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Fashions began to change in the 1950s. We suspect this was in the mid-50s after Stalins death. Our archieve, however, is too limited to reach any firm conclusions. The rather austere, basically practical functional, classless communist dress during the post-World War II years gradually gave way to greater Western fashion influences. There was a trend toward glamor. One author writes as the 1950s developed, "... the need for an official communist fashion increased at the end of the 1950s, when the regimes rushed to clothe their emerging communist middle classes ...." This included the children of the expanding middle class. As far as we can tell, Soviet fashions were essentially local reproductions of styles developed in the West. Russia slowly recovered in the 1950s from the enormous destruction of WoRld War II. And the Soviets were able to exploit the resources ahnd production of their Eastern European empire. And there was a relative degree of prosperity, allowing the Soviet people to dress better than ever before. The Soviet planned economy, however, could not generate the sane level of wealth as that of the capitalist ecomonies of Western Europe and America. Thus while improving, the availability of fashionable clothes was far more limited than in the West. There were still no Russian clothing catalogs in the Western sence. We continue to see Soviet fashion houses publishing examples of fashionable clothes. We note one page with children's fashions from the Novosibirsk Fashion House in 1954. We note a Soviet display of fashionable knitwear in 1959. We are not sure, however, what it represents. It may be a fashion/design house display rather than a store display of actual items for sale. These clothes could not be purchased by Soviet consumers. Even the patterns were not available. Rather Soviets mothers used the imasges as a general guideline for home sewing.
Fashions began to change in the 1950s. We suspect this was in the mid-50s after Stalins death. Our archieve, however, is too limited to reach any firm conclusions. The rather austere, basically practical functional, classless communist dress during the post-World War II years gradually gave way to greater Western fashion influences. There was a trend toward glamor. One author writes as the 1950s developed, "... the need for an official communist fashion increased at the end of the 1950s, when the regimes rushed to clothe their emerging communist middle classes ...." This included the children of the expanding middle class. As far as we can tell, Soviet fashions were essentially local reproductions of styles developed in the West. Russia slowly recovered in the 1950s from the enormous destruction of WoRld War II. And the Soviets were able to exploit the resources ahnd production of their Eastern European empire. And there was a relative degree of prosperity, allowing the Soviet people to dress better than ever before. The Soviet planned economy, however, could not generate the sane level of wealth as that of the capitalist ecomonies of Western Europe and America. Thus while improving, the availability of fashionable clothes was far more limited than in the West. There were still no Russian clothing catalogs in the Western sence. We continue to see Soviet fashion houses publishing examples of fashionable clothes. These clothes could not be purchased by Soviet consumers. Even the patterns were not available. Rather Soviets mothers used the imasges as a general guideline for home sewing.
We note one page with children's fashions from the Novosibirsk Fashion House in 1954 (figure 1). The boys wear included knickers and long short pants. The older girl's blue dress is a classic style with a back bow. It probably was worn in the Soviet Union. We are not sure about the other styles pictured here. Nor do we know to what extent these outfits, except for the blue dress, were actuially worn. We are not sure how to describe the coordinsted blue outfirs. They seem to be fashions that were not jusdt copied from the West. It seems to us to be a kind of Ukrakian folk fashion, but our Russian/Uktanian readers may be able to describe it more accurately.
The catalog secrtion is an important part of HBC as they are dated and the asccompanying text provides all kinds of fashion details. And because money was involved, catalogs are a good indicator as to what was atually being worn. The fact that the Soviet Union did not have catalogs offering clothes for sale is a significant limitation on our assessment of children's fashions. Thgere are fashion mahazines, but they often depicted glamerous fashions rarher than whast was acrually being worn. Thus for our Soviet assessment we hve to be somewhat imaginative in searing for imagery. We have found a 1957 children's calendae with realistic depictions of what children were wearing.
We note a Soviet display of fashionable knitwear in 1959. We are not sure, however, what it represents. It may be a fashion/design house display rather than a store display of actual items for sale.
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