Nationalizing Fashion: Soviet Women's Fashion and the West, 1959-1967

Nationalizing Fashion: Soviet Women's Fashion and the West, 1959-1967 Public Deposited

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Olmsted, Virginia
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History

Abstract

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.

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