Nadezhda Lamanova: Couturier to the Nobility, Tailor to the Masses

Nadezhda Lamanova was the only well-established Russian pre-revolutionary fashion designer who declared her loyalty to the new regime following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The juxtaposition of the extraordinary glamour of her pre-1917 designs with her dedicated post-revolutionary service to the Bolsheviks has contributed to Lamanova’s mythical status in Russia. This paper contextualizes Lamanova’s designs within the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary modernist arts and applied arts movements, and shows that Lamanova’s work and her personal life were embedded in the social, cultural, and artistic avant-garde of her times. In turn, the paper forges a link between Lamanova’s pre-and-post-1917 careers, periods that, previously, had been strictly delineated.