- “The Twiggy doll is out!”
The 1960s, a time of liberation and freedom. A time of sexual discovery, acid trips, great hippy gatherings and… have I mentioned acid trips yet? The decade was also marked by a heightened sense of fashion awareness. Its like everybody became French for a couple of years. Icons of the fashion industry and other socialites became household names all around the world. Twiggy, Verushka, Catherine Deneuve, Natalie Wood, Julie Christie, Anna Karina, Peggy Moffit, Penelope Tree and Talitha Getty just to name a few.
Freedom of expression, a great vehicle behind the 60s movement, was not equally pronounced everywhere though. In case of the Soviet state, it was non-existent. You know something is wrong when the government decides what you shall wear. The Soviet idea of fashion was your only choice, to make it as a fashion designer (I’m not even sure if that was an option at all) you would have to be approved by the government.
Yet, some individuals were able to make it, even in a repressive society. Slava Zaitsev, for example, became a somewhat prominent fashion designer of the Soviet pre-perestroika era. His creations were used in a range of industries, he was highly regarded by the western press and he was the first Soviet couturier permitted to put a label on his clothes. If you are interested in finding out more about Zaitsev and other Soviet fashion houses, please have a look at this article by the New York Times. Here are some pictures out of a Soviet fashion catalogue.
~get the catalogue over here
stalin=hipster lolz
i like the lady with her big blue coat(in russia no1 gave a damn about shoes) and it looks like shes about to march for mutha russia.