Fashioneast: призрак, бродивший по Восточной Европе

by Djurdja Bartlett, Джурджа Бартлетт

Книга Джурджи Бартлетт посвящена феномену «социалистической моды». Моду действительно можно назвать призраком, наводившим ужас на советское государство. Эфемерный, вечно незавершенный и неуловимый феномен составил нешуточную угрозу ценностям социализма, — стабильности, отсутствию перемен и предсказуемости. Бартлетт прослеживает историю феномена — от его зарождения в эпоху крушения большевистской утопической мечты до расцвета в восточноевропейских странах с приходом коммунистов к власти в 1948 году и постепенного заката в последние десятилетия существования социалистического строя.
В фокусе исследования Бартлетт — вестиментарные опыты конструктивистов; ранняя большевистская критика моды как буржуазного феномена; возвращение к идеалам традиционной женственности в сталинскую эпоху; институциализация моды и формирование идеологического конструкта «официального социалистического костюма» ( при почти полном отсутствие сколько-нибудь приличной одежды на прилавках магазинов); фестивали и конкурсы, призванные поддерживать миф о существовании социалистической моды, а также неофициальные модные практики, к которым вынужден был прибегать «человек эпохи дефицита».

Genres: Fashion

356 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2010

Reviews

[Maia Olive · Rating 1 out of 5]

Djurdja Bartlett claims in this book that ‘Socialist fashion was always simply a discourse, with little concern about reality.’ This is an incredible statement from a historian who constructs her entire argument based on conjecture, with little concern for reality. Djurdja engages in pseudo-history, completely disregarding any source material which might pose problems for her imagined version of the Soviet Union. This leads to her constant self contradiction between chapters and even between paragraphs, which she seems to either simply not care about, or to be completely unaware of. The blatantly anti-communist ideological framework for her narrative dictates her analysis at every point, leaving the book devoid of any semblance of connection to the past. Rather, Fashioneast: The Spectre that Haunted Socialism reads like the crazed ramblings of a rabid anti-communist who continually refuses to engage with a wealth of primary sources.

[Inna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book about manipulation of the wish for fashion in Soviet Union and in socialist Eastern Europe. The author claims that after the initial avantgardist and feminist notion that clothes should emphasize people's place in the production and de-emphasize gender differences, which encouraged different treatment of men and women within the economy became too revolutionary for the increasingly socially conservative Stalinit regime, the attitude towards fashion changed. Fashion became important as a cultural sign of gender difference, as encouraged by the government. The thing is that the beautiful feminine fashions presented by elite government fashion houses were there strictly for presentation. It was impossible to use such designs for cheap mass production. Therefore high fashion was perceived as part of regime's self-presentation rather than something supposed to end in the stores, available for purchase. Frustrated customers, who got used to finding only low quality goods in the stores, developed a craving for western fashion goods as well as for western consuming culture. While this happened in both Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Eastern European countries were more open to western and western-style consumer goods and as such were also perceived as a source of higher quality fashion goods. The newly growing middle classes found solutions in private tailoring, smuggling, and employment of connections - all somewhat illegal. Essentially the author claims that frustrated consumers in these countries ended up glorifying Western consuming patterns and therefore the West as such. This glorification was an essential part of middle class culture. The main issue was that after the initial impulse in the 20s to revolutionize the view on gender and thus erase the concept of fashion the governments adopted conservative middle class notions of consuming, but were unable to follow these through by mass production of relevant goods. Therefore the customers were in constant state of frustration which eventually developed into political attitudes.

[SnezhArt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Для русских читателей, интересующихся модой - must read.

[Erin Bronner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helped inform my thesis!