Figure 1.--This is a psage from the Soviet fashion magazine, "Moda Leta" ("Fashion of the Summer"). Curiously despite the title, the catalog is full of coats and other cold-weather garments. The magazine was published in 1937 by the People Commissariate of Light Industry (NKLP), Department of sewing. Sewing factories apparently submitted models. The magazine included very fashionable garments illustrated. The styles would not have looked out of place in Paris.

Soviet design houses were established in the 1930s after Stalin was in complete control of the Communist Party and Soviet state. Apparently Stalin had no objected to the favored in the new Soviet state and Communist Party dressing well and enjoying some of the rewards of the good like. Publications that look like catalogs appeared. As best we can tell, however, their primary function was to create clothing fashions (often copied from the West) and illustrate them in a glossy magazine. Soviet mothers could then buy the magazine and try to recreate the garments. Rarely were actual patterns available. A good example is "Moda Leta" ("Fashion of the Summer"). Curiously despite the title, the catalog is full of coats and other cold-weather garments. The magazine was published in 1937 by the People Commissariate of Light Industry (NKLP), Department of sewing. Sewing factories apparently submitted models. The magazine included very fashionable garments illustrated. The styles would not have looked out of place in Paris. They were not, however, fashions that many many Soviet citizens would have worn. We do not know of any mail order catalogs where you could actually buy clothing.

Fashion Developments

Stalin after Lenin's (1924) death gradually expanded his influence and was by the end iof the deacade in control of the Soviet state (1929). His first major economic step was to end Lenin's NEP and issue the First Five Year Plan (1929). Gradually Stalin extended his influence and outlook into every sector of Soviet society--science, music, art, literature, and eventually fashion. . We are not entirely sure of fasion in the early 1930s, but we see his influence on fashion by the mid-30s. Soviet design houses were established in the 1930s after Stalin was in complete control of the Communist Party and Soviet state. Apparently Stalin had no objected to the favored in the new Soviet state and Communist Party dressing well and enjoying some of the rewards of the good like. Publications that look like catalogs appeared. In cvontrast to Communist dogma, Stalin actually encouraged social distinctions as a result of massive disparities in wages. The new Soviet middle class received access to material goods denined the general public. This included food, housing, consumer goods, and fashionable clothing. This was of course a way ensuring support for the regime.

Individual Years

Unlike the 1920s, we begin to see Soviet fashion publications in the 1920s. The fashions depicted, however, were not available to the general public. They depict stylish fashions as one might see in the West. The photographic record sgows, howevert, that few Soviet citizens dressed as depicted in these publications. Nor were Soviet citizens able to buy these fashions, despite the mail order catalog look of the publications. We have only a few pages from these catalogs, but they give an idea of what the publications and fashions depicted look like.

1930

1931

1936

1937

We note an issue of "Moda Leta" ("Fashion of the Summer") published in 1937. Curiously despite the title, the catalog is full of coats and other cold-weather garments. The magazine was published in 1937 by the People Commissariate of Light Industry (NKLP), Department of sewing. Sewing factories apparently submitted models. The magazine included very fashionable garments illustrated. The styles would not have looked out of place in Paris. They were not, however, fashions that many many Soviet citizens would have worn. Our general approach is to list different types of clothong for each year and bring up catalog pages to illustrate each category. This is a klittle difficult as "Moda Leta" seems to mix up all kind of different garmens as well as different age groups and genders. The best aprpoach here is to illustrate each page with the very brief ad copy.

1938

A reader has sent us pages from a Fall-Winter 1938-39 publication. It was an expensively produced publication with colored plates. Presumably it was a Moda publication like the Moda Leta publication archived in the 1937 section above. The title of the publication was probably something like Fashion in the Winter. Even so, it included many short pants outfits for the boys and short skirts for the younger girls. Most of the children are shown wearing long stockings with the various outfits, almost all the tan/beige colors that became popular during the inter-war period. Unfortunately the scans are not large enough the read the accompanying text. The publication looks like a Western cartalog complere with back view line drawings that were often included in Western catalogs. There was, however, no way of ordering the clothing or even the patterns to sew the garments depicted. Apparently the idea was to give Soviets mothers an idea of the fashions and left the sewing up to them. As such, while it looks like a Western catalog, it was actually more of a Soviet fashion magazine. Of course this was a little touchy politically as Soviet propaganda denigrated Western fashion.

1939

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Created: 3:56 AM 8/13/2009
Last updated: 8:16 PM 10/26/2010