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Nationalizing Fashion: Soviet Women’S Fashion and the West, 1959-1967

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Nationalizing Fashion: Soviet Women’S Fashion and the West, 1959-1967 NATIONALIZING FASHION: SOVIET WOMEN’S FASHION AND THE WEST, 1959-1967 Virginia Olmsted A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2015 Approved by: Donald J. Raleigh Louise McReynolds Chad Bryant © 2015 Virginia Olmsted ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Virginia Olmsted: Nationalizing Fashion: Soviet Women’s Fashion and the West, 1959-1967 (Under the direction of Donald J. Raleigh) After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the growth of the fashion industry allowed the Soviet Union to compete with the West in both consumer and cultural production. This thesis explores the development of Soviet women’s fashion, beginning with the Dior Show in Moscow in 1959 and ending with the International Exhibition of Clothing in August 1967. During this period, Soviet designers endeavored to create clothing that was simple, practical, feminine, and elegant as a contrast to the perceived excesses of Western fashion design. Designers had difficulties developing clothing based on these parameters, often resorting to imitating Western fashion trends. By the late 1960s, designers began to utilize national motifs and textiles from the Soviet republics in their clothing, believing that national dress was inherently beautiful and practical. The focus on national motifs did far more than make clothing distinctly Russian, Uzbek, Latvian, or Ukrainian. It made clothing distinctly Soviet. iii In memory of my mother, who first inspired my interest in the history of fashion. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS........................................................................................................ vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................vii CHAPTER 1: PRACTICAL, FEMININE, AND ELEGANT.........................................................1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Historiography and Method .............................................................................................4 Dior, Art, and Culture ......................................................................................................8 Soviet Fashion .................................................................................................................11 Production of Soviet Fashion ........................................................................................20 CHAPTER 2: NATIONALLY INSPIRED FASHION ...............................................................27 Soviet Fashion and the West .........................................................................................27 The Development of a National Fashion ......................................................................32 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................38 PLATES .......................................................................................................................................42 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................56 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate 1 – Dior models in Moscow ................................................................................................42 Plate 2 – “Fancy Dresses”.............................................................................................................43 Plate 3 – “Cardin” .........................................................................................................................44 Plate 4 – “Designs for mass production” ......................................................................................45 Plate 5 – Patterns...........................................................................................................................46 Plate 6 – “Italian Fashion” ............................................................................................................47 Plate 7 – “Sketches of dresses which use Russian national motifs”.............................................48 Plate 8 – Traditional Russian designs ...........................................................................................49 Plate 9 – Mini-sarafan...................................................................................................................50 Plate 10 – “Outfit for a young woman with Red Army motifs” ...................................................51 Plate 11 – Fiftieth Anniversary ....................................................................................................52 Plate 12 – “Contemporary clothing made with xan-atlas .............................................................53 Plate 13 – Baltic designs...............................................................................................................54 Plate 14 – Central Asian designs .................................................................................................54 Plate 15 – Uzbek Fashion ............................................................................................................55 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS GDR German Democratic Republic GUM Gosudarstvennyi universalnyi magazin (State Department Store) ODMO Obshchesoiuznyi dom modelei (General Soviet House of Design) RFSFR Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics SSSR/USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics vii CHAPTER 1: PRACTICAL, FEMININE, AND ELEGANT Introduction An impeccably attired young woman in a bright red dress poses in front of a crowd of women wearing drab floral prints. One of them, in a headscarf, stares at the model in longing and amazement, as if she has never seen anyone like her. The dingy crowd seems out of place in contrast to the chic, glowing model. Obviously a carefully selected piece, this LIFE magazine photo of Dior models in Moscow for the 1959 Dior fashion show exemplifies the Western image of fashion in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s. Fashion simply did not exist, until a Western designer showed them the glamorous, elegant world that the Soviet other lacked. Those behind the Iron Curtain could only admire and hope to imitate Western culture, particularly its fashion. [Plate 1] For most people in the United States, the words “Soviet fashion” call to mind masses of people in identical, dark outfits. Even though Soviet society in the 1960s did not provide a cornucopia of choice regarding clothing and fashion, a fashion industry existed that made real efforts to dress women in stylish, attractive clothing. The purpose of this new focus on fashion, however, was not simply to expand consumer production or meet the demands of Soviet citizens. The Soviet state, with the assistance of the houses of design (dom modelei) and women’s magazines, developed and produced “socialist” fashion as part of a broader effort to improve the domestic and international reputation of Soviet consumer production. Soviet fashion had to be distinct from Western designs in order to emphasize ideological differences. In the words of the 1 nineteenth-century sociologist Georg Simmel, “Fashion satisfies the demand for social adaptation. At the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need for differentiation.”1 On a macro scale, clothing differentiated the Soviet Union from the rest of the world, but also proved that it could compete with the West. Soviet designers believed that “socialist” fashion needed to be simple, practical, feminine, and elegant in order to avoid Western excesses. These limited parameters made it difficult for designers to create ideologically correct clothing. The effort to develop a uniquely Soviet style of fashion intensified after the Dior Show in 1959 highlighted the limits of Soviet design. Soviet designers during this period simply imitated Western styles, simplifying and altering them to meet the ideological parameters of simplicity, practicality, femininity, and elegance. Beginning in 1960, designers realized that these efforts had failed to produce anything identifiably Soviet. In 1967, they settled on the development of national fashion, as they believed that national motifs and textiles were inherently practical and beautiful. In an effort to alleviate this problem, Soviet designers turned to national motifs and themes in the late 1960s, especially at the International Exhibition of Clothing in Moscow in 1967. National themes provided a means for international differentiation and creating a particularly Soviet style. Historian Larissa Zakharova has convincingly argued that the emergence of national motifs helped to justify the existence of Soviet fashion; however, I think it was about far more than that.2 National designs provided a way for Soviet designers to create clothing that reflected the ideologically important ideas that clothing should be simple, 1 Georg Simmel, “Fashion,” The International Quarterly 10 (October 1, 1904): 143. 2 Larissa Zakharova, “Dior in Moscow: A Taste for Luxury in Soviet Fashion under Khrushchev,” in Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, eds. David Crowley and Susan Emily Reid (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010), 106. 2 egalitarian, and beautifying. As the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution, 1967 had particular ideological importance
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