” (RGAE.F.198.
Op.1.D.200.L. 32.)
224 See for instance the advertisement in The Times, 6th of July, 1961. One of the
earliest Soviet fashion shows outside the European Soviet bloc was held in 1958
in Cairo, Egypt as part of the trade exhibition of the cotton industry (see The New
York Times, 29 April, 1958.)
225 www.afield.org.ua/mod3/mod83_1.html
226 The career of Lyudmila Romanovskaya (later Romanovskaya–Edwards) started
at the Leningrad House of Fashion Design of Clothes but she moved to Moscow
after getting married and started to work at ODMO. She emigrated later with her
second husband, the artist Yurii Kuper (Kuperman) with a Jewish visa.
227 The model T. Vladimirtseva was selected to demonstrate Soviet fashion from
among many candidates. Two factors worked in her favor: her previous education
as a movie actress and her slender figure which was thought to appeal to the
Western audience. Vladimirtsova’s standard measure was 44 and in the middle of
the 1960s she normally worked as a model in the children’s department at ODMO,
for which her figure was thought to be ideal in the Soviet Union.
228 In addition to Krutikova’s suede coats, a dress in Russian national style under
the title “Russian tea” as well as sports clothes with Moldavian folk motifs were
demonstrated in Paris. For a report of the trip of the Soviet delegation to Paris, see
RGAE F.467.Op.1.D.765.L.26, 29–30.
229 Soviet Styles–And a U.S. Audience. 34 styles designed by three leading Soviet
designers–American fabrics made from Celanese fibers. The New York Times,
April 25, 1968.
230 Odezhda dlia Ameriki. Sovetskii eksport 1968, 5 (56).

264
Notes

231 One of the reasons for the popularity of the Russian style was the American
popular movie released in 1965 based on Boris Pasternak’s Nobel prize–winning
novel Doctor Zhivago, which remained highly contested in the Soviet Union.
232 From 1962 to 1969 the amount of designs at ODMO that went to exhibitions
and shows grew remarkably, whereas the amount of industrial design declined
somewhat. For instance, in 1969 the artistic council approved of ’2730 “industrial”
designs and 1354 designs for shows and exhibitions (RGAE F.467.Op.1.D.1638).
233 RGAE F.198.Op.1.D.222.L.11–13, 40–41, 64.
234 Aleksandr Igmand’s memories, written down by A. Yushkova, give a detailed
picture of the everyday life at ODMO. (See Yushkova, A., Aleksandr Igmand: “Ja
odeval Brezhneva....”. M.: NLO, 2008.)
235 See Spravochnik shveinika. T.1. Moskva: Legpromizdat., 1960. www.cniishp.ru/
index.php?pp=stat/Lyapidus
236 This groundbreaking study was noted in The New York Times too under the title
“Soviet fashion seeks ‘Data.’” (September 23, 1956.)
237 http://www.cniishp.ru/index.php?pp=stat/Lopandina
238 RGAE F.198.Op.1.D.159.L.14.
239 RGAE F.198.Op.1.D.147.L.17–19.
240 An interview with D. F. Dominova, June 15, 2008.
241 The fashion industry was not the only area of industrial design with great hopes
put in a comprehensive system of design. Similar impressive efforts were made
in the electric industry. See Tillberg, Margareta, The electric industry in Soviet
Russia, 1973–1979. Focused – Current Research Projects and Methods. Swiss
Design Network Symposium 2008, pp. 2003–2053.
242 For a more detailed description of the Soviet fashion journals, see Vasil’ev,
Aleksandr. Russkaya moda. 150 let v fotografiyakh. Moskva: Slovo, 2004, p. 293
and others.
243 An interview with N. A. Nesterova, 20.9.2007.
244 An interview with N. M. Agarevskaya, 30.5.2007.
245 These main enterprises were the biggest specialized industrial units of light
industry and had their own special structures of fashion design, research and
development departments.
246 See for instance, the decision of the meeting of the Aesthetic Committee under
the VIALegprom Minlegproma SSSR on the question of the directions of fashion
in the ensemble of the year 1970. Moskva 1968, pp. 26–31.
247 Ibid.
248 Ibid. p. 11.
249 Cf. Bartlett, D., Fashion East, 2010.
250 Krasovskaya, A. A. Sovetskim zhenshchinam–krasivuyu, dobrotnuyu odezhdu.
Leningrad 1962, pp. 77–78.
251 For a presentation of an exemplary House of Domestic Services in Leningrad, see
V. Nikitin, Novyi dom Byta. DI SSSR 1971:4(161) DI SSSR.
252 Sluzhba byta 1980 nr. 7, p. 41.
253 Vainshtein, Olga, Fashioning women: The dressmaker as cultural producer in
Soviet Russia. In Marcus, George F. (ed.), Para–sites. A Casebook of Cynical
Reason. Chicago: Chicago University Press 2000, pp. 195–223.
254 Kosyachenko, S. Otstupi, “massovka”. Sluzhba byta 1967 nr. 5, p. 6.
255 Sluzhba byta. 1966, nr. 1, p. 4. The general number of all the Soviet enterprises of
everyday services grew from 135.2 thousand in 1960 to 239.4 thousand in 1970
and further to 267.9 in 1979. In the Russian part of the USSR, the respective
figures were 66.2 thousand in 1960, 113.0 in 1970 and 119.1 in 1979. (Istoriya
sotsialisticheskoi ekonomiki SSSR. T.7. Moskva:Nauka, 1980, p. 559.)
256 Sluzhba byta 1967, nr. 12, p. 5.
257 Sluzhba byta 1967, nr. 7, p. 19.

265
Notes

258 Mikhailov, Al. Ochen napryazhennyi god. Sluzhba byta 1968, nr. 4, p. 13.
259 Ibid.
260 The data come from the guidebook of the institutes and organizations of the
Administration of Sewing and Repair of Clothes on Individual Orders from the
population of the Moscow city administration (Mosgorispolkom).
261 Sluzhba byta 1966, nr. 9, p. 2.
262 Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 1, p. 2.; nr. 11, p. 18.
263 An interview with N. A. Nesterova, 26.10.2006.
264 Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 2, p. 9.
265 Ibid. p. 15.
266 Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 9, p. 20.
267 Vladimirov, I. Uchastvuem na pervoi mezhdunarodnoi vystavke ”Odezhda”.
Sluzhba byta. 1967, nr. 11, pp. 18–22.
268 Pravda 9.10.1971.
269 Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 11, p. 38.
270 Sluzhba byta 1967, nr. 7, p. 12.
271 Sluzhba byta 1967, nr. 7, p. 32.
272 Nikonov, V. Pochemu rodilas’ zhaloba? Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 7, p. 35.
273 Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 7, p. 47.
274 Eitingin, Ye. Stimul i rezultaty. Sluzhba byta 1966, nr. 8, p. 8.
275 Sluzhba byta 1980, nr. 4, p. 22.
276 Sluzhba byta 1966, nr.10, p. 7.
277 From the 18th of January, 1983, at the decision of the Executive Committee of the
city of Moscow the administration of the House was separated from Factory No.
19 under the name Experimental–Exemplary Enterprise “Fashion House.” On
the 18th of January 1989 by the decision of the same committee (order no. 134
19.1.1989) it was renamed as Moscow Fashion House. Starting from February
1993 its official name is OAO “Moskovskii Dom Mody Viacheslava Zaitseva” (The
Moscow Fashion House of Vyacheslav Zaitsev).
278 An interview with the director of the staff office of the Moscow Center of Fashion
Design, G.V., 25.5.2007.
279 For a cultural history of Soviet underwear, see Gurova, Olga, Sovetskoe nizhnee
bel’e. Mezhdu ideologiei i povsednevnost’u. Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie,
2008.
280 See for instance, “Gratsia. Al’bum modelei Rostovskoi opytno–tekhniceskoi
laboratorii golovnykh uborov i shveinoi galanterei Minbyta RSFSR”. Rostov/Don:
Minbyt RSFSR, 1966.
281 Sluzhba byta, 1966. nr.9, p. 29.
282 Sluzhba byta 1980. nr. 2, p. 40.
283 Gratsia. Al’bom modelei Rostovskoi opytno–tekhnicheskoi laboratorii golovnykh
uborov i shveinoi galanterei Minbyta RSFSR. Rostiov/Don:Minbyt RSFSR, 1966.
284 This figure included the fashion houses, the houses of fashion design, sewing
laboratories, and research and development departments at the enterprises of
everyday services. See Matusova, E., ‘Model’ier respubliki.’ Sluzhba byta 1967, nr.
10.
285 Sluzhba byta 1967, nr. 10.
286 Modnaya odezhda. Katalog. Moskva, VIAlegrpom, 1965.
287 Sluzhba byta 1970, nr. 12, pp. 20–25.
288 Sluzhba byta 1970, nr. 12, p. 25.
289 Sluzhba byta 1970, nr. 12, p. 23.
290 Arkad’ev, A., Ternist put’ mody. Sluzba byta 1966, nr. 4, p. 36.
291 www.art–mozaika.ru/batik.php?page=3. See also the work of Temerin, S.,
Russkoe prikladnoe iskusstvo. Sovetskie gody. Moskva: Sovetskii khudozhnik,
1960.

266
Notes

292 Kiknadze, N. Takoe dalekoe i takoe blizkoe. Sluzhba byta 1969, nr. 9, p. 19.
293 Ibid. p. 19.
294 See in more detail, http:/www.niimestprom.ru

Chapter 6.
295 An Interview with D. F. Dominov, 15.9.2007.
296 Interview with D. B. Shimilis 6.5.2008.
297 The department number 200 was closed to ordinary customers. It was opened
in the middle of the 1950s to provide the leaders of the country as well as the
members of their families with the best consumer goods, mostly of foreign origin.
298 Hilton, M.L., Retailing the revolution: The state department store (GUM) and
Soviet society in the 1920’s. Journal of Social History 37 (2004): 4, pp. 439–464.
299 3. TsAOPIM F.947 (The party organization of GUM). Op 1. D.1.L.1; D.165.L.49.
(All the references to the archival documents in this chapter refer to this collection.)
300 Ibid. D.12.P.228. The minutes of the 15th meeting of the party committee at GUM,
27.4.1955.
301 Ibid. D.51.L.46.
302 Ibid. D.44.L.40. The minutes of the Party organization of the atelier, 14.9.1959.
303 Ibid. D.30.L.99–101.
304 In the Soviet Union, every shop, restaurant and other organization of public
service was obliged to have a book of complaints and suggestions available to its
customers in which they could freely write their – positive as well as negative –
comments.
305 Ibid. D.41.L.179.
306 The mother of one of the authors still preserves as a kind of family relic her winter
overcoat which was sewn at the atelier of GUM in the middle of the 1970s. She was
very pleased with the designs and materials available as well as with the quality of
the service and sewing.
307 Ibid. D.40.L.70.
308 Ibid. D.16.L.153. The minutes of the Party meeting of the Atelier and Department
of Fashion Design 19.6.1955.
309 Ibid. D.96.L.79.
310 Ibid.L.78. The minutes of the Party meeting of the Atelier 13.1.1964.
311 Ibid. D.81.L.101.
312 D.1.L.14; D.44.L40. The minutes of the Party organization of the atelier 14.9.1959.
313 D.96.L.80.
314 D.12.L.142. The presentation of the director of the atelier, Kozlova, at the meeting
of the Party Committee GUM 19.7.1955.
315 D.30.L.19.
316 D.40.L.88.
317 D.44.L.42.
318 A. I. Mikoayn was the most important leader of trade all through the history of
the Soviet Union. After the war he occupied at the same time some of the most
important positions in the Party and the government. He was the Minister of
Trade (from 1953) and the first Deputy Prime Minister (from 1949) as well as a
member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the USSR (from 1952).
319 Ibid. D.12.L.141. The minutes of the meeting of the Party Committee of GUM,
19.7.1955.
320 In addition to Averyanova (GUM), one member of the All–Union Chamber
of Commerce (Torgovaya palata), one from TsUM (Cental Department Store,

267
Notes

which had a well–known atelier in Moscow too), as well as a representative of the

organization Lenodezhda which was engaged in customized sewing in the city of
Leningrad (An interview with L. F. Averyanova 30.4.2008).
321 An interview with L. F. Averyanova, 30.4.2008.
322 A.Vavilova, GUM’s own model, demonstrated the designs created at its fashion
department. (Interview with A.Vavilova 30.4.2008).
323 D.34.L.137.
324 D.12.L.143.
325 D.165.L.72; D.110.L.125.
326 An interview with L. F. Averyanova 30.4.2008.
327 An interview with L. F. Averyanova 30.4.2008.
328 D.12.L.138, 140. The minutes of the meeting of the party committee of GUM, June
1955.
329 Interview with A. Vavilova and D. B. Shimilis, 27 April, 2008.
330 In 1950–1970 many designers of GUM worked extra in their leisure time by taking
private orders. The income from these deals was often higher than their official
salary at GUM. Naturally, no taxes were paid for this extra income. The transfer
from the system of individual sewing to GUM was in many cases economically
not profitable. For instance, Singer had received 3 000 roubles per month in his
previous work place at an atelier of custom made clothes whereas at GUM he was
paid only 1400 roubles. His prestigious occupation at GUM allowed him to find
quite profitable private customers. An interview with L. M. Lobacheva (Andreeva),
30.4.2008. See also Alik Singer’s internet publication about his father: www.bdm.
ru/arhiv/2006/09/84.htm and www.teatr.newizv.ru/news/?IDNews=1251&date
331 D.12.L.137. The minutes of the meeting of the Party Committee of GUM,
19.7.1955.
332 D.12.L.151–152.
333 D.12.L.137.
334 Ibid.L.137.
335 D.12.L.138.
336 D.12.L.141.
337 D.12.L.138, 148–9.
338 There were, however, some exclusions: In 1962, some designs worked out by
the designers at GUM were taken into production by the Moscow factories
Bolshevichka and Number 9 as well as the Sewing Factory Number 1, Tula. The
shoe factories were more interested in taking into production the shoes designed
by A. Oganesov at GUM.
339 D.119.L.16.
340 D.129.L13.
341 According to Diane Crane, there is a huge gap between the artistic creations of
haute couture and their practical applications: “The role of luxury fashion designers
is not to set trends but to produce ideas for trends. From these collections, fashion
editors and fashion forecasters select items that will be promoted as trends.”
(Fashion and its Social Agendas, 2000, p. 165.)
342 D.110.L.170.
343 Reid, Susan E., Destalinization and taste, 1953–1963. Journal of Design History
10 (1997), 2, pp. 177–201 and Buchli, Viktor, Krushchev, Modernism, and the
fight againts petit–bourgeois consciousness in the Soviet home. Journal of Design
History 10 (1997), 2, pp. 161–176.
344 D.63.L.54.
345 D.75.L.166. One should remember that “abstract” was a term with highly negative
connotations in the official Soviet art criticism.
346 D.75.L.169.
347 D.110.L.102. This particular citation is from 1967.

268
Notes

348 D.175.L.31.
349 See the minutes of the meetings of the Party organization in 1966, protocols 68
and 73. Ibid. D.105.L.160; D.126.L.15; D.165,L.62.
350 See the presentation of the public discussion of Soviet fashion in Chapter 8.
See also Lebina, N. B. and A. N. Chistikov: Obyvatel’ i reformy, 2003, 212 and
Zakharova, Larisa, Moda, ili rezhim sotsial’nogo nivelirovaniya, 2009, 243–256.
351 D.126.L.11.
352 Ibid.L.12.
353 Ibid.L.14.
354 An interview with D. B. Shimilis, 30.4.2008.
355 D.105.L.79.
356 D.75.L.155.
357 D.94.L.112; D.105.L.111.
358 D.135,L.5.
359 As Mari Kanasaar, a long time fashion illustrator at Siluett, the fashion journal of
the Tallinn fashion house stated when interviewed in 2013: “I don’t remember any
special ideological pressure from Moscow; or it was just background noise that
no one paid any attention to.” (Komissarov, E., Interview conducted with Mari
Kanasaar, a long– time fashion illustrator at Siluett, in Komissarov, E. & Teeäär, B.
(eds.), Fashion and Cold War, p. 144. At the same time, the editors of the journal
experienced more concrete pressure from their own control committee which had
representatives from, among others, the local Ministry of Light Industry and the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia (ibid.p.148).
360 D.39.L.182.
361 D.84.L.184; D.94.L.105; The interviews with D.B.Shimilis, 28.4.1008 and with
L.F.Averyanova, 29.4.2008.
362 An interview with A.Vavilova, 30.4.2008.
363 The most succesful designs were I. V. Glukhova’s folklore dress, Voloshinova’s
with the theme Cashmir (made out of Pavlovo–posadskie textiles) and K. I.
Pobedinskaya’s collection of sport clothes following the themes of the ethnic
costumes of the Russian North.
364 D.110.L.155.
365 D.63.L.125.
366 D.185.L.2.
367 D.146.L.132.
368 D.75.L.169 (1962).
369 D.126.L.15.
370 D.39.L.180.
371 The minutes no. 6 of the party organization, 29.12.1960. D.63.L.119.
372 Ibid.
373 D.75.L.170.
374 D.165.L.45.
375 For instance, in 1961 their editions were 60 resp. 25 thousands. (See D.63.L.34.)
376 D.94.L.124.
377 D.63.L.34.
378 D.32.L.17.
379 Anna Tikhomirova, who interviewed women living in Soviet times in the city of
Yaroslavl’, found out that according to her respondents the practical patterns with
sewing instructions were in most demand in the 1960s and 1970s. It did not matter
much if they were printed on cheap, poor paper as long as they could be used in
practice to sew fashionable clothes, see Tikhomirova, Anna, V 280 kilometrakh ot
Moskvy: osobennosti mody i praktika povsednevnoi odezhdy sovetsjkoi provintsii
(Yaroslavl’, 1960–1980 gg.). Neprikosnovennyi zapas, nr. 37, 2004, p. 5 (http://
www.nz–online.ru/index.phtml?aid=25011179).

269
Notes

380 D.119.L.1.
381 D.23.L.37; D.39.L.183;D41.L.219.
382 D.63.L.33,128.
383 D.84.L.180.
384 D.126.L.26.
385 D.63.L.128; D.110.L.167.
386 D.155.L.90.
387 D.110.L.132. In addition to the collections mentioned by Shimilis, the Department
regularly received orders to design special work clothes or uniforms too: for the
saleswomen at GUM and at the hard currency shops (Berezka), the waitresses at
the Soviet airports, for the Moscow International Students’ Sports Competition (in
1973),etc.
388 D.155.L.88–89.
389 See, for instance, the minutes no. 15 of the Party meeting of the fashion department,
18.9.1968. (D.219.L.117.)
390 D.119.L.16; D.126.L.15.
391 This number is calculated by multiplying the number of seats with the amount of
annual shows.
392 D.175.L.6..; D.185.L.8.
393 D.155.L.23.
394 D.126.L.15.
395 D.175.L.23.
396 D.185.L.1–2,4.
397 D.145.L.7.
398 D.165.L.10.
399 Ibid.
400 Ibid.
401 D.145.L.10.
402 D.126.L.15.
403 D.34.L.140.
404 See Gorsuch, A.E. All this is Your World. Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad
after Stalin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp.106–125.
405 D.34.L.43.
406 D.63.L.6.
407 The Minutes of the Party meeting of the Fashion department no.10, 26.5.1961.
(D.63.L.23.)
408 D.56.L.104.
409 Ibid.L.103.
410 Ibid.
411 D.75.L.138.
412 Ibid.L.140.
413 Ibid.L.163.
414 Ibid.L.164.
415 D.84.L.180.
416 Ibid.
417 An interview with D. Shimilis and A. Vavilova, 30.4.2008.
418 D.75.L.169.
419 D.110.L.194.
420 An interview with L.M.Lobacheva (Andreeva), 30.4.2008.
421 D.84.L.179.
422 D.110.L.102.
423 ibid.L.110.
424 D.105.L.89.
425 D.39.L.179.

270
Notes

426 An interwiew with L.M.Lobacheva (Andreeva), 28.4.2008.

427 Salon seudun sanomat, 24.11.1959.
428 D.105.L.111.
429 Nina und die “weisse Nächte”. “Erfurter Debut ein Triumph für uns.” Gespräch mit
Nina Wawilowa vom GUM. Thüringische Landeszeitung, 14.11.1965.p.1.
430 An interview with D.B.Shimilis and A.Vavilova, 30.4.2008.

Chapter 7.
431 For an interesting discussion of Estonia as the Soviet abroad, see Gorsuch, All this
is Your World, pp. 49–78.
432 Ajalooline öiend (“a historical report”) attached to the archival sources of Tallinn
Moamaja preserved at the Estonian State Archive (Eesti Riigiarhiiv), ERA.R.9.6.
433 ERA.R.1886.1.455, p. 18.
434 ERA.R.1886.1.349, pp. 4–5.
435 ERA.R.9.6.33, pp. 1–5.
436 ERA.R.9.6.844, p. 9. and 9.6.739, p. 5.
437 Interview with Evi Pääbo 12.3.2008.
438 ERA.R.316.1.12, p. 10.
439 ERA.R.316.1.22, pp. 1–3.
440 ERA.R.316.1.12, pp. 11–12.
441 ERA.F.117.1.24.
442 See for instance, ERA.F. 117.1.28 and 29.
443 ERA.F 117.1.29, pp.33 and 63.
444 Ibid. p.73.
445 ERA.R.316.1.31, p. 25.
446 ERA.R.316.1.234, p. 7.
447 Interview with Evi Pääbo 12.3.2008.
448 ERA.R.316.1.42, pp. 10, 42, 101, 107 and 110. From other sources we know it was
acceptable for the women in the Baltic states to wear trousers while going out to
the city in the evening at least a couple of years before the European parts of Russia
not to speak of the non–European parts of the Soviet Union.
449 Interview with Krista Kajandu 12.3.2008.
450 See for instance ERA.F.117.1.24, p. 5.
451 In the middle of the 1960s, ODMO at Moscow had about 700 employees, who
designed about four thousand new designs each year, see RGAE.F.523, Op.1,
D.217, L.267.
452 ERA.R.1992.2.248.
453 In the correspondence of the Tallinn House of Fashion Design a deal from the
year 1973 has been preserved, according to which the fashion houses of Tallinn,
Leningrad, Gorkyi and Kiev agreed to design one fashion design for each other
(see ERA.R.316.1.204, p. 9.) Whether this really was only a one time phenomenon
of such cooperation between such bigger Soviet houses of fashion design is not
known but in any case such closer forms of cooperation seem to have been more
of an exception than the rule.
454 Interviews with Krista Kajandu and Katrin Kasesalu, 12.3.2008.
455 Interview with Lende Švarts, 12.3.2008. For the year 1965, see also ERA.F.117.1.23.
456 The journal Siluett was a very prominent journal in the whole printing and media
business in Soviet Estonia. In 1962, its share was one eighth of the annual paper
deficit of the whole republic (See ERA.F. 117.1.26, p. 57. “Deficit” means in this
case the difference between the planned and the actually received deliveries
of printing paper. Because of the relatively low prices of books, journals and

271
Notes

newspapers, printing paper was one of the permanent deficits in the USSR’s
economy).
457 See for instance, for the year 1965: ERA.R. 9.6.33, pp.1–5.
458 Like many such legendary stories, it is difficult to verify whether this had taken
place just once or twice or whether it really was a common practice all through the
existence of the Fashion House.
459 Interview with Lende Švarts, 12.3.2008.
460 ERA.R. 1992.2.248, pp. 32–5.
461 Interview with Krista Kajandu, 12.3.2008.
462 Interviews with Mari Kanasaar and Lende Švarts, 12.3.2008.
463 Interview with Mari Kanasaar, 12.3.2008.
464 Valsil’ev, Alexander: Russkaia moda: 150 let v fotografiiakh. Moskva: Slovo 2006,
p. 352.
465 See Komissarov, E., Interview conducted with Mari Kanasaar, a long– time fashion
illustrator at Siluett, in Komissarov, E. & Teeäär, B. (eds.), Fashion and Cold War,
2013 p. 144. A
466 Interview with Mari Kanasaar, 12.3.2008.
467 ERA.R.316.1.11, p. 20.
468 In 1962, altogether 31 workers of the Tallinn House had been ordered on a work
trip to somewhere in the Soviet Union (Moscow, Riga, Vilnius, Minsk, Leningrad,
etc.; see ERA.F. 117.1.26, p. 9).
469 In 1964, 48 designs from Tallinn were, for instance, included in the central
collection (see ERA.F.117.1.27, p. 36).
470 See for instance, RGAE.F.523.Op.1, D.203, L.101.
471 ERA.R.316.1.11, pp.129–130.
472 This also meant that their political correctness and loyalty were important issues
discussed at the Party meetings. Some even thought that it would therefore be best
if the head models were members of the Party; see ERA.F.117.1.26, p. 2.
473 In 1968, for instance, the designs of the Tallinn fashion house, together with
ODMO’s from Moscow and the houses from Riga and Vilnius, demonstrated
in the trade exhibition in London. Anita Burlaka, the director of the Tallinn
house, commented in an interview with The New York Times (“Russians Put On
a Show–a Stylish One,” August 7, 1968.) that “minis are going out of style now.
Young people still wear them, but an elegant lady, paying attention to her looks,
finds the line and length of her dress herself and this adds to her looks.”
474 See RGAE F.523. Op.1, D. 208, L.217 in December 1966, ODMO sent Viazheshlav
Zaitsev to visit the Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn and Leningrad fashion houses in order
to finish his collection of fashion designs for the World Fair at Montreal.
475 ERA.R.316.1.11, p. 39.
476 Ibid. p. 18
477 In 11962 the fashion house organized 82 exhibitions and fashion shows and 11
lectures of which 8 were on the radio or TV (ERA.F.117.1.25, p.23). In 1966, 82
fashion shows, 11 lectures with demonstrations of fashion and 40 ordinary lectures
including radio and TV presentations (ERA.F.117.1.29, p. 78).
478 Interview with Jüri Siim, 18.6.2008 Tallinn.
479 ERA.F.117.1.27.
480 See for instance, the order given on 26.4.1965, RGAE.F.523.Op.1, D.203, L.405.
481 See for instance RGAE..F.523.Op.1, D.200, L.253, 281 and 330 and D.203.L.17, 60.
482 The inhabitants of Tallinn and the other parts of the northern coast of Estonia
had, since the 1960s, as the only region in the Soviet Union, direct access to TV
programs from the capitalist West. They could namely follow the programs of
the Finnish TV across the Finnish Bay. Even though Finland definitely was not
a leading nation of fashion design this opportunity to follow the style of dress
and fashions, for instance, in the regularly broadcasted American and European

272
Notes

movies and TV–series, must have had an impact of its own on the fashion
consciousness of both the ordinary Estonians and the fashion designers.
483 RGAE F.523.Op.1, D.207, L.184–186.

Chapter 8.
484 Zhuravlev, S. and Gronow, Soviet people with ‘big bodies.’ In Rysst, Mari (ed.),
Aesthetic Ideals and Big Bodies: A comparative Study of Russia and Norway.
Collection of papers presented at Moscow 17–18. September 2009. Statens institute
for forbruksforskning, Oslo. www.sifo.no/page/Nyheter/Nyheter_internet_
arkiv/110178/77044.html
485 See also Chernova, E.A., Formy kul’tury povsednevnosti po materialam sovetskikh
zhenskikh molodezhnykh zhurnalov 1960–1970gg. Diplomnaya rabota
Universiteta istorii kul’tur, pp.43–54. http://www.doc.ru/users/unic/diplom.html
486 The library of the All–Union Fashion House, ODMO, collected and preserved clips
of all the articles on fashion published in the Soviet press. It offered a unique data
source to researchers interested in analyzing the Soviet discourse on fashion.
487 The distribution of these instructions were highly centralized in the Soviet system
of fashion. Aleksandr Vasil’ev recalled in his popular history of Russian fashion
(Russkaia Moda. 150 let v fotografijakh, Moskva: Slovo 2006, p. 359), that in order
to help the Soviet clothes factories and ateliers, one single Moscow fashion expert,
Irina Sumina, regularly wrote “methodical instructions” which included precise
instructions for the fashion designs authorized by the artistic council for the next
two years. These stencilled instructions were distributed in 500 copies all over the
Soviet Union. These methodical instructions sent from Moscow were annually
adopted on the official order of the Ministry of the Consumer Goods Industry
and had therefore a highly official character. On the other hand, the local fashion
houses were under no real obligation to follow them. Consequently, it depended
on the local directors and artistic directors to what extent they were in fact
followed. Some followed them closely, others took them just as useful examples
to be followed quite flexibly and freely. Thus in fact they had the character of
common recommendations only.
488 The first caricature of a ‘stiliagi’ appeared as early as 1949 (Beliayev, D.: Stiliagi,
March 7, 1949, p. 10) in the popular Soviet comic journal Krokodil (see Zakharova,
Larisa, Moda, ili rezhim sotsial’nogo niverlirovaniya. In Kondriatieva, T.S. and
A.K.Sokolov (red.): Rezhimnye liudi v SSSR, 2009, pp. 243–256.) The image of a
stiliagi, ‘eternalised’ in this picture, became the stereotypical image repeated in the
Soviet press ever after. See also http://bujhm.livejournal. com/383320.html.
489 Iskusstvo odevat’sia. Leningrad: Leninizdat 1959, p. 243.
490 Tolstykh, V.I. (ed.), Moda–za i protiv. Moskva: Iskusstvo1973.
491 Kopelman, S. and Arpa, M., ’Vkus i moda.’ Sovetskoie zakarpat’ye (Uzgorod),
26.10.1958.
492 Solovjeva, E.G., ‘Devushkam polezno znat.’ Komsomolets (Cheliabinsk), 10.3.1963.
The same article was published in other local newspapers too. See for instance,
Komsomol’skoie plemia (Orenburg), 20.3.1963.
493 Ibid.
494 Vechernie novosti (Vilnius), 17.4.1971.
495 Ibid.
496 Murasova, R., ’Umei krasivo odevat’sia.’ Komsomolets Tadzhikistana (Stalinabad),
17.2.1960.
497 Ibid.
498 Zavishane, J. ,’Prishla ocen.’ Vechernie novosti (Vilnius), 11.11.1969.

273
Notes

499 Plenkina,V., ‘Pervyj bal.’ Vechernaya (Ufa), 21.5.1971.

500 ’Vesna i moda.’ Komsomoletz Kubani (Krasnodar), 25.5.1974.
501 Videnskaya, G., ’Vesna i moda.’ Gorkovskaya Pravda (Gorki), 22.4.1973.
502 Videnskaya, G., Leninskaya smena (Gorki), 27.3.1971.
503 Yefremova, L., ‘O dline uzhe ne sporyat.’ Zhurnal mod, 1971, nr.3 (104).
504 Fomina, Z., ‘Moda–kakoi on budet–.‘ Zabaikalskii rabochii (Chita), 12.11.1972.
505 ‘Modnye silhuety’. Vperiod (Khimki), 6.3.1971.
506 Zhurnal mod, 1966–67:4, pp. 3 and 4.
507 Lapiere, D. and Lefébvre, A., ‘Il dicte la mode á Moscou.’ Paris Match, nr. 724,
February 23, 1969.
508 “Only a few of Mr. Zaitsev’s sketches are ever made” The New York Times reported
in 1967 (July 14) in an early interview with Zaitsev “If I had My Way.” A couple of
years later, on January 13, 1969, the same newspaper quoted Zaitsev’ s comments
on the new trends of Soviet fashion in an article with the title “Style Less Avant in
Moscow”: “We cherish our women as women and our men as men”
509 During recent times, Zaitsev has “stylized” his biography into a public figure and
consequently the selective highlights of his biography and career have become
quite well known to all Russians interested in fashion and popular culture. (See
for instance Zaitsev, Slava, Tainy obmana. Moskva: Iskusstvo XX veka, 2006.)
510 Smena nr. 5, 1964 8 (May), p. 36.
511 ‘Zachem nuzhna moda.’ Komsomolskaya Pravda (Moscow), 16.6.1967.
512 V.Kirsanova, ‘Chelovek i moda.’ Moskovskii komsomolets (Moscow), 30.6.1967.
513 See for instance, Dneva, I., ‘Moda–chto eto takoe?’ Rabochaya Gazeta, 9.2.1972,
Leikin, A., ‘Moda eto iskusstvo’ Sotsialisticheskaya Karaganda, 13.1.1973,
Verstova,V., ‘Vkus ne molchit.’ Sovetskaya Rossiya (Moskva), 31.12.1973, and
Batayev, N., ‘Poslednii shtrikh.’ Moskovskiy Komsomolets (Moskva), 16.2.1974).
514 Dneva’s Moda–shto eto takoie? was distributed by TASS and was published,
for instance, also in Ukraine in Voroshilovgradskaya Pravda (Voroshilovgrad),
5.3.1972.
515 ‘Sovetskij zakonodatel' mod – Zaitsev’. Ogoniok 1966:1, p 29.
516 Orlova, L., ‘Moda – eto seriozno.’ Rabotnitsa 1977:10.
517 Kuziaev, A,. ‘Model’er V. Zaitsev.’ Sovetskaya torgovlia (Moskva), 3.2.1976.
518 See, for instance, Televidenie–radioveshchanie 6.6.1977.
519 See for instance Ogoniok 1966, nr.1. and Izvestiya (Moskva) 13.9.1966.
520 See for instance Zhurnal Mod 1977 nr.4.
521 Zheleznova, N., ‘Kogda vse molodye.’ Molodezh Moldavii (Kishinev), 5.10.1963.
522 See for instance, Saulis, V., ‘Sozdateli mod.’ Komsomol’skaya Pravda (Vilnius),
11.3.1961.
523 Magazin “Moda”. Sovetskaya Litva (Vilnius), 5.9.1965.
524 Ibid.
525 ‘Nauchilish’ u vilniustsev.’ Vechernie novosti (Vilnius), 9.2.1961.
526 ‘Novye khabarovskie modeli’. Tikhookeanskaja Pravda (Khabarovsk), 6.9.1962.
527 Petrin, A., ”Uchites” krasivo odevat’sia.’ Chelyabinskii rabochii (Chelyabinsk),
17.8.1966.
528 ‘V kafe pokaz mody.’ Volgogradkaya Pravda (Volgograd), 18.4.1969.
529 Biliaeva, N., ‘Pervaya model’ mesiatsa.’ Ulyanovskaja Pravda (Volkograd),
18.4.1969.
530 ‘Eto modno.’ Sovietskaya Chuvasiya (Cheboksary), 6.10.1964.
531 V. Igorov, ‘Mody v sel’skom klube.’ Sovietskaya Chuvasia (Cheboksary), 5.5.1968.
532 ‘Magazin pri eksprimental’nom tsekhe.’ Vechernyje novosti (Vilnius), 4.3.1960.
533 ‘Industriya mody’. Molodoi dal’nevostochnik (Khabarovsk), 19.7.1966.
534 L. Bondareva, ‘Mody predlagaet “Volga”.’ Severnyi rabochi (Yaroslavl’), 26.10.1966.
535 Kostygova, T. and Levina, A., ‘Taina bol’shogo razmera.’ Rabotnitsa, 1965: 9.
536 ‘Teatr, eskizy kazhdyj den’. Ogonniok 1967: 10.

274
Notes

537 Fedorova, ‘Chetyre modely vo vsesojuznoi kollektsii.’ Chelyabinskiy rabochiy

(Chelyabinsk), 21.5.1964
538 Komsomolets (Chleyabinsk), 18.9.1964.
539 Strizhenova, T., ‘Sovetskaya moda na mezhdunarodnoi vystavke.’ Dekorativnoe
iskusstvo SSSR (DI SSSR) 1967:8, p. 10.
540 Ibid. p. 11.
541 Ibid. pp.13–14.
542 Kriuchkova, V., ‘Karneval mod.’ DI SSSR 1968:2.
543 Golikova, I., ‘Posle karnevala,’ DI SSSR 1968:2.
544 Kriuchkova, ‘Karnaval mod.’ p.14.
545 Ibid. p. 13.
546 Golikova, I., ‘Posle karnevala,’ p. 16.
547 Ibid. p. 18.
548 T.Tsishel’skaja, ‘O vkusakh sporiat.’ Rabochii put’ (Smolensk), 25.10.1959.
549 These complaints could be heard more often in and shortly after 1959 than
before or after that time. In 1959 Nikita Khrushchev had namely closed the
central ministries and established the so called Sovnarkhozy (Soviet narodnoga
khoziastva or the Soviet of National Economy) instead. As a result, the material life
of the local people depended almost totally on what was and could be produced
in their own particular geographic region under its own Sovnarkhoz. Obviously,
some regions had better garment factories, others worse or almost none at all. The
cooperation between the Sovnarkhozy was limited.
550 Pariskaya, Z., ‘Kogda znaiesh spros,’ Sovetskaya torgovlia. (Moskva), 26.6.1962.
551 Schwartz, I., ‘Eto dast milliony.’ Sovetskaya Litva (Vilnius), 16.7.1959.
552 Mariagin, G., ‘Tsvet odezhdy.’ Ekonomicheskaya gazeta (Mosskva), 8.9.1967.
553 Vileva, T., ‘Moda na smotrinakh.’ Vechernaya Perm’ (Perm’), 7.3.1972.
554 Braverman, A., ‘Moda glazami ekonomista.’ DI SSSR, 1963, nr. p. 12. Cf.
Bestuzhev–Lada, I.V., Moda i promyshlennoe modelirovanie odezhdy. Teksty i
tezisy dokladov na Vsesoyuznoi nauchnoi konferentsii 16–18 yanvarya 1979 g.
Moskva: Moskovskii tekstil’nyi institut, 1979.
555 Braverman, A., ‘Moda glazami ekonomista’. 1963, p. 14.
556 Ibid. pp. 12–13.
557 Ibid. p. 13.
558 Ibid.
559 Zinoviev, A., ‘K ponatiyu mody.’ DI SSSR 1971:8, p.39. Zinoviev was a well–known
philosopher and author who in 1978 was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and
moved to Switzerland.
560 Ibid. p. 39.
561 Levashova, A. and Gordon, I., ‘Moda i ekonomika.’ Pravda (Moskva), 9.5.1971.
562 Ekonomicheskaya gazeta (Moskva), 13.12.1969.
563 Steele, V.: Fifty years of fashion. New Look to Now. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press 1997, p. 68 referred to Emmanuelle Khans’ statement in 1964
according to which “Haute couture is dead.” The changing and diminishing role
of haute couture was generally associated with the emerging youth culture of the
1960s; see also Steele, Valerie, Paris fashion. A Cultural History. Oxford: Berg 1998,
pp. 277–278.
564 Zhurnal mod, 1970–71:4.
565 Gramolina, A., ‘Nash prazdnik moda.’ DI SSSR, 1971, nr. 43, p. 36.
566 Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR 1973: 10(191), pp. 26–30; see also Levashova’s
interview on the same questions in the weekly attchment to the newspaper
Izvestija, Nedelia 7.4.1974 (N.Lordkipanidze: ‘Terpelivo idti k tseli’).
567 Levashova, DI SSSR 1973, pp. 27–28.
568 Ibid. P. 28
569 These Komsomol outfits were indeed quite popular among the youth in the 1970s,

275
Notes

proudly worn in the city even after the work command was over in the autumn.
This was probably the closest that the Soviet clothing designers came to creating a
real socialist youth fashion of their own.
570 DI SSSR, 1973, p. 30.
571 Ivina, K., ‘Vy khotite odevat’sia krasivo?’ Molodoi Kazakhstan (Antiubinsk),
17.4.1963.
572 ‘Odevat’sia so vkusom.’ Zaporozhskaya Pravda, Zaporozhye, 19.8.1960.
573 Tikhonov, A., ‘Krasivoe–znachit skromnoe.’ Leninskoe znamia (Cherkessk),
22.7.1960.
574 Semenova, E., ‘I zdes’ nuzhna mera i vkus.’ Znamia yunosti (Minsk), 1.11.1960.
575 ‘Nuzhno li odevat’sia modno?’ Kustanaiskii komsomolets (Kustanai), 4.9.1960.
576 Nalovina, V., ‘Chto takoe moda?’ Ural’skii rabochii (Sverdlovsk), 18.9.1960.
577 Tikhovskaya. L., ‘Vsegda i vezde imet’ krasivyi vid.’ Stalinabadskaya Pravda
(Stalinabad (since 1961 Dushanbe)), 30.4.1960.
578 Ibid.
579 For instance, as late as 1964 the Soviet state TV and broadcasting company had a
strict policy forbidding women to come to work dressed in trousers (Vasil’ev, A.,
Russkaya moda.150 let v fotografiykh. 2006, p. 324).
580 See Steele, Valerie, Fifty Years of Fashion. New Look to Now. 1997, 61. The Times
made news in 1971 (Skirting around a Soviet prejudice, August 5, 1971) of the
observation that “Soviet women have begun bravely to appear in trouser suits.”
581 K. Zvezdina, ‘Kak odevat’sia krasivo.’ Sotsialisticheskaya Karaganda (Karaganda),
9.6.1960.
582 Ostrovskii, T.I., ‘Komsomolets.’ Rostov–na–Donu, 9.12.1959.
583 Gaimanova, M.G., ‘Nuzhno odevat’sia krasivo i skromno.’ Vecherniaya gazeta
(Frunze, Kirgizskaya SSR), 3.4.1959.
584 ‘Moda na god vpered.’ Smena (Leningrad), 31.3.1961.
585 G. Aksel’rod, ‘O kvusakh nado sporit’!’ Kazakhstanskaya Pravda (Alma–Ata),
31.3.1959.
586 Ibid.
587 Ibid.
588 Ibid.
589 Ibid.
590 Koleshnikova, N., ”Patrul” v korotkikh shtaninakh.’ Komsomol’skaya Pravda
(Moscow), 13.12.1960.
591 Ibid.
592 Kotova, E. and Vlasova, S: ‘Zametki o krasivoi odezhde.’ Kommuna (Voronezh),
17.1.1961.
593 Palienko, E., ‘Modno znachit krasivo.’ Komsomolets Turkmenistana (Ashabad),
4.9.1959.
594 Ibid.
595 Ibid.
596 Agranovskii, A., ‘Delo o sarafane.’ Izvestija (Moskva), 9.10.1963. Anatoly
Agranovskii (1922–1984) was a prominent Soviet journalist, a historian by
education. In the 1970s he was chosen to help Brezhnev write his memoirs in
three volumes.
597 Ibid.
598 Solomatin, V., ‘Prichem tut stiliagi?’ Sovetskaia torgovlia (Moskva), 25.2.1960.
599 Smirnov, K., ‘Sneg na sheveliure.’ Smena (Leningrad), 15.1.1961.
600 Versakov, N., ‘Nuzhno chustvo mery.’ Zlatoustovskii rabochii (Zlatoust’),
14.11.1962.
601 Ibid.
602 Zheleznova, N., ‘Kogda vse molody’. Gor’kovskiy rabochii (Gorki), 5.10.1963.
603 ‘Pogovorim o sovremennom mode.’ Krestyanka, 1960:9.

276
Notes

604 Larina,T., ‘Pozabotit’sia o svoei forme.’ Vecherniaya Perm’ (Perm’), 17.9.1971.

605 Rozenfel’d, E., ‘Pogovarim o mode.’ Altaiskaya Pravda (Baraul’), 4.11.1959.
606 Smolentseva, K., ‘Vasha odezhda.’ Kurortnaya gazeta (Yalta), 8.3.1964.
607 Murasova, R., ‘Umei krasivo odevat’sja,’ Komsomolets Tadzhikistana (Stalinabad),
17.2.1960.
608 Gainanova, M., ‘Nuzhno odevat’sia krasivo i skromno.’ Vechernaya gazeta
(Frunze), 3.8.1959.
609 Komsomolets (Petrozavodsk), 21.10.1958.
610 Zhurnal mod, 1966–67:4, p. 3.
611 Zhurnal mod, 1966:3, p. 1.
612 Zhurnal mod, 1968:2, p. 1.
613 Zhurnal mod, 1969:2, p. 5.
614 Davydov, Yu., ‘Estetika i sotsiologiya.’ DI SSSR 1967:5 and Davydov, Yu.,
‘Sotsiologiya i estetika.’ DI SSSR 1967:6.
615 Zinoviev, A., ‘K poniatiyu mody’. DI SSSR 1971:8, p.39.
616 Terin,V., ‘Moda v sotsiologiya (po zarubezhnym materialam).’ DI SSSR 1970:9.
The artcile was in fact based on Terin’s more extensive article Massovaya
kommunikatsiya i sotsiogicheskie issledovaniya v SShA in Voprosy filosofii 1970:12.
617 Tolstykh,V., ‘Moda–fenomen esteticheskii.’ DI SSSR 1970:7. Tolstykh played a
central role in the theoretical discussion about the Soviet and socialist fashion
in the beginning of the 1970s, for instance by editing the important publication
Moda: za i protiv. Moskva: Iskusstvo 1971 and 1973. He was at the time a professor
at the Moscow Textile Institute who had had Zaitsev and many other famous
Soviet designers as his students. Later, he moved to the Institute of Philosophy at
the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
618 Kriuchkova, V., ‘Moda kak forma potrebleniya.’ Zhurnal mod 1970:1(99).
619 Tolstykh, ‘Moda–fenomen esteticheskii’, 1970, p. 25.
620 Ibid. p.28.
621 Ibid.
622 Ibid.
623 Kriuchkova,V., ‘Moda kak forma potrebleniya’, 1970, p. 2.
624 Ibid. p. 5.
625 See Gronow, J., The Sociology of Taste. London: Routledge, 1997.
626 Cf. J–F. Lyotard’s Peregrinations. Law, Form, Event. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988) idea of the community of taste as ‘a cloud of a community.’
627 Simmel, G., Philosophie der Mode. Berlin: Pan 1905.
628 Kriuchkova, Moda kak forma potrebleniya. 1970, p. 1.
629 155. Ibid. p. 2.
630 Ibid. p. 3.
631 For a modern sociologist criticizing the superficiality of modern consumption
along similar lines, see Bauman, Z., Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press,
2007.
632 Kriuchkova would obviously not have agreed with Georg Simmel’s (Philosophie
der Mode. 1981(1904)) classic analysis which suggested that one could develop and
preserve a rich human personality under the cover of the social form of fashion
which could in a sense shield it from the eyes of others. In other words, complying
effortlessly with social conventions would leave space for the cultivation of one’s
inner self.
633 See ibid.
634 Steele, Valerie, Fifty Years of Fashion. From New Look to Now. New Haven: Yale
University Press 1997, pp. 49–78.
635 Levashova, A., ‘Moskvichi na ulitse.’ DI SSSR 1971, nr. 1, pp. 41–45.
636 Ibid. pp. 44–45.
637 Kalling, M., ‘Moda molodykh.’ DI SSSR 1969:8 (141).

277
Notes

638 Ibid. p. 12.

639 Ibid. p. 13.
640 Tosltykh,V.I.(ed.), Moda: za i protiv. Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1973.
641 Tolstykh, V.I., Moda kak sotzial’nyi fenomen. In Tolstykh, V.I.: Moda: za i protiv,
pp. 31–32.
642 Kantor, K.M., Moda kak stil’ zhizni. In Tolstykh, V.I.: Moda: za i protiv., p. 141.
Karl Kantor was the deputy chief editor of Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR. His works
included Krasota i pol’za. Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1967.
643 Tostykh, V.I., Moda: za i protiv, p. 12.
644 Zakharzhevskaya, R.V. Moda i gumanizm. In Tostykh, V.I., Moda: za i protiv,
p. 102.
645 Ibid. pp. 97–98.
646 Basin, E. Y. and Krasin, V. M., ‘Gordiev uzel mody.’ In Tosltykh, V.I. (ed.) Moda:
za i protiv. pp. 66–67.

Chapter 9.
647 Rousseau, J.–J.: Julie, or New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in Small Town
at the Foot of the Alps, Stewart Ph. and Vacher J. (trans.), Hannover, NH: University
Press of New England, 1997, p. 450.
648 In this respect it followed the general Soviet attitude towards sexuality, see Kon,
I. and Riordan, James (eds.), Sex and Russian Society. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1993; Kon. I., Vvedenie v seksologiyu. Moskva: Meditsina, 1988.
649 See Wouters, G., Informalization. Manners&Emotions since 1890. London: Sage
2007.
650 Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction, p. 352.
651 Ibid. p. 351–352.

278
Appendices

Appendix 1
A List of Original Names of the Soviet Institutions and Their Abbreviations

– Aesthetic Council – Esteticheskii sovet VIALegproma

– Artistic Council – Khudozhestvennyi sovet
– Atelier – atelier of the custom made clothes
– Central Scientific Research Institute of the Garment Industry- Tsentral’nyi nauchno-
issledovatel’skii institut shveinoi promyshlennosti, TsNIIShP
– Central Experimental-Technical Laboratory of Garment designs, at the Russian
Republican Ministry of Everyday Services – Tsentral’naya opytno-technicheskaya
shveinaya laboratoriya Ministerstva bytovogo obsluzhivaniya naseleniya RSFSR,
TsOTShL
– Department of Fashion at GUM – Otdel mod GUMa
– Center of Everyday Services – Dom byta
– House of Fashion Design of Clothes, DM or DMO – Dom modelei or Dom modelei
odezhdy
– Exhibition Hall – Demonstratsionnyi zal
– State Planning Committee – Gosplan
– State Department Store in Moscow – Gosudarstvennyi universal’nyi magazin, GUM
– House of Fashion Design of Leather Goods and Haberdashery – Dom modelei
kozhgalantereinykh izdelii Ministerstva legkoi promyshlennosti (Minlegprom)
RSFSR
– House of Fashion Design of Work Clothes – Dom modelei spetsial’noi i rabochei
odezhdy Minlegproma RSFSR
– House of Fashion Design of Sportswear – Dom modelei sportivnoi odezhdy
Minlegproma RSFSR
– Ministry of Light (or Consumer Goods) Industry – Ministerstvo legkoi
promyshlennosti, Minlegprom
– Ministry of Everyday Services (republican) – Ministerstvo bytovogo obsluzhivaniya
naseleniya, Minbyt
– Ministry of Local Industry – Ministerstvo mestnoi promyshlennosti
– MDMO –Moskovskii dom modelei odezhdy, Moscow House of Fashion Design of
Clothes.
– ODMO – Obshchesojuznyi Dom modelei odezhdy, All-Union House of Fashion
Design of Clothes at the Ministry of the Consumer Goods Industry.
– Rostov Experimental-Technical Laboratory of Head Wear and Corsets
– Rostovskaya eksperimental’no-tekhnicheskaya laboratoriya golovnykh uborov i
korsetnykh izdeliy Ministerstva bytovogo obsluzhivaniya naseleniya RSFSR

279
Appendices

– Councils of the People’s Economy –Sovnarkhozy, Sovety narodnogo khoziaistva

– Special Bureau of Artistic Design of the Ministry of Light Industry of the RSFSR
–Spetsial’noe khudozhestvennoe konstruktorskoe buro Minlegproma RSFSR
– Scientific Research Institute of Arts and Crafts – Nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut
khudozhestvennoi promyshlennosti Ministerstva mestnoi promyshlennosti RSFSR
– Scientific Research Institute of Technology and Design for the Local Industry
–Nauchno-issledovatel’skii konstruktorsko-tekhnologicheskii institut mestnoi
promyshlennosti RSFSR, NIKTIMP
– Ukrainian IALegprom – Institute of Product Assortment and Culture of Dress
of the Ministry of the Consumer Goods Industry of the Ukrainian SSR - Institut
assortimenta izdelii legkoi promyshlennosti i kul’tury odezhdy Minlegproma
Ukrainskoi SSR
– Uzbek Central Bureau of Technical Design at the Ministry of the Light Industry
of the Uzbek SSR –Tsentral’noe tekhniko-konstruktorskoye buro Minlegproma
Uzbekskoi SSR
– All-Union Institute of Product Assortment and Culture of Dress, under the Ministry
of Light Industry of the USSR – VIALegprom,Vsesoyuznyi institut assortimenta
izdelii legkoi promyshlennosti i kul’tury odezhdy

Appendix 2
A List of Major Fashion Design Institutions Under the Ministry of Light Industry
of the USSR

A) All-Union and republican fashion design institutions with special status and
functions of coordination, research, and methodical work:
– VIALegprom (Moscow)
– ODMO (Moscow)
– Special Bureau of Artistic Design of Clothes at the Ministry of Light Industry of the
RSFSR (Moscow)
– IALegprom at the Ministry of the Consumer Goods Industry of the Ukrainian SSR
(Kiev)
– Uzbek Central Bureau of Technical Design at the Ministry of the Consumer Goods
Industry of the Uzbek SSR (Tashkent)

B) Republican and regional houses of fashion design of clothes

In the Russian Federation:
– Altai DMO (Barnaul)
– Chelyabinsk DMO
– Gorky DMO
– Ivanovo DM
– Irkutsk DM
– Kalinin DM
– Kemerovo DM
– Khabarovsk DMO
– Kuibyshev DM
– Leningrad DMO
– Novosibirsk DMO
– Perm’ DM
– Rostov-on-Don DM
– Sverdlovsk DMO
– Ufa DM

280
Appendices

– Voronezh DMO
– Volgograd DMO
– Yaroslavl’

In the Soviet Republic of Ukraine:

– Dnepropetrovsk DM
– Donetsk DM
– Kiev DMO
– Khar’kov DM
– L’vov DMO
– Odessa DM

In other republics of the USSR:

Armenian republican DMO (Yerevan)
Azerbaijani DMO (Baku)
Belorussian republican DM (Minsk)
Estonian republican DM (Tallinn)
Georgian republican DM (Tbilisi)
Kazakh republican DM (Alma-Ata)
Kirghiz republican DM (Frunze)
Latvian republican DMO (Riga)
Lithuanian republican DM (Vilnius)
Moldavian republican DMO (Kishinev)
Turkmen republican DM (Ashkhabad)
Uzbek republican DM (Tashkent)

C) Specialized houses of fashion design of tricot clothes:

– All-Union House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes (Moscow);
– Leningrad House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes;
– Armenian Republican House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes «Erebuni»
(Yerevan);
– Georgian Republican House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes (Tbilisi)
– Kazakh Republican House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes (Alma-Ata)
– Ukrainian Republican House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes (Kiev)
– Uzbek Republican House of Fashion Design of Tricot Clothes (Tashkent)

D) Specialized houses of fashion design of shoes:

– All-Union House of fashion design of shoes (Moscow)
– Leningrad House of fashion design of shoes
– Novosibirsk House of fashion design of shoes
– Chelyabinsk House of fashion design of shoes
– Armenian House of fashion design of shoes (Yerevan)
– Belorussian House of fashion design of shoes (Minsk)

E) Other specialized houses of fashion design:

– Russian Republican House of Fashion Design of Leather Goods and Haberdashery
(Moscow)
– Russian Republican House of Fashion Design of Sports Wear (Moscow)
– Russian Republican House of Fashion Design of Work Clothes and Overalls
(Moscow)
– Ukrainian Specialized House of Fashion Design of Work Clothes (Kiev)

281
Appendices

Appendix 3
Houses of Fashion Design of Clothes – Major Providers of New Fashionable Clothing for
Soviet Mass Production Under the Russian Ministry of Light Industry (Particular Houses
Attached to Particular Garment Factories):

1) The houses of fashion design of clothes in Gorky, Yaroslavl’, Ivanovo, Kuibyshev,

Perm and Ufa were obliged to provide new designs for the garment factories located
in the Volga region and in the Russian North-East.
2) The Voronezh, Volgograd and Rostov-na-Donu Houses were obliged to provide new
fashions for the garment factories situated in the Southern part of Russia and the
North Caucasus.
3) The All-Union House of Fashion Design (ODMO), Kalinin House, and Special
Bureau of the Artistic Design of Clothes of the RSFSR (SKhKB) were obliged to
provide new fashions for the garment factories situated in the Moscow region (city
of Moscow, Moscow region and neighboring regions).
4) The Leningrad House was obliged to provide new fashions for the garment
factories situated in the Leningrad region (city of Leningrad, Leningrad region and
neighboring regions).
5) The Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Houses worked for the garment factories in the
Urals.
6) The Houses in Barnaul, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk were obliged to provide new
designs for the garment factories in the Western Siberia.
7) The Irkutsk House was tied to the factories in Eastern Siberia.
8) The Khabarovsk House designed new clothes for the garment factories of the Russian
Far East region.

Appendix 4
A List of Major Research Institutes Subordinated to the Ministry of the Light Goods
Industry of the USSR Involved in Fashion Design Activities on an Experimental Basis

– Altai Scientific Research Institute of the Textile Industry, Barnaul (Altaiskii NII
tekstil’noi promyshlennosti)
– Central Scientific Research Institute of the Garment Industry, Moscow (TsNII
shveinoi promyshlennosti)
– Central Scientific Research Institute of the Cotton Industry, Moscow (TsNII
Khlopchato-bumazhnykh izdeliy)
– Central Scientific Research Institute of Wool, Moscow (TsNII shersti)
– Central Scientific Research Institute of the Linen Industry, Moscow (TsNII
l’novolokna)
– Central Scientific Research Institute of the Leather Industry, Moscow (TsNII
kozhanoi promyshlennosti)
– Georgian Scientific Research Institute of the Textile Industry, Tbilisi (Gruzinskii NII
tekstil’noi promyshlennosti)
– Leningrad Scientific Research Institute of the Textile Industry (Leningradskii NII
tekstil’noi promyshlennosti)
– Lithuanian Scientific Research Institute of the Textile Industry, Kaunas (Litovskii
NII tekstil’noi promyshlennosti)
– Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Consumer Goods Industry, Kostroma
(NII Legproma RSFSR)
– Scientific Research Institute of the Latvian Consumer Goods Industry, Riga (NII
Legproma Latviyskoi SSR)

282
Appendices

– Scientific Research Institute of the Textile Industry, Moscow (NII tekstil’noi

promyshlennosti)
– Scientific Research Institute of Polymeric and Chemical Fibers, Moscow (NII
polimerno-khimicheskikh volokon)
– Scientific Research Institute of the Textile and Haberdashery Industry, Moscow (NII
tekstil’no-galantereinoi promyshlennosti)
– Scientific Research Institute of the Leather and Haberdashery Industry, Moscow
(NII kozhgalantereinoi promyshlennosti)
– Technological Institute of the Kazakh Consumer Goods Industry, Alma-Ata
(Giprotekhnolegprom Kazakhskoi SSR)

Appendix 5
A List of Major Soviet Organizations of Fashion Design of Clothes that Regularly
Published Their Own Fashion Journals or Albums:

– VIALegprom, Moscow (“Zhurnal mod”– Fashion journal, “Modeli sezona”–

Designs for the Season);
– Belorussian DM, Minsk (“Katalog mod”– Fashion Catalogue)
– Estonian DM, Tallinn (“Siluett”)
– Georgian DM, Tbilisi
– Kazakh DM, Alma-Ata (“Modalar”– Journal of fashions)
– Latvian DM, Riga (“Rigas modes”– Riga fashions)
– Leningrad DM
– Lithuanian DM, Vilnius
– ODMO, Moscow (“Zhurnal mod”– later published by VIAlegprom);
– Perm DM (“Zhurnal mod”– Fashion journal)
– Uzbek DM, Tashkent (“Katalog mod”– Fashion Catalogue)

283
Abstract

Jukka Gronow & Sergey Zhuravlev

Fashion Meets Socialism

Fashion industry in the Soviet Union after the Second World War

This book is the story of the emergence and establishment of the post–
war Soviet culture of dress, the great expectations attached to it, its great
achievements and the limitations that prevented it from revolutionizing
the Soviet style of dress and culture of consumption in general. The reasons
for the discrepancy between the ‘input’ and ‘output’ in the Soviet system of
fashion provide an intriguing question to which we devote much attention.
The serious shortages, issues of quality and limited variety of items regularly
on sale in the Soviet shops were problems that plagued not only the fashion
industry in the USSR but the production of consumer goods in general.
However, these problems probably beleaguered the clothes industry to
a greater extent than other fields of consumption. The rapid, seasonal changes
of fashion just did not fit into the planned economy.
The Soviet Union has certainly never enjoyed a high reputation in the
world of fashion. The standardized, industrially mass–produced clothes
were held in low esteem by both Soviet consumers and foreign visitors. If
anything, Soviet citizens were generally dissatisfied with the domestic supply
of clothing. Interestingly at this time, the Soviet Union had one of the world’s
largest organizations of fashion design, all planned, financed and supported
by the state. Thousands of professional, well–educated designers worked
in the various Soviet institutions of fashion in four parallel organizations.
They designed according to the annual plan thousands of new fashionable
garments and accessories both for industrial mass production and for
smaller fashion ateliers that sewed custom made clothes for their customers.
By the early 1960s, these institutions of fashion design had many
accomplishments to be proud of. They promoted Soviet fashion by increasing
the variety of industrially produced clothing as well as with their spectacular
fashion shows, which were well received both at home and abroad. Thus,
Soviet fashion contributed to the Soviet effort to nurture peaceful competition

284
Abstract

between the two world systems, socialism and capitalism. It became obvious
during the 1970s that, in the end not even fashion and fashion design, could
overcome the economic and bureaucratic limitations and inherent rigidity
of the planned economy.
This book presents, above all, a study of the establishment and development
of the Soviet organization and system of fashion industry and design as it
gradually evolved in the years after the Second World War in the Soviet
Union, which was, in the understanding of its leaders, reaching the mature
or last stage of socialism when the country was firmly set on the straight
trajectory to its final goal, Communism. What was typical of this complex
and extensive system of fashion was that it was always loyally subservient to
the principles of the planned socialist economy. This did not by any means
indicate that everything the designers and other fashion professionals did
was dictated entirely from above by the central planning agencies. Neither
did it mean that their professional judgment would have been only secondary
to ideological and political standards set by the Communist Party and the
government of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, as our study shows, the
Soviet fashion professionals had a lot of autonomy. They were eager and
willing to exercise their own judgment in matters of taste and to set the
agenda of beauty and style for Soviet citizens.
The present book is the first comprehensive and systematic history of
the development of fashion and fashion institutions in the Soviet Union
after the Second World War. Our study makes use of rich empirical and
historical material that has been made available for the first time for scientific
analysis and discussion. The main sources for our study came from the state,
party and departmental archives of the former Soviet Union. We also make
extensive use of oral history and the writings published in Soviet popular
and professional press.

285
References

Sources

I. Archival Sources
Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Ekonomiki, RGAE
Fond 198 – Ministerstvo legkoi i pishchevoi promyshlennosti SSSR
Fond 400 – VIALegprom
Fond 413 – Ministerstvo vneshnei torgovli SSSR
Fond 465 – Minsterstvo torgovli SSSR
Fond 523 – Obshchesojuznyi Dom modelei odezhdy, ODMO
Fond 635 – Vsesojuznaya torgovaya palata
Fond 4670 – Ministerstvo legkoi promyshlennosti SSSR (1965–1989)
Fond 7604 – Narkomlegprom i Minlegprom SSSR (before 1957)
Fond 7971 – Ministerstvo torgovli SSSR
Fond 8591 – Glavnoe upravlenie tekstil’noi promyshlennosti Minlegproma SSSR
Fond 8610 – Glavnoe upravlenie shveinoi promyshlennosti Minlegproma SSSR
Fond 8815 – Glavnoe upravlenie shveinoi, trikotazhnoi i tekstil’no-galantereinoi
promyshlennosti Minlegproma SSSR
Fond 9480 – Gosudarstvennyi komitet po nauke i tekhnike pri Sovete Ministrov
SSSR, GKNT

Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, GARF

FOND P-393 – Narodnyi Komissariat vnutrennikh del RSFSR
FOND P – Upolnomochennye VTsIK i otvetsvennye predstaviteli TsK RKP(b) po
vsestoronnemu kontroliu i revizii gubernskikh, uezdnykh i volostnykh sovestkikh
uzhrezhdenii i partorganisatsii

Tsentral’nyi Arkhiv Obshchestvenno-politicheskoi Istorii goroda Moskvy, TsAOPIM

Fond 947 – GUM Party Organization

Tserntal’nyi Archiv goroda Moskvy, TsAGM

Fond 474 – Gosudarstevnnyi universal’nyi magazin, GUM
Fond 1953 – Tsentral’nyi universal’nyi magazin, TsUM

Eesti Riigiarhiiv (Estonian State Archive)

ERA.R.9.6. Tallinna Moemaja
ERA.F.117 Tallinna Moemaja parteiorganisatsiooni
ERA.R.316 Tallinna Moemaja kunstinöukogu protokollid
ERA.R.1886 Tallinna Moemaja aastearunne, tehnillis-tootsimis finantsplan

286
References

ERA.R.1992 Tallinna Moemaja konstruktsioonisplan

ERA.R.2285 ENSV Kergetööstuse ministeeriumi

Eesti filmiarhiiv (Estonian Film Archive)

Tallinna moemaja collection
Lembitu collection

II. Private collections of documents and photos

Nauchno-tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka Obshchesojuznogo Doma modelei odezhdy, NTB
ODMO
Collection of Russian/Soviet and international fashion journals
Collection of photos and albums
Collection of reports on internal and international fashion events
Collection of clippings from the Soviet press on fashion and culture of dress

Personal Collection of Vyacheslav Zaitsev, Biblioteka Doma mody Vyacheslava Zait-

seva
Collection of photos
Collection of clippings from the Soviet and international press

Family Collection of David Borisovich Shimilis and Antonina Vavilova

Personal Collection of Natella Markovna Agarevskaya

Personal Collection of Lidiya Fedorovna Aver’yanov

Personal Collection of Svetlana Konstantinovna Samsonova

Personal Collection of Galina Ivanovna Titkova

III. Oral history interviews conducted in 2007–2009

with former employees of the Soviet fashion design
institutions and garment factories
In Moscow
Svetlana Konstantinovna Samsonova
Natella Markovna Agarevskaya
Lidiya Fedorovna Averyanova
Tatiana Ivanovna Balandina
Tatiana Nikolaevna Barkanova
Dmitry Fedorovich Dominov
Liudmila Lobacheva (Andreeva)
Irina Vasil’evna Nartikova
Natalia Aleksandrovna Nesterova
Valentina Ivanovna Rumiantseva
Galina Ivanovna Titkova
Valentin Ivanovich Tolstykh
Dmitry Borisovich Shimilis
Antonina.Vavilova

287
References

In Tallinn
Kajandu Krista
Kanasaar Mari
Kasesalu Katrin
Pääbo Evi
Siim Jüri
Svartz Lende

IV. Soviet periodicals and fashion albums of 1940–1980s

Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR
Dlya molodykh
Dlya polnykh zenshchin
Moda
Modeli sezona
Mody GUMa
Modeli s chertezhami kroya
Na kazhdyi den’
Novinki GUMa
Novye tovary
Ogoniok
Rabotnitsa
Siluett
Sluzhba byta
Sovetskaya zhenshchina
Spitsami i kriuchkom
Sportivnaya odezhda
Zhurnal Mod

V. Volumes of statistics
Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR v 1960. Moskva: Statistika 1961
Narodrnoye khozaistvo SSSR v 1970. Moskva: Statistika 1971
Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR v 1980. Moskva: Statistika 1981
Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR v 1990. Moskva: Statistika 1991.
Narodnoye khozaistvo SSSR za 70 let. Moskva: Statistika 1987
Promyshlennost’ SSSR. Statisticheskii sbornik. Moskva: Statistika 1964

Joint Economic Committee. Congress of the United States. USSR: Measures of

Economic Growth and Development, 1950–1980. Washington, Government
Printing Office, 1980.

Joint Economic Committee. Congress of the United States. Annual Economic Indicators
of the U.S.S.R. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1964.

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295
Index of Names

Alliluyeva, Nadezhda 51 Davis, Fred 33

Andreeva, Liudmila 170–171 Denikin, Anton 39
Andreeva, Maria 46, 48 Denisova, Yulia 105
Antokolskaya 140 Dior, Christian 14, 31, 102, 205
Aralova, Vera 102 Dreshina 208
Armand, Inessa Fedorovna 48 Dukor, V. 215
Arpa, M. 199 Dunham, Vera 71
Averyanov, Lidia Fedorovna 141–143,
168, 267 note 320, 287 Ehrenburg, Ilya Grigoryevich 90

Basin, E. Y. 241 Ferro, Louis 103

Bartlett, Djurdja 31, 75 Fitzpatrick, Sheila 11
Baudelaire, Charles 12 Fomina, Z. 201–202
Bauman, Zygmund 77 Freishmanene 226
Bestuzhev-Lada, Igor V. 22 Furtseva, Ekaterina 107, 143
Belyakov 166
Bessmertnaya 152 Gaimanova, M. 221
Blank, Anna Fedorovna 85 Goligova, I. 210–211
Blumer, Herbert 233 Golod, S. I. 25–26
Bohan, Mac 203 Golybin, A. G. 198
Bokarev, Yurii P. 71 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich 23, 26,
Braverman, A. 213–215 65, 107, 123
Brezhnev, Leonid Il’ich 14, 20, 31, 34, Gorbachova, Raisa Maksimovna 107
56, 59, 63, 64, 71, 73–74, 105, 107, Gordon, Igor 215
134–137, 276 note 596 Gorky, Maxim 40, 46, 48, 90
Budennyi, Semen 39 Gorshkova, Anna Georgievna 144, 150
Burlaka, Anita 175, 177, 188, 272 note Graber’, Igor Emmanuilovich 45
473 Gaft, Valentin 107
Gramolina, A. 217
Cardin, Pierre 203 Gurtovaya, V. I. 162, 166
Chekhov, Anton 247 Gvishiani, Liudmila 107, 143
Chertovskaya, Vera 218
Clark, W. A. 72 Hanson, Philip 64–65, 70
Crane, Diane 33, 268 note 341 Healey, Dan 25, 255 note 31
Hoffman, David 13
David-Fox, Michael 11
Davydov, Yu. 233 Igmand, Aleksander Danilovich 105,
Davies, R. W. 58, 63 265 note 234

296
Index of Names

Ivanov, A. 229 Mikoyan, Anastas Ivanovich 52, 142,

Izergina, Elena 107 145–147
Mikoyan, Vano 141
Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich 39 Millar, J. R. 71
Kalling, Maria 239–240 Mingashudinova (Mingashutdinova),
Kamenev, Lev Borisovich 48, 50 Tamara 145, 168
Kamenev, V. 140, 148 Mironov, Andrei 107
Kamenskiy, A. 232 Mokeyava, Tamara 105
Kantor, K. M. 56, 241, 278 note 642 Mukhina, Vera 45–46, 258 note 70
Kartashova, V. 167 Mukshina, Vera Ignatyevna 45–46, 258
Katz, Naum Yakovlevich 143–144, note 70
146–147, 155 Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich 48
Khodasevich, Vladislav Felitsianovich Murasova, R. 201
48 Muraviev, F. D. 89
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich 11, 22,
26, 32, 59, 62, 63–65, 67–68, 71, 152, Naumova 86
173, 254 note 10, 254 note 22, 275
note 249 Oganesov, A. 145, 157, 268 note 338
Kobson, Iosif 107 Osmerkina, Tatiana 102, 105
Kochareva, Svetlana 105 Ostrovksii, T. I. 221
Kochurov 172
Koleshnikova 227 Palienko, E. 228
Kon, Igor 25 Pariskaya, Z. 212
Kopelman, S. 199 P’ekha, Edith 107
Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolayevich 70, 84, Peshkova, Ekatarina Pavlovna 90
107, 141, 143, 253 note 7, 261 note Petrosyan 167–168
144, 262 note 167 Petrov-Vodkin, K. 45
Kotkin, Stephen 11 Petrovskii, Grigory 39
Krasin, V. M. 241 Plenkina, V. 201
Krasovskaya, A. A. 113–114 Plisetskaya, Maya 107
Kravchenko, Galina 50 Pluzhnikova, T. 126
Kriuchkova, V. 210–211, 233, 235–238, Pobedinskaya, Klara 153, 156, 269
277 note 63 note 363
Krutikova, Irina 103–104, 110, 264 Poeder, Inge 189
note 228 Ponomarev, N. 143
Kustodiev, B. M. 45 Popova, Liubov Sergeyevna 45
Pugacheva, Alla 107
Lamanova, Nadezhda 46–51, 87, 258 Pushkin, A. S. 40, 231, 247
note 70
Lapidus, A. 142 Reisner , Larissa 48
Larina, T. 231 Rikhter, Z. 43
Laroche, Guy 203 Romanovskaya, Mila 103, 107, 264
Lavrentiev, Alexander 31 note 226
Lenin, V. I. 48 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 247
Levashova, Alla 215, 217–218, 238–240, Rozenfel’d, E. 231
275 note 566 Ruane, Christine 31, 42
Leviatin 226
Lifshits, N. A. 167 Sazanskaya, L. N. 163
Lukina, S. G. 91 Schulzenko, Klavdia 107
Semenova, A. E. 150, 157
Magomayev, Muslim 107 Semenova, E. 219
Makarova, Nadezhda Sergeyevna 51 Senicheva-Kashchenko, Ol’ga
Mariagin, Georgii 212 Dmitriyevna 45
Mikhalkov, Nikita 107 Shimilis, David Borisovich 135, 143,

297
Index of Names

145, 150, 153, 162, 169, 172, 270 note Vainshtain, Ol’ga 31
387 Vasiliev, Alexander 31
Shvets, G. D. 168 Vavilova, Antonina (Nina) 145, 168, 172,
Siegelbaum, Lewis 34 268 note 322
Shigayeva, Tatiana 107 Versakov, N. 230
Shipova 157 Videnskaya, G. 201
Sidorov, Gennadii 222–226 Vishnevskii, Vsevolod 48
Simmel, Georg 12–13, 233, 236–238, Vladimirtseva, Tamara 103, 264 note
277 note 632 227
Singer, Rubin Aaronovich 143–145, 147, Voronina 140
154, 161, 168
Skachkov, Igor 223–226 Wilson, Elizabet 33
Smirnov, K. 230
Smolentseva, K. 231 Yagoda, Genrikh 49
Solomatin, V. 229 Yefremova, L. 201
Solov’yeva, E. G. 199–200
Stalin, I. V. 14, 25, 31, 34, 51, 57–58, 62, Zaitsev, Viacheslav (Slava) 29, 104, 123,
71, 110, 135, 150, 241–242 130, 175, 195, 202–210, 272 note 474,
Stepanova, Varvara 45 274 note 508 and note 509, 277 note
Stitziel, Judd 32 617
Strizhenova, Tatiana 31, 210 Zakharova, Larisa 31
Zakharzhevskaya, Raisa V. 241
Tarkovsky, Andrei 107 Zavishene, J. 200–201
Telegina, Lina 104–105 Zhemchuzhina, Polina 48–49
Tereshkova, Valentina 107 Zheleznova, N. 201
Terin, T. 233, 277 note 616 Zinoviev, Alexander 214, 233, 275 note
Tikhonov, A. 219 559
Tikhovskaya, L. 220 Zorin, S. S. 39
Tolstykh, Valentin 233–235, 237–238,
240–241, 277 note 617

298
Index of Subjects

Agriculture 58, 64 Car 14, 34, 49, 64, 72, 120

collectivization of 55; Estonian 185; accident 145; car repair 72; private
politics of 62; investments in 63 cars 61, 66, 74
Agricultural production 58, 64 Censorship 26, 242
Ambivalence 22, 252 self-censorship 83
experience of 12; of modernity 238 Center of Everyday Services 119
Anti-fashion 21, 41–42, 56, 192, 197, Central Committee of the Communist
258 note 69 Party (of the USSR) 54, 215, 267
principles of 33; propaganda of 214 note 318; of Estonia 185–186, 269
Anti-social behavior 24 note 359
Art history 45 Chinese fashion 32
and aesthetics 214; tradition of 33 Civil war 38–39, 43, 135, 257 note 65
Artistic vanguard movements 21 Champagne 54
Arts and crafts 42, 129–130 Chocolate 54
exihibition of 47 Closed distribution
Ascetism 48 system of 58
propaganda of 50 Closed outlets 58–59
Collective identification
Beauty parlour 15 mechanism of 12
salon 43 COMECON 109–110, 113, 172, 251
Bikinis 27, 95, 248 fashion congress of 207
Bildung 231, 237, 248 Commercial trade 53, 81, 259 note 93
Bildungsbürger 252 prices in 93; organization of 139
Black market 75, 99, 251–252, 261 Communism 13, 34, 197, 213, 230,
note 84 233–234, 238, 240
prices on 74 collapse of 11; fashion under 39, 236;
Blat 72 future of 192; ideological principles
Bolshevik 38, 40, 42, 45, 48 of 243
Bourgeois fashion 22, 39, 48, 193, 198, Communist Party (of the USSR) 11, 15,
213, 234–235, 237, 241–242 20, 26, 34, 53–54, 57–60, 62, 73–74,
mentality 40, 74, 250; society 222, 132, 135, 191–193, 218 note 7
234–235, 237, 250; taste 225 Apparatus of 119; central newspaper
Brand 21, 76, 149, 215, 254 note 15 of 207; employees of 73; leaders
of fashion 172 of 135; leadership of 251; leading
Bureaucracy 59, 197 ideologists of 240; member(s)
of 143–144, 166; of Estonia 177,
Café 54, 123, 208, 237 185–186; of Kazakhstan 226; third
canteens and 58 program of 62, 233
Capital goods 63 Competition 52, 59, 84, 89, 94, 99, 102,

299
Index of Subjects

140, 147, 207, 216, 241, 245 Culture of consumption

economic 216; of fashion 114, 142, Soviet style dress and 11; modern 246
157, 196; from the black market 94; Culture of dress 200, 208, 214, 251
ideological 251; internal 52, 196; fashion and 100, 111–112, 121, 124,
international 102, 196; national 196; 127, 161, 193; propaganda for/of 85,
peaceful 10, 14, 59; social 42; socialist 106
94, 113 Custom made clothes 10, 49, 51, 54, 67,
Complaints 18, 20, 60–61, 66, 121, 168, 107, 118, 123, 185, 244
177, 193, 196–197, 211, 249, 260 ateliers of 16, 59, 81, 109, 116, 121,
note 107, 275 note 549 123, 126, 132, 134, 180, 268 note 330;
book of 138, 267 note 304; production units of 117; system of 121
suggestions and 218 Cybernetics
Constructivist designs 45 systems theory or241
designers 46; movement 47
Consumer demand 81, 89, 110, 137 Dandy, 31
durables 58, 65 Dandyism 247
Consumer goods 12, 34, 58, 60–61, Decency 23, 30, 128, 197, 221, 229, 243,
63–66, 69, 71, 74–76, 96, 129, 133, 248, 249
135–136, 211, 254 note 15, 261 note control of 58; and moral 221; moral
144 worth and 220; norms of 25; of dress
availability of 59; distribution of 259 37, 228; of women 37; rules of 195,
note 95; East German 257 note 60; 198, 250; sexual 27, 186, 242
enterprises of 68, 94, 148; export of Department store 15, 35–36, 38, 53–54,
65, 130, 267 note 297; import of 65, 58–59, 92,133–137, 141–143, 147–
74; investments in 58, markets 147, 148, 207–208, 244, 251, 267
252; mass-produced 79; prices of note 297 and 320
19, 58–59; production of 11, 32, 68; administration of 144, 172; ateliers
provisioning of 76; shortages of 73 at 17; direction of 172; European
Consumer goods industry 34, 67, 70, 76, 135; exemplary 51–52; fashion
96, 101–102, 117, 122, 124, 148, 178, design at 17; production units at 53;
181, 191, 211, 244, 261 note 144 storerooms at 156; system of 244;
Deputy Minister of 101, 106 trade halls of 134
Consumer preferences 89 Detraditionalization, 11
Consumer society 74, 76 De-Stalinization, 11
Consumerism 42 Directive collections 101, 106
expressions of 74 Dress code 13, 27, 37–39; 192, 197, 199,
Cooperatives 116, 259 note 102 221, 228–229, 245, 250
and local industry 17; manufacturers Soviet 195, 197
of 148; workshops of 133
Corruption Economic growth 1, 63–65, 249
campaign against 72; favors and 61; and consumption 63; extensive 64
fighting against 63; privileges and 11; Economic reform 70–71, 94, 148
shortages and 211 Education 19, 51, 58, 61–62, 75, 143,
Corset 125 205, 229, 261 note 144, 264 note 227,
Cosmetics 54, 66, 74, 95, 169, 186 276 note 596
expenses of 169; perfumes and 169, academic 214; aesthetic 34, 165,
249 168; artistic 140, 145, 206; formal
Cultivated taste 143; higher 142, 180; investments in
standards of 13 63; of fashion 18, 195, 205, 235; of
Cultural politics 41, 50 good taste 100; of proper manners
Cultural revolution 229; 61; of taste 32, 80, 88, 186, 226,
Chinese 52; of the 1920s 32 229; political 165; professional 175;
Cultural transfer 11 propaganda and 88; sexual 26

300
Index of Subjects

Elite Industrialization 50–51, 57

administrative 137; cultural 100, 184, Innovation 14, 33, 96
245; customers 137; economic 250; cultural 221; in fashion 33; scientific
Moscow 44; political 107, 185; ruling 108; stylistic 24; technical 64, 207
54; Soviet 34, 48–50; Stalinist 24 Intelligentsia 39
Embroidery 46–48, 142, 172, 209 Russian 42
designers of 130; Russian 130 International Fashion festival 102–103,
Ethnic costume 130, 269 note 363 209
Ethnographic collections 28, 246
Etiquette 13–14, 37, 195 Jeans 75, 109, 134–135, 246, 262 note
books on 198, 231; Kremlin 49; of 159
dress 18, 37; of fashion 247; Soviet 24 Journalism
fashion 195; investigative 34, 197;
Fashion journalism 195 Soviet 196–197, 211–112
Fashion trends 16, 18, 37, 42, 62, 81,
95–96, 111–112, 124, 126–127, 161, Kolkhoz 18, 58, 189, 207
191, 245 peasant markets 59, 74–75; Uzbek 76
and methods of trade 137; prognosis Komsomol Youth League 166, 217
of 85; prospective 188; seasonal 195, Kremlin, the 15, 135
263 note 175 etiquette 49; leaders 49, 135
Fast food 14
Female trousers 128 Leather goods 16
Femininity 25 Leninism
Five Year plan 51, 57–58 and exact science 44–45
Folk dress 28–29, 47, 246 Lingerie 16, 248
Foreign currency 47, 104 Little deal 71
Local industry 17, 52, 68–69, 129, 131,
Gender role 27 148, 259 note 103
Good life 53 enterprises of 129, 148; Republican
ideals of 53 ministries of 131, workshops of 130
Luxury 38, 44, 54, 74, 117, 120, 231, 247,
Hairdresser 15, 35, 50, 66, 169 249, 268 note 341
Harmony 47, 220, 232, 234, 238 goods, 42; Soviet, 14
ideals of 27; moderation and 24, 251
Haute couture 14, 19, 33, 44, 47, 101, Market economy, 74
105, 124, 150, 258 note 69, 268 note partial rehabilitation of 42
341, 275 note 563 Market research 51, 82, 89, 260 note 101
albums of 41; Soviet 106, 114, 248 Marxists 21
Heterosexuality 27 Masculinity 25
Homo sovieticus 25 Mass media 26, 87, 124–125, 193, 195
Homosexuality 25–26, 255 note 31 Mass production 51, 53, 117, 130, 176,
Hygiene 183, 203
bodily 26; clothing 108; conditions of designs for 83, 183; industrial 10, 31,
45; scientific bases of 45; standards of 47–49, 52, 54, 81, 92, 101, 128, 177,
modern 22 218, 244; of clothes 35, 45, 76, 117,
126, 128, 132, 159, 215, 217–218; of
Income 51, 58, 63–64, 72, 81, 83, 118, perfumes and cosmetics 54; of new
163, 182–183, 260 note 117, 268 note models 174; standardized 69
330 Middle class 250
differentials 63, 74; from the shadow intellectuals 25
economy 71; illegal 71, 74; legal 71; Minimum wages 63
natural 71 Miniskirt 27, 95
Industrial conglomerate 53, 68, 97, 116, Moderation 23–24, 27, 30, 214, 220, 230,
118, 122, 124, 128 251

301
Index of Subjects

in fashion 248 Pricing 183

Modern art 11 system of 19
artist 12 Product assortment 19,111
Modernity 1, 232, 236, 238, 252 Progress 11, 13, 41, 44, 62, 96, 242
ambivalence of 258; experience of cultural 241; economic 11, 193, 242;
11–12; phenomenon of 232, 236– in beauty 12, 14, 242; in/of fashion
237; sociologist of 12; Soviet 253 12, 230; in science and technology
note 2; two forms of 252; “ultra” 14, 213, 230; scientific 10–11;
147 technical 12, 242, 246; technological
Modernization 13, 15, 25, 193 11, 64, 230
process of 11–12 Proletarian aesthetics 19, 45
Morality 26 vanguard of 41
art and 25; gatekeepers of 249; of Proletkult 40–41, 46
cross dressing 25; puritan 255 Promkombinat 134
note 31; sexual 26, 221–222, industrial conglomerate 53;
standards of 26 workshops of 53
Nepmen 26, 42, 44, 50 Propaganda 41, 59, 165, 250
New Economic Policy NEP 42 and advertising 241; and education
New Look 102 62, 88; for bodily hygiene 26; for
Nomenklatura 49 good taste 227; for fashion 101, 110,
Novelty 12–13, 54, 64, 76, 134, 178, 183, 204, 243; for Soviet fashion 89, 170;
191, 218, 220, 225, 240, 250 of asceticism 50; of anti-fashion 214;
at GUM 158; in Soviet fashion 203; of of the culture of dress 85, 164; public
fashion 228; of international fashion 23; taste propaganda 12
156; national 214 Prozodezhda 45
Public catering 66
Parisian Fashion Houses 19, 102, 248, Public opinion 25–27, 34, 89, 163, 229
254 note 15 about dress 38; and sex 26
Peaceful competition 10, 14, 58, 284
Perestroika 23, 26, 65, 71, 123, 188, 190 Rational needs 20, 62, 213, 252
Petit bourgeois 250–251 Rational planning 13
Petit bourgeois mentality 40 Rationing 51, 58, 63, 259 note 93
harmful remnants of 74, 250; of basic food items 58
philistinism of 42 Readers’ letters 61
Planned economy 11, 13, 20–22, 27, Red army 39, 210–211
34, 57, 59, 64, 73, 88, 130, 183, 193, Red Square, the 15, 135
197–198, 213, 218, 240, 242 GUM, the Soviet department store
advantages of 78; institutional on 36, 135
limitations in 251; major problems Reform dress 42, 45, 53
in 63; nature of 132; official rules and Regional differences 25, 76
regulations of 216; principles of 196, Restaurant 29, 42, 50, 54, 58, 60, 267
251–252; shortcomings of 23; the note 304
system of 54, 215 Romantic spirit 252
Press 24, 37, 71, 185, 198, 206–207, 209, Russian Revolution 31–32, 36, 38, 257
219, 229, 243 note 65
agencies 182; central 243; fashion
214; Komsomol 199; local 18, 100, Scientific organization of work 44
196, 199, 209, 243, 245; popular 202, Scientific technical revolution 64
209, 243, 248; professional 238, 243; Second economy 72
public 197; regional 243; Soviet Second World War 15, 24, 31–32, 34, 36,
23–24, 61, 76, 94, 98, 128, 193–197, 48, 92, 173
202–204, 209, 220–222, 226–227, Semi-legal business 72
231, 238, 248–249, 273 note 486 and Service sector 66, 117
488; trade 216 enterprises of 67

302
Index of Subjects

Sexual counterrevolution 25 and 29, 273 note 488

Sexual culture 25 Street fashion 10, 33, 238–240, 258 note
Sexual decency 27, 186 69
norms of 242 Style of dress 11, 19, 24, 95, 197, 200–
Sexual emancipation 25 201, 227, 239, 249–250, 272 note 482
Sexual minorities 27 Soviet debate on 25
Sexual revolution 26 Style of life
Sexuality 26, 248, 255 note 31, 256 note American 75
36, 278 note 648 Systems theory 64, 241
and fashion 222; history of 25;
liberalization of 27; Soviet 26 Taboo 26
Shopping center 67, 116 Thaw 22, 26, 56
Small series 17, 23, 53, 73, 81–82, 117, Theory of fashion 111, 214, 233
123–124, 132, 141, 148, 178, 249; Tourism 64, 179, 221, 236, 255 note 30
and firmennye magaziny 215–217; Trade chains 14
at the Tallinn House 184; in the GDR Trend setting 79, 97, 101, 105, 112–114,
172 124, 128, 153
Snack bar 14 Tsarist regime 38
Social control 56, 65 Tsarist Russia 27, 104
Social status 11, 13, 39, 165, 239
Socialist competition 94, 113 Uniform 10, 21, 33, 41, 45, 53, 55, 78,
Socialist realism 46 175, 179, 212, 270 note 387;
Soviet democracy 59 military 33, 56, 83; school 101, 179,
Soviet ideology of fashion 45, 246–247 182; working 45, 218
Soviet-French cultural relations 31 Urban culture 38, 51
Soviet public discourse 23, 229 Urbanization 11, 13, 54, 58, 151, 193
Soviet trade 36, 76, 133–134, 212 industrialization and 51
exhibitions 102, 170, 188, 211;
flagships of 76; leader of 141; Virgin lands 63
ministry 212
Sovnarkhoz 67–68, 275 note 549 White army 39
Standard of living 20, 57, 59, 62–63, 65, Women’s journal 23, 26, 151, 199, 240
73–74 World fair
economic development and 36 Bryssels 1958 170, 188–189; Montreal
State Planning Committee GOSPLAN 59 1969 102, 272 note 474
Stiliagi 23–24, 31, 197–198, 222–225, Zeitgeist
227–230, 249–250, 255 note 24, 25 fashion as 13

303
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