Soviet fashion houses and fashion trends of the 1950-1970s: all-Russian and regional dimensions

The article analyses a range of issues related to the specifics of the Soviet system of industrial clothes design in the USSR as a whole, and in individual economic regions, in the North Caucasus in particular. This determined the specific aim of the research - to examine the theoretical and applied aspects of the activities of the leading design organisations of the system of the USSR Ministry of Light Industry - fashion houses (All-Union, Moscow/All-Union, Leningrad, Rostov-on-Don) - established at the turn of the 1950s. The activities are considered in line with the main trends in the development of socialist fashion. The fundamental basis of the research is a vast array of various documents: departmental correspondence, reports of production associations/enterprises, materials of control and supervisory bodies from the funds of central and regional archives, many of them are first introduced into academic discourse. These documents, along with materials of specialised periodicals (magazines), made it possible to reveal the latent problems of the design system. The authors highlight the role of fashion houses in the formation and development of theoretical directions of Soviet fashion, the current forms of its representation (guiding/promising collections, fashion magazines, exhibitions, etc.), and the nature of interaction with garment manufacturers. The focus is on the characteristics and main trends of Soviet fashion: nationality (folklore/ethnographic elements), ensemble/predictive design, children’s, work/special-purpose clothing. Applying the comparative method, the authors analyse the features of regional fashion houses and design departments of garment manufacturers, of industrial design at individual enterprises of the CMEA countries (Czechoslovakia). The analysis makes it possible to identify a number of systemic errors/miscalculations. The authors emphasise that fashion houses and industrial enterprises propagandized/promoted Soviet fashion and cultivated good taste and aesthetic principles in workers as part of the general ideological work of the Soviet state (fashion shows, selling exhibitions, buying conferences, issues of thematic magazines, advertising in the media, etc.). The article concludes that a serious theoretical development of fashion issues in Soviet Russia and its scientific and industrial base did not give the expected effects. The country’s leadership was trying to centralise the emerging fashion industry and subordinated it to the general principles of a planned economy. Fashion houses often did not take into account the real capabilities of the industry, as a result of which lower-quality factory design developed. The samples of fashion clothing models produced in mass often changed beyond recognition, which ultimately discredited the existing system of clothing design and production in the USSR.

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