‘Myth and Reality: Socialist Fashion and Five-Year Plans’

In this essay Bartlett claims that in its official version fashion was embedded in the socialist mythical reality, both as a part of the centralized economies and their five-year plans, and as an image of conventional yet unachievable elegance, obeying in this sense the aesthetics of socialist realism. Bartlett argues that such bureaucratic over-centralization was not only in line with the prevailing economic model, but also demonstrated the socialist fear of change and discontinuity of time. Preferring the synchronic, systematic level over the diachronic, processive level, the Soviet authorities attempted to control and tame fashion trends through centralized systems of clothes production and distribution. In contrast to socialist official fashion, Bartlett situates everyday fashion in a fluid space in which the official, the informal and the illegal were equally present. It could be obtained at state ateliers, acquired through the prohibited services of a seamstress, or sewn by oneself. In contrast to the concept of timelessness, which defined socialist official fashion, everyday fashion acknowledged change and was served by a faster flow of time.

This book collects the papers given at a conference at Salzburg University in October 2013 on the topic of Soviet fashion from the Thaw until the beginning of the Perestroika. Divided into the three sections "Socialist Fashion", "Fashion and Society", and "Fashion and the Arts" the contributions cover a wide range of different aspects, such as the history of fashion, the culture of consumption, aspects of economy, and vestimental codes in film and literature. At the centre of this volume thus lies the everyday culture with its implicit gender structures, and issues of transfer, in particular of Western fashion. Focusing on material culture thus the potential of fashion and fashion practices to transform the norms of Soviet society come to the fore.

[Source: http://www.kubon-sagner.de/opac.html?record=9103]

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