Which fashion house was founded in 1910? From the history of fashion in Tsarist Russia

New life

Soviet fashion was formed and marched forward along its own special route. It was created by talented professionals who survived the years of devastation and bloody terror, and corrected and directed by party officials and state security officials. was made up of the skill of tailors of the last century and the innovative ideas of artists of the young country of the Soviets, from clothing models created by specialists trained in Soviet universities, from mass clothing produced by numerous clothing factories, from Soviet fashion magazines, from fashion magazines of fraternal socialist republics legally entering the country and bourgeois Western publications entering the USSR from behind the “Iron Curtain”, from stories of people who have visited abroad, from domestic craftswomen copying the clothes that they brought “from there”, from imitation images of Soviet and foreign cinema.

The October Socialist Revolution, which abolished the classes of the nobility and bourgeoisie and established a new social composition of society, inevitably influenced the formation of fashion in the Soviet country, in which there was no longer room for luxurious toilets. The working people of the young country of the Soviets had to look as befits the builder of a new society, although no one knew exactly how, and everyone who was destined to survive the October revolution simply had to adapt to the harsh features of military and civil labor and the life of the first post-revolutionary years.

Men and women wearing leather commissar jackets, leather caps and soldiers' tunics, belted with leather belts, appeared on the city streets. Satin shirts worn with city jackets have become the most popular men's clothing. Women dressed in dresses made of canvas, straight skirts of soldier's cloth, calico blouses and fabric jackets. Men's tunics, which migrated into the women's wardrobe, emphasized the equality of rights between Soviet women and Soviet men.

A sign of the new post-revolutionary time was the red scarf - a symbol of a woman’s liberation; now it was pulled over the forehead and tied at the back of the head, and not under the chin, as was traditionally done before. Footwear, men's and women's, consisted of boots, shoes, canvas slippers, and rubber boots.

Komsomol members put on “Jungsturm” - paramilitary clothing borrowed from the German youth communist organization “Red Jungsturm”, which was a tunic or jacket of various shades of green, with a turn-down collar and patch pockets, worn with a belt and sword belt, and a cap on the head. The girls wore young assault boots with a straight, dark-colored skirt. Based on the Young Storm, a uniform uniform for Komsomol members was developed. As the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper wrote: “The Central Committee of the Komsomol recommends that local organizations introduce a unified form of Komsomol through voluntariness. The uniform of the Moscow Komsomol should be taken as a sample - khaki (dark green). The Central Committee considers it desirable to introduce this form in all city organizations by the 14th International Youth Day.”

Things were made from canvas, coarse linen, calico, soldier's cloth, flannel, cotton wool, coarse wool. Starting from 1921 - 1922, when the transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP) was announced in the country and the process of restoring textile and clothing enterprises began, the first fabrics with printed patterns appeared, mainly cotton - chintz, satin, flannel.

One of the first mass-produced costumes was the Red Army uniform. In 1918, a special commission was created to develop the uniform of the Red Army, and a competition was announced for the best examples of military clothing, in which such artists as Viktor Vasnetsov and Boris Kustodiev took part. The Russian historical costume was taken as the basis for the Red Army uniform. A year later, a helmet, an overcoat, a shirt, and leather bast shoes were approved as a new uniform. The buttonhole trim, characteristic of ancient military uniforms, was adjacent to red cuffs, collars and a star on the helmet, which repeated the ancient Russian form of sholom with aventail, thereby emphasizing the heroism and romance of the image. The new Red Army helmet, which was soon dubbed the Budenovka helmet, existed until the start of the Great Patriotic War.

The terrible, bloody collapse of the old world and the painful construction of the new, it would seem, should have doomed such a phenomenon as fashion. Why and who needs it in the Soviet country? But against all odds 20s The 20th century became one of the most interesting periods in the history of domestic fashion.

In Tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th century, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan were in first place in the production of ready-made dresses. Clothing was produced primarily by artisan workers from small workshops. There were few large sewing enterprises. They mainly fulfilled government orders, producing uniforms, equipment and linen for military and engineering units. But, in addition, many manufacturers of government-owned clothing products were owners of well-known stores of ready-made clothes, shoes and haberdashery.
The largest clothing production facilities in Russia were: partnership "Mandl and Reitz", which, in addition to the factory, had a trading house of ready-made dresses on Tverskaya (after the nationalization of the enterprise - factory No. 31 of the Mosshvey trust, then the Experimental Technical Factory named after K. Zetkin, and in 1930 "TsNIISHP" - the Central Research Institute of the Garment Industry, the existing to this day); "Trading house K. Thiel and Co", which united a leather and varnish factory, military saddlery, ammunition and uniform, felt, glove, hosiery factories, which passed after bankruptcy in 1912 to the Moscow joint stock company "Supplier" (nationalized in 1918 and renamed "Red Supplier", then which became the Moscow Technical Felt Factory and the Moscow Fulling and Felt Association (now ZAO Horizont); "Partnership of manufactories of Timofey Katsepov and sons"- an industrial enterprise with a solid cash turnover, since 1930 it has been repurposed into the Voskresensk Felt Factory named after January 9 (modern JSC "Fetr").
Large companies of ready-made clothes and linen were: trading house "M. and I. Mandl", trading house "Brothers N. and F. Petukhov" on Ilyinka; the legendary commercial and industrial partnership "Mur and Meriliz", owned one of the most famous department stores in Moscow on Petrovka, selling clothes, shoes, jewelry, perfumes, household items (nationalized in 1918, since 1922 Central Department Store TSUM); Petrovsky Passage, located between Petrovka and Neglinnaya streets, belonged to Vera Ivanovna Firsanova, the successor of the famous Moscowmerchant dynasty of the Firsanovs. The passage has gathered under its arches more than fifty different shopping pavilions, including stores of famous trading houses: “Markushevich and Grigoriev. Silk and wool fabrics", "Vikula Morozov, Konshin and sons", "Veselkov and Tashin - fashionable materials for ladies' dresses", "Louis Kreutzer" - underwear and ties", "Matilda Barish - corsets and umbrellas" etc. Large centers of trade were the Popov arcade on Kuznetsky Most, the Postnikov arcade on Tverskaya Street, the Lubyansky arcade on Lubyanka, the silk goods store of the Sapozhnikov brothers on Ilyinka, the trading houses of Ludwig Knop, K. Malyutin and his sons and many others. One of the most successful lingerie manufacturing companies there was a company "The Alschwang Brothers", and a trading house on Nikolskaya Street “Kandyrin and Co”, which owned a linen factory. Famous men's dress shops in pre-revolutionary Moscow - “Aye” on Tverskaya, “Brothers Alekseev” on Rozhdestvenka, “Brothers Chistyakov” on Lubyanskaya Square, “Dellos” on Sretenka, “Georges” on Tverskaya, “Duchar”, “Smith and Sons” on Kuznetsky Most. Fashionable women's clothing was produced and sold by "City of Lyon" on Lubyanka, "Louis Kreutzer" and "Madame Josephine" on Petrovka, etc.
Many Russian fabric manufacturers were famous not only in their own country, but also gained worldwide popularity. Particularly successful production was the Trekhgornaya manufactory, founded by the merchant Vasily Prokhorov, hence its other name - Prokhorovskaya (after the revolution it was nationalized, in 1936 it was named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky); Ivanovo-Voznesensk manufactories of the Grachevs, Garelins, Ivan Yamanovsky, Diodor Burylin and others. The famous calico-printing manufactory “Emil Tsindel in Moscow” operated until 1915. In Soviet times, this enterprise began to be called the “First Calico Printing Factory.” The largest textile enterprises were the Morozov manufactories. The largest Morozov enterprise is the Nikolskaya manufactory in Orekhovo-Zuevo. Well-known manufactories of that time - the factories of Albert Gübner, Mikhail Titov, the Thornton factory in St. Petersburg, Krushe and Ender, Mikhailov and Son, P. Malyutin and Sons, etc. It played an invaluable role in equipping many textile enterprises in Moscow at that time time office of Baron Ludwig I. Knop. His main activity as a representative of the English company De Jersey was the supply of modern textile equipment from Germany, France and England to Russia. The products of Russian manufactories were exported and were valued all over the world. In pre-revolutionary Russia, wearing a ready-made dress was considered the lot of people with limited means; the rich preferred to order clothes. Sewing at home was a long and venerable tradition in the Russian Empire and was considered an important element of women's education.
Graduates of cutting and sewing schools and handicraft classes received certificates that gave them the right to work as cutters, open private schools and sewing courses. In one of these sewing workshops of the then popular Moscow milliner Madame Voitkevich, after graduating from O. Saburova’s school of cutting and sewing, a young cutter, Nadya Lamanova, came to work, who later became the most famous dressmaker in Tsarist Russia. Outstanding achievements in the field of clothing design made Lamanova the number one figure in the history of domestic clothing design. Nadezhda Lamanova laid the foundations of Soviet modeling. The motto of the creativity of fashion designers even today is Lamanova’s famous formula - purpose, image, fabric.
In 1885, Lamanova opened her workshop in Adelgeim’s house on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Legendary Nadezhda Lamanova, a supplier to the Imperial Court before the revolution, “dressed” the royal family, the aristocratic and artistic elite. After the revolution, she not only designed models for the wives of high-ranking officials, but also created mass fashion. She made costumes for films by Eisenstein and Alexandrov, and for many Soviet theater performances. Her clients were Vera Kholodnaya, Maria Ermolova, Olga Knipper-Chekhova. The great French couturier Paul Poiret staged his fashion shows in her house. After the revolution, Lamanova’s models, who continued to work as a Soviet fashion designer, won prizes at international exhibitions; clothes from Lamanova were shown by Vladimir Mayakovsky’s muse Lilya Brik, her younger sister, the French writer Elsa Triolet, and actress Alexandra Khokhlova. Pre-revolutionary Russia could boast of an abundance of fashion houses, studios and workshops. In St. Petersburg alone in the 1900s there were more than 120 of them. The famous fashion house in St. Petersburg was the House of Brisac, which was a supplier to the Court and worked only for the imperial family, serving the grand duchesses and court ladies-in-waiting. By the highest order of the Empress, the House of Brisac could serve two clients who did not belong to the court - ballerina Anna Pavlova and singer Anastasia Vyaltseva.
Another large St. Petersburg fashion house of the 1900s was House of Hindus. Anna Grigorievna Gindus studied in Paris at the firm of the famous French fashion designer Madame Paquin, with whom she subsequently maintained contact.

The third major fashion house was House of Olga Buldenkova, which was also a supplier to the Imperial Court. Her field of activity was special uniform dresses, regulated by the Charter of the Court, approved by a special imperial decree back in the 1830s.

Apart from large houses fashion There were more than a hundred small fashion houses and studios that both carried out individual orders and produced serial collections. But none of the Russian houses held fashion shows. In 1911, Paul Poiret brought his collection to St. Petersburg. And the first fashion show took place in St. Petersburg in 1916.

The new era that has come has largely changed both the costume itself and the attitude towards fashion. In the second decade of the twentieth century, after the First World War, the whole world witnessed a simplification of costume and a transition to mass industrial production of clothing, the beginning of which was largely associated with the well-established production of military uniforms. However, in Soviet Russia, this global trend was superimposed by the role of socialist ideology.

In 1923, the “Center for the Development of a New Soviet Costume” was created, later renamed the “Fashion Atelier”, the official director of which was Olga Senicheva-Kashchenko. In one interview, Olga Senicheva told how in “Moscowsewing” she, a sixteen-year-old girl, was given documents for a loan, and she gave an obligation to pay the costs of the “Fashion Atelier” - the renovation of the premises (on Petrovka, 12, now the Art Salon) within a year and a half. and fabrics obtained for work. New center fashion gave away confiscated materials from warehouses whose owners fled abroad during the revolution. The studio had brocade, velvet and silk at its disposal. The beautiful fabrics, stored in damp warehouses, were badly damaged, so they decided to use some of them for curtains and upholstery in the hall where it was planned to demonstrate clothing models. First, in order to return to the state all the money given on credit, in the first Soviet "Fashion Atelier" began to create models not from chintz and linen, but from brocade and velvet for Nepmen, so that later they could develop mass fashion and create clothing models for working people. The party elite, celebrities and leaders of light industry were invited to the first fashion shows.

• In the experimental “Fashion Atelier”, together with Nadezhda Lamanova, who headed the creative work, such outstanding artists as Vera Mukhina, Alexandra Ekster, Nadezhda Makarova (Lamanova’s niece), and applied art specialist Evgenia Pribylskaya worked. At the same time, one issue of the Atelier magazine was published. , in which many famous artists took part.

• In 1923, at the First All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition, models developed in the Fashion Atelier by N. Lamanova, E. Pribylskaya, A. Exter, V. Mukhina were awarded prizes.

• The models of Nadezhda Lamanova and Vera Mukhina, exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1925, received the Grand Prix for national identity in combination with modern fashion trends. Each dress model was necessarily complemented by a headdress, a bag, and jewelry made from twine, cord, straw, embroidered canvas, and beads made from shells and stones.

The experimental studio failed to fully realize its main mission of creating clothing samples for mass production, as well as fulfilling individual orders for the people, since it only existed for a few years. One of the largest government orders in 1923 was the development of a dress uniform for the Red Army. In order to earn money, the atelier operated as an expensive custom tailoring workshop, aimed at actresses, for whom special discounts were provided, and wealthy people. Ten designers and ten artists worked on creating the models. One hundred and fifty workers of the 26th factory of the Moskvoshvey trust sewed the models. On average, one dress took twenty days to sew, and the work of the craftsmen alone cost one hundred rubles for each model. It was so expensive that even two years after opening, many of the dresses were still unsold.

In 1923, the first Soviet domestic fashion magazine"Atelier", created at the innovative "Atelier Maud". The editorial stated the main goal and objectives: “An active and tireless pursuit of identifying everything that is creatively beautiful, that deserves the greatest attention in the field of material culture.” The grandeur of the idea was determined only by the list of star names who agreed to collaborate in the magazine. Among the celebrities are artists Yuri Annenkov, Boris Kustodiev, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexander Golovin, Konstantin Somov, Igor Grabar, sculptor Vera Mukhina, poet Anna Akhmatova, art historian Nikolai Punin and many others. The magazine was illustrated with inserts of color drawings.

The names of artists began to appear on the pages fashion magazines back in the 1900-1910s, when the art of fashion illustration was in its heyday. In 1908, an artistic magazine began to appear in Moscow. fashion magazine, handicrafts, household “Parisian” with a frontispiece by the artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. The cover of the new edition was specially ordered by Konstantin Somov, but for technical reasons the magazine began to appear in the new cover only in 1909. The cover for the men's fashion magazine "Dendy" was made by Viktor Zamirailo, and the drawings of the models featured in it were created by famous St. Petersburg graphic artists Alexander Depaldo and Alexander Arnshtam. The artist Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva also intended to start publishing the Ladies' Magazine. In 1915, the famous St. Petersburg dressmaker Anna Gindus tried to implement similar plans. At the same time, the architect Ivan Fomin also started publishing a magazine of beautiful life, called “Mirror”. These plans, and even then only partially, were destined to be realized only in the 1920s.

First Soviet fashion magazine was supposed to pay close attention to “the detailed development of questions about the new women's costume”, as well as reflect “all the diverse creative work of the Atelier Maud”, and, in addition, acquaint readers with news in the field of art, theater and sports.

The magazine published an article by artist Alexandra Ekster “On Constructive Clothes,” reflecting the main direction in the development of modeling at that time – simplicity and functionality. “When choosing a form of clothing,” the author wrote, “one should take into account the natural proportions of the figure; By properly designing clothing, you can ensure that it matches your body shapes and sizes. Work clothes should provide freedom of movement, so they cannot be tight. One of the main requirements for such a suit is ease of use.” Exter paid special attention to the selection of fabrics, suggesting that when designing a particular form of a suit, we should proceed from the plastic properties of the material. Thus, in her opinion, when creating models from coarse wool, vertical folds are inappropriate, and soft wool of large width, on the contrary, will allow you to create a complex, voluminous silhouette. Exter designed a complex, multifunctional set reminiscent of a Japanese kimono, using different materials in contrasting colors. Another indoor/outdoor set consisted of a shirt-cut top and bottom dress with side slits, trimmed with appliqué. The cover of the Atelier magazine was decorated with a sketch created by Alexandra Ekster, an elongated silhouette of a model wearing an outdoor cape made of light blue silk taffeta, without seams, with an enlarged collar. A small, tight-fitting hat with a pom-pom is placed on her head.

The first issue of “Atelier” also featured Vera Mukhina’s famous sketch of a bud dress. The famous sculptor was presented here as a fashion designer. The dress she proposed was classified as “variety”. The fluffy draperies of the white fabric skirt resembled flower petals. An elegant female silhouette in a wide-brimmed red hat, with a cane in her hand, was a memory of Rococo, combined with Suprematist motifs.

The pages of the first issue of “Atelier” contained a large number of photographs of Moscow actresses and models in luxurious toilets, not inferior to French outfits. From the photographs in the magazine it is clear that the collection of 1922–1923, despite economic difficulties, was made of expensive fabrics. Literary and journalistic reflections on modern fashion the director and playwright Nikolai Evreinov (“The Image of a Parisian Woman 1923”), the Russian philanthropist, Vladimir von Meck, who worked after the revolution on creating sketches of scenery and costumes at the Maly Theater, (“Costume and Revolution”), M. Yuryevskaya (“Costume and Revolution”), indulged in the pages of the magazine. On the influence of dance on fashion").

As an addition to Yuryevskaya’s article, the Atelier artists proposed a model of a “variety dress for eccentric dances,” made of black velvet and taffeta with a long train (“tail”). The waist is tied with a wide belt of orange fur, there is an orange ribbon to match the fur on the shoulder, and a black silk headdress with standing peacock feathers.

The Atelier magazine was published with a circulation of 2,000 copies and was a great success. As executive editor Olga Senicheva wrote: “Readers miss artistic, beautifully designed publications. Coated paper, good printing, color illustrations and, perhaps most importantly: a theme unusual for that time - fashion– attracted many, and the circulation quickly sold out.” Of great interest was the fact that at the end of the issue there was a “Review of fashion trends from foreign magazines.” However, the first number fashion magazine turned out to be the last one. The magazine “Sewing Man” published an article “How not to be an artist,” in which the entire activity of the “Atelier” was subjected to the most severe criticism. In 1925, economic difficulties were added to ideological accusations, and the first Soviet fashion house underwent dramatic changes. A new director was appointed, the staff was reduced, and the famous Moscow “Fashion Atelier” turned into an ordinary nomenklatura fashion workshop, sewing party wives and celebrities.

The idea of ​​a fashion magazine with the participation of artists and writers, and the involvement of painters and graphic artists in the development of clothing models, was brought to life for some time. Fashion publications that appeared during the NEP era called on masters of the brush and pen to speak out on the formation of modern fashion.

• In 1929, a new magazine, “The Garment Industry,” was published, which wrote about the problems of mass industrial production of clothing. The stage of industrialization of the country began. During these same years, sewing technical schools, technical training schools, and sewing faculties at textile enterprises were opened, which trained specialists for the light industry.

• In addition, in the 20s, “Fashion Magazine”, “Fashion of the Season”, “Fashion World”, “Fashion”, “Models of the Season”, “Four Seasons”, “Fashion Herald”, “Women’s Magazine”, etc. appeared. Century alone fashion magazines was short, and they were closed for “lack of ideas,” and some existed for many years.

In 1932, the Soviet publishing house "Gizlegprom" was opened under the People's Commissariat of Light Industry of the USSR, publishing literature on the topics of light, textile and local industries and consumer services, publishing magazines with fashionable clothing models. Many garment factories in the 30s began to publish their own fashion magazines. Clothing models were published in women's magazines such as “Rabotnitsa”, “Peasant Woman”, etc.

In the 20s, there were many discussions about the restructuring of the life of Soviet people. In 1928, polemical articles on this topic regularly appeared on the pages of newspapers. They discussed what kind of houses and apartments workers needed, what kind of furniture should be, how the interior of a Soviet person should be decorated, whether there was an alternative to lace napkins, porcelain figurines, elephants and other attributes of bourgeois life. A large place in this discussion was occupied by the question of what should be the costume of a Komsomol member and a communist? The problem of forming the Soviet style fashion was one of the central ones. For example, in Komsomolskaya Pravda one could read the following discussions on the topic: “there is a pronounced need to contrast the samples of “best clothes” from stores on Petrovka and Kuznetsky Most with some of our own, Soviet, “Komsomol” fashion.” The theatrical world was also involved in the controversy; on the stages of theaters one could see experimental designs for everyday and work clothing, furniture, and a rationally designed home for the Soviet person.

Soon, due to constant criticism of artists who were not doing their own thing, their gradual removal from the art of costume began. The Moscow Fashion House, which opened in 1934, finally made artistic costume design a completely independent activity. A new generation of artists has emerged for whom the creation of fashionable clothing has become their profession. The period of the beautiful utopia of the formation of a new way of life is over, the art of costume has passed from idyllically minded artists into the practical hands of fashion designers.

• A large number of tailoring workshops appeared in NEP Moscow. The most famous were “Maison de Luxe” on Petrovka, “San Rival” on Pokrovka, the house of the workshop of the sisters E.V. and G.V. Kolmogorov, the “Plisse” workshop of A. Tushnov, the studio of Grishchenko, Koppar, Nefedova, Dellos.

• In the 20s, the school of artistic embroidery “ARS” began operating in Moscow, the owner of which was Varvara Karinskaya. Soon Karinskaya opened the first Houte Couture salon for the Moscow elite, from which wives of the communist “elite” and NEP men ordered toiletries. In addition, wealthy fashionistas went to buy jewelry at an antique salon run by Varvara Karinskaya’s stepdaughter, Tatyana. In 1928, Karinskaya emigrated to Germany.

Clothing manufacturers, tailors, shoemakers, and hatmakers turned into the informal elite of Soviet society during the NEP. In Soviet Russia, ateliers began to appear in which high-class craftsmen worked, accessible only to members of the government and party leaders. Kremlin ladies began to actively use the services of tailors and fashion designers. Especially among them in the mid-20s, toilets “from Lamanova” were considered the highest chic.

The twenties in the new Soviet country, an amazing time, combining the avant-garde ideas of constructivism, the clothes of ordinary working people - red scarves, long shapeless skirts, cloth shoes with webs, and the outfits of ladies who took full advantage of the benefits of the New Economic Policy and dressed in the manner of European flappers. The first shock five-year plans had already begun, and the spirit of Charleston was still in the air.

Of course, in the Soviet country there was always territorial uneven distribution fashion. The concentration of the Soviet fashion industry was concentrated in the capital. The gap between the capital and the provinces was huge. In the field of fashion, Moscow and the provinces were correlated as “reference” and “imitative” cultures. And if in large cities it was still possible to buy, or, as people said, “get” good things or use the services of an atelier, then for the inhabitants of the village the concept of “ fashion“simply did not exist. Therefore, speaking about the fashion of the young Soviet country, it is necessary to describe the clothes that the residents, first of all, of Moscow and large cities wore.

Fashionistas of the 20s had the same ideals as emancipated women all over the world - a thin figure that allowed them to wear low-waisted knee-length dresses, however, among Soviet ladies, this dream was not always realized, and in fashionable dresses had to be worn on rather plump figures. Artificial flowers, strings of pearls - real or fake, wrapped around the neck, high lace-up boots, fox or arctic fox fur boas, astrakhan jackets - are in fashion. An important accessory for fashionistas of that time were hats, which in the first post-revolutionary years were criticized as a clear sign of bourgeoisism and were actively replaced by red scarves.

In men's attire, shimmy or jimmy boots and Oxford trousers - short, ankle-length and skinny - were fashionable chic. In the mid-20s, these things are relatively affordable. So the poet Daniil Kharms wrote in his diary in September 1926: “I bought Jim boots in Gostiny Dvor, Nevskaya Side, store 28.” Popular are gaiters (white suede or linen covers worn on men's boots), French jackets, jodhpurs, and chaps (a special type of soft men's boots).

Since not everyone had access to the services of tailoring specialists, high-quality fabrics or good finished products, they had to invent fashionable toilets from improvised materials. In the memoirs of the writer Nadezhda Teffi, one can read about women's entrepreneurship - drapes and curtains, sheets and other bed and table linen, tablecloths and bedspreads were used. Striped mattress teak was very popular, as were any other fabrics used in household use. Cheap furs were very popular - rabbit and thyme. Dyed rabbit was the most common fur of that time.

To be continued ( History of Soviet fashion - part two 30s )

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Clothes of townspeople (1917-1922)

The First World War, the revolutionary coup and the Civil War changed the appearance of Russian citizens. The iconic symbolism of the costume began to appear more clearly. This was a time when solidarity or opposition was expressed with the help of a suit or its individual parts; it was used as a screen behind which one could temporarily hide one’s true attitude to the events taking place. “In Moscow they gave out oats using ration cards. Never before has the capital of the republic experienced such a difficult time as in the winter of the twentieth year.” It was “the era of endless hungry queues, “tails” in front of empty “food distributors”, an epic era of rotten frozen carrion, moldy bread crusts and inedible surrogates.
“They don’t sell any firewood. There is nothing to drown the Dutch with. In the rooms there are iron stoves - potbelly stoves. From them there are samovar pipes under the ceiling. One into the other, one into the other, and right into the holes in the boards with which the windows are sealed; jars are hung at the joints of the pipes so that the resin does not drip.” . And yet, many still continued to follow fashion, although this was limited only by the silhouette of the suit or some details, for example, the design of the collar, the shape of the hat, and the height of the heel. The silhouette of women's clothing was on the path to simplification. It can be assumed that this trend was influenced not only by Parisian fashions (the Gabrielle Chanel clothing house, opened in 1916, promoted “robes de chemise” - simple forms of dress, not complicated by cut), but also by economic reasons. “Magazine for housewives” in 1916. wrote: “... there is almost no fabric in warehouses or stores, there are no trims, there is not even thread to sew a dress or coat.” “...for a spool of thread (such a spool... small) in the Samara province they give two pounds of flour... two pounds for such a small spool...” we learn from the “Diaries” of K. I. Chukovsky.

During this period, the price of cloth rose from 3 rubles. 64 k. (average price 1893) up to 80,890 rubles. in 1918 . Then the inflationary spiral unwinded more and more. Information from the “Diary of a Muscovite”, in which the author N.P. Okunev daily recorded all everyday events, significant and trivial, is invaluable. “I ordered a pair of jackets for myself, the price was 300 rubles, I thought I was crazy, but they tell me that others pay 4,008,500 rubles for suits. A complete bacchanalia of life!” This economic situation did not contribute to the development of a fashionable suit, but it gave rise to very interesting forms of clothing. If in M. Chudakova’s “Biography of M. Bulgakov” we read about 1919: “in March, a colleague of our hero, a Kiev doctor, wrote in his diary: “... no practice, no money either. And life here is becoming more expensive every day. Black bread already costs 4 rubles. 50 k. per pound, white - 6.50, etc. And most importantly - on a hunger strike. Black bread – 12815 rub. per pound. And there is no end in sight.” That was already in 1921. in a letter to his mother, Mikhail Bulgakov writes: “In Moscow they only count in hundreds of thousands and millions. Black bread 4600 rub. per pound, white 14,000. And the price goes up and up! The stores are full of goods, but what can you buy? The theaters are full, but yesterday, when I passed by the Bolshoi on business (I can no longer imagine how you could go without business!), the dealers were selling tickets for 75, 100, 150 thousand rubles! Moscow has everything: shoes, fabrics, meat, caviar, canned food, delicacies - everything! Cafes are opening and growing like mushrooms. And everywhere there are hundreds, hundreds! Hundreds!! A wave of speculators is buzzing."
But let's go back to 1918. At this time, fashion magazines were not published in Russia. In the same year, the “Magazine for Housewives” was closed (it was resumed only in 1922). Therefore, when considering fashion influences, one can only rely on foreign sources or domestic ones published before 1918. A certain role in shaping the appearance of the townspeople was played by public distributors, where things flocked from abandoned shops, houses of the bourgeoisie, etc. In “Memoirs” by Valentin Kataev, dating back to 1919, we read: “I looked frightening: an officer’s jacket from the time of Kerensky , canvas trousers, wooden sandals on my bare feet, in my teeth a pipe smoking shag, and on my shaved head a red Turkish fez with a black tassel, which I received by order instead of a hat in the city clothing warehouse.” This is also confirmed by the notes of N. Ya. Mandelstam: “In those years, clothes were not sold - they could only be obtained by order.”
The memories of I. Odoevtseva are colored with irony. “He (O. Mandelstam, editor's note) had never seen women in a man's suit. In those days this was completely unthinkable. Only many years later, Marlene Dietrich introduced the fashion for men's suits. But it turns out that the first woman in pants was not her, but Mandelstam’s wife. It was not Marlene Dietrich, but Nadezhda Mandelstam who revolutionized the women's wardrobe. But, unlike Marlene Dietrich, this did not bring her fame. Her bold innovation was not appreciated either by Moscow or even by her own husband."

This is how M. Tsvetaeva described her “outfit” at a poetry evening at the Polytechnic Museum in 1921: “Not mentioning yourself, having gone through approximately everyone, would be hypocrisy. So, on that day I was revealed to “Rome and the world” in a green dress, like a cassock, which cannot be called (a paraphrase of the best times of a coat), honestly (that is, tightly) tied not even with an officer’s, but with a cadet’s belt, the 18th Peterhof School of Ensigns. . Over the shoulder is also an officer’s bag (brown, leather, for field binoculars or cigarettes), which would be considered treason to take off and was removed only on the third day after arriving (1922) in Berlin... Legs in gray felt boots, although not men’s, on the leg, surrounded by lacquered boats they looked like pillars of an elephant. The whole toilet, precisely because of its monstrosity, removed from me any suspicion of deliberateness.” The notes of contemporaries are surprisingly frank. “And so I jump up, still in the complete darkness of the winter night, throw on an old fur coat and a scarf (after all, it’s not good to stand in line in a hat, let the servants think that they are their brother, otherwise they will mock the lady).” Due to the change in the position of women that has occurred since the beginning of the war, a number of forms of men's clothing are transferred to women's. In 191681917 These are men's type vests, in 1918-1920 leather jackets, which passed into everyday life from decommissioned military uniforms. (In 1916, scooter riders in the Russian army wore leather jackets). Due to the lack of information, the severance of traditional ties with Europe, the difficult economic situation and at the same time the preservation of clothing of old forms, the costume of many women presented a rather eclectic picture. (This is evidenced by drawings, photographs, and sculpture of those years). For example, a female police officer was dressed like this: a leather jacket, a uniform blue beret, a brown plush skirt and lace-up boots with a cloth top. The non-serving ladies looked no less exotic. In the “Diaries” of K. I. Chukovsky we read: “Yesterday I was in the House of Writers: everyone’s clothes were wrinkled, saggy, it was clear that people slept without undressing, covering themselves with coats. Women are chewed up. It’s as if someone chewed them and spat them out.” This feeling of bruising and fraying still arises when looking at photographs of that time. Old forms of clothing are preserved everywhere. Moreover, in the working environment they continue to sew dresses in the fashion of the beginning of the century, and in provincial towns on the national outskirts, clothing is influenced by the traditions of the national costume. In 1917 the silhouette of a woman's dress still retains the outlines inherent in the previous period, but the waist becomes much looser, the skirt is straighter and slightly longer (up to 12 cm above the ankle). The silhouette resembles an elongated oval. At the bottom, the skirt narrows to 1.5-1.7 m. After 1917 Two silhouettes coexist in parallel: widened at the bottom and a “tube” so-called “rob de chemise” shirt dress. Shirt dresses appeared in Russia before (S. Diaghilev’s memories of N. Goncharova date back to 1914): “But the most curious thing is that they imitate her not only as an artist, but also in appearance. It was she who introduced into fashion the shirt-dress, black and white, blue and red. But that's nothing yet. She drew flowers on her face. And soon the nobility and bohemians rode out on sleighs with horses, houses, elephants on their cheeks, on their necks, on their foreheads.”
Silhouette of a dress 1920-1921. a straight bodice, the waist is lowered to the level of the hips, the skirt, easily draped in folds, 8-12 cm long above the ankle, is already significantly close to the fashion of subsequent years. But one could often see a lady in a dress made from curtain fabric. And although this issue seems controversial to contemporaries, enough examples can be found in the literature. So from A.N. Tolstoy: “Then the war ended. Olga Vyacheslavovna bought a skirt made of green plush curtain at the market and went to serve in various institutions.” Or from Nina Berberova: “I was left without work; I had felt boots from a carpet, a dress from a tablecloth, a fur coat from my mother’s rotunda, a hat from a sofa cushion embroidered with gold.” It is difficult to say whether this was an artistic exaggeration or reality. Fabrics produced in the country in the period 1920-1923. “they were distinguished by their simplicity and were printed according to the least labor-intensive old models.” But there were apparently few of them, so dresses made from curtains became a ubiquitous phenomenon. Tatyana Nikolaevna Lappa recalls this in “The Biography of M. Bulgakov”: “I went in my only black crepe de Chine dress with panne velvet: I altered it from my previous summer coat and skirt.” Chests were opened, and grandmother's outfits were brought to light: dresses with puffed sleeves, with trains. Let us recall from M. Tsvetaeva: “I dive under my feet into the blackness of a huge wardrobe and immediately find myself seventy years old and seven years ago; not at seventy-seven years old, but at 70 and 7. I feel with the dreamlike infallible knowledge of something that has long ago and obviously from the weight fallen, swollen, settled, spilled into a whole pewter puddle of silk, and I fill myself with it up to my shoulders.” And further: “And a new dive to the black bottom, and again the hand is in a puddle, but no longer of tin, but of mercury with water running away, playing from under the hands, not collected into a handful, scattering, scattering from under the rowing fingers, because if the first it sank from the heaviness, the second one flew off from the lightness: from a hanger as if from a branch. And behind the first, settled, brown, faye, great-grandmother Countess Ledochovskaya great-grandmother Countess Ledochovskaya unstitched, her daughter my grandmother Maria Lukinichnaya Bernatskaya unstitched, her daughter my mother Maria Alexandrovna Main unstitched, sewn by the great-granddaughter of the first Marina in our Polish family by me, mine, seven years back, as a girl, but in the cut of my great-grandmother: the bodice is like a cape, and the skirt is like the sea...” Contemporaries recall that “the old dresses of mothers and grandmothers were altered, decorations and lace were removed from them “bourgeois burp.” Struggling against any manifestation of “bourgeoisism,” the blueshirts sang: “Our charter is strict: no rings, no earrings. Our ethics, down with cosmetics”... People were stigmatized for jewelry and Komsomol membership cards were taken away. This did not apply to the fashions of the revived bourgeois ladies during the NEP, since these were hostile elements." In magazines of 1917-1918. Recommendations appear on how to make a new one out of an old dress, how to sew a hat, even how to make shoes. In the 1918-1920s, a lot of homemade shoes with wooden, cardboard, and rope soles appeared in everyday life. V.G. Korolenko in a letter to A.V. Lunacharsky wrote: “...look at what your Red Army soldiers and your serving intelligentsia wear: you will often see a Red Army soldier in bast shoes, and serving intelligentsia in poorly made wooden sandals. It’s reminiscent of classical antiquity, but now it’s very inconvenient for winter.” Fashion at this time offers two-inch heels (about 9 cm high). By the early 20s, the heel not only rose, but also tapered downwards. Contemporaries testify: “In 1922-1923. Coarse military boots with windings are disappearing. The army puts on its boots." The silhouette of military clothing is also transformed. After 1917 coats lengthen again, the waist gradually drops 5-7 cm below natural. Fashion 1917 as if referring to folk costume. The magazine “Ladies' World” (No. 2; 1917) writes that the fashion is “imitation in the cut of warm ladies’ coats of caftans and fur coats from various provinces. The cut of Ekaterinoslav’s “woman’s” outfits - wide fur coats at the bottom, with cut-off waists and huge turn-down collars falling on the shoulders - seems very fashionable, straight out of a Parisian magazine.” In fact, the simplification of the form led to traditionally simple forms of folk costume.

The color scheme of the clothes was dominated by natural brown tones. In 1918 “a fashionable color is dark earthy, both plain and melange”
, “camel” color combined with black. The huge wide-brimmed hats of the pre-war era are a thing of the past, however, many styles of hats have remained in use for a long time. A girl in a hat, for example, can be seen in the photo of the parade of General Education troops in 1918. on Red Square and among Komsomol members organizing educational programs in the Rostov region. The “first ladies” of the state also wore hats - N.K. Krupskaya, M.I. Ulyanova, A.M. Kollontai. True, we are talking about small hats with rather narrow brims, small in size, decorated, as a rule, only with a bow, but their ubiquity and widest distribution, both in the provinces and in the capital, is beyond doubt.
In 1918 Boas and gorgets are going out of fashion; to replace them, magazines offer scarves with edges trimmed with fur, lace, and tassels. These scarves were worn both around the neck and on the hat. Knitted scarves were most often used in everyday life.
In men's clothing, the most active period in politics and social reorganization did not give any new forms, but only served as an impetus for the destruction of the traditions of wearing it. The men's suit retains the shapes of previous years, with only minor changes in details. In 1918-1920 Only turn-down collars of shirts and blouses remain in everyday use; stand-up collars are not gaining further popularity. Tie knot after 1920 stretches out, becomes narrow and approaches a rectangle as much as possible, and the tie itself is narrower and longer. Their colors are faded and dull. The norm is an altered men's suit. In A. Mariengof’s “Memoirs” we read: “Shershenevich is wearing a chic light gray jacket with a large check. But the treacherous left pocket... is on the right side, since the jacket is upside down. Almost all dandies of that era had their top pockets on the right side.” Men's clothing is becoming as militarized as possible and at the same time, it is losing the traditionally established rules of color matching of shoes to trousers, and both to the jacket. A French jacket in combination with some kind of trousers is becoming the most popular clothing for men. “He was wearing a paramilitary suit - an English jacket, checkered, with leather on the backside, riding breeches and black boots.” “After Brest, many demobilized people appeared at the stations. Soldiers' greatcoats "came into fashion" - they hung in almost every hallway, exuding the smell of shag, station burning and rotten earth. In the evenings, when going out, we put on overcoats - it was safer in them.” Knitwear is widely used in everyday life, apparently due to the relative ease of production. From Kataev: “Vanya was dressed in a black tunic, mustard riding pants and huge, above-the-knee, clumsy cowhide boots that made him look like a puss in boots. On top of the tunic, around the neck, was a thick collar of a market paper sweater." Leather jackets were not only very popular, but were also a mandatory distinction for commanders, commissars and political workers of the Red Army, as well as employees of technical troops. True, contemporaries deny their mass distribution. They continued to wear the uniforms of various departments. And if in 1914-1917. The uniform of officials was not observed so strictly, but since 1918. and completely ceases to correspond to the position held and remains in everyday use as usual clothing. After the abolition of old ranks and titles in January 1918. military uniforms of the tsarist army began to be worn with bone or fabric-covered buttons (instead of buttons with a coat of arms). “It was officially announced that all distinctions, including shoulder straps, would be abolished. We were forced to remove them, and instead of buttons with eagles, sew on civilian bone ones or cover the old metal ones with fabric.” Contemporaries recall that “... in the 20s, a campaign began against student caps, and their owners were persecuted for their bourgeois way of thinking.”

Eclecticism was also inherent in the men's suit. This is what I. Bunin wrote about the clothes of the Red Army soldiers: “They are dressed in some kind of prefabricated rags. Sometimes a uniform from the 70s, sometimes, out of the blue, red leggings and at the same time an infantry overcoat and a huge Old Testament saber.” But representatives of another class were dressed no less extravagantly. In the book “Biography of M. Bulgakov” we read: “On some day of this winter, in house No. 13 on Andreevsky Spusk, an episode occurred that was preserved in Tatyana Nikolaevna’s memory. One time the bluebacks came. They are shod in ladies' boots, and the boots have spurs. And everyone is perfumed with Coeur de Jeannette - a fashionable perfume."
The appearance of the crowd and individuals was lumpen. Let's turn again to the literature. From Bunin: “In general, you often see students: in a hurry somewhere, all torn to pieces, in a dirty nightgown under an old open overcoat, a faded cap on his shaggy head, knocked-down shoes on his feet, a rifle hanging on a rope with the muzzle down on his shoulder...
However, the devil knows whether he is really a student.” And here’s what the crowd looked like in M. Bulgakov’s description: “Among them were teenagers in khaki shirts, there were girls without hats, some in a white sailor blouse, some in a colorful sweater. There were sandals on bare feet, black worn-out shoes, young men in blunt-toed boots.” Vl. Khodasevich recalled that before the war, individual literary associations could afford something like a uniform. “To get into this sanctuary, I had to sew black trousers and an ambiguous jacket to go with them: not a gymnasium jacket, because it’s black, but not a student’s jacket either, because it has silver buttons. In this outfit I must have looked like a telegraph operator, but everything was redeemed by the opportunity to finally attend Tuesday: on Tuesdays literary interviews took place in the circle.” Literary figures and actors acquire a unique, even exotic appearance. But this was not so much the outrageousness of the futurists’ clothes (Mayakovsky’s notorious yellow jacket), but rather the simple absence of clothing as such and the random sources of its acquisition. M. Chagall recalled: “I wore wide trousers and a yellow duster (a gift from the Americans, who out of mercy sent us used clothes)…”. M. Bulgakov, according to Tatyana Nikolaevna’s memoirs, at that time wore a fur coat “... in the form of a rotunda, such as old men of clergy wore. On raccoon fur, and the collar turned outward with the fur. The top was blue ribbed. It was long and without fasteners - it really wrapped up and that’s all. It was probably my father's fur coat. Maybe his mother sent it to him from Kyiv with someone, or maybe he brought it himself in 1923...” The poet Nikolai Ushakov wrote in 1929. in his memoirs: “In 1918-1919, Kyiv became a literary center; Ehrenburg walked in those days in a coat that dragged along the sidewalks and in a gigantic wide-brimmed hat...”
Based on all these materials - memories, photographs - we can conclude that men's clothing of this period was extremely eclectic in nature and, in the absence of stylistic unity, was based on the personal tastes and capabilities of its owner. From 1922-1923 Domestic fashion magazines are starting to appear. But, although at this time such masters as N.P. Lamanova, L.S. Popova, V.E. Tatlin were making attempts to create new clothes that corresponded to the spirit of the time, and in particular overalls, their experiments were only sketchy in nature.

Of course, Paris is one of the brightest and most famous fashion capitals, and even a hundred years ago it also aroused admiration and surprise throughout the world for its bold design solutions and its sophisticated style. If now the most interesting things happen on the catwalk, then in 1910 it was enough to come to the hippodrome to see with your own eyes the most fashionable dresses and accessories.

By 1910, the silhouette of women's dresses became softer and more graceful. After the tremendous success of the ballet "Scheherazade" in Paris, a craze for oriental culture began. Couturier Paul Poiret(Paul Poiret) was one of the first to bring this trend to the world of fashion. Poiret’s clients were easy to recognize by their bright colorful trousers, dashing turban hats and bright dresses in which the women resembled exotic geishas.

At this time, the Art Deco movement was formed, which was instantly reflected in fashion. Hats made of felt, tall turban hats and an abundance of tulle came into fashion. At the same time, the first female couturier Jeanne Paquin appeared, who was one of the first to open representative offices of her designs abroad in London, Buenos Airis and Madrid.

One of the most influential fashion designers at that time was Jacques Doucet. The dresses of his design were different from the rest - they were dresses in pastel colors, with an excess of lace and decorations that sparkled and shimmered in the sun. He was the favorite designer of French actresses, who sported his dresses not only on theater stages, but in everyday life.¨

At the beginning of the twentieth century, high-waisted dresses were popular. However, by 1910, tunics over a long skirt came into fashion. This layering of outfits was observed in the collections of almost all couturiers of that time. Later, in 1914, skirts that were very narrow at the ankles became fashionable. It was quite difficult to move in such outfits, but fashion, as you know, sometimes requires sacrifice.

As if in a time machine, we continue to return to the most significant decades in the history of fashion of the 20th century - and next up are the years 1910–1919. In that era, European fashion succumbed to colossal influence from outside: this was the widespread popularization of sports, and the expansion of eastern and then national Russian styles (together with Diaghilev’s “Russian Seasons”), and, of course, the First World War, which divided the decade into two periods and made people take a fresh look at fashion and the entire clothing business in general.

1910–1913: sporty style and new colors

The main discovery for the history of fashion in the pre-war era was the new color scheme. In 1905, at an exhibition in Paris, bright multi-colored paintings by the Fauves (Matisse, Derain and others) were demonstrated; in 1911, Sergei Diaghilev, as part of the ballet tour “Russian Seasons”, staged the ballets “Scheherazade” and “Cleopatra” in London with colorful costumes by Leon Bakst, made in oriental style. Orientalism, with its vibrant colors and rich decoration, became the new fashion trend of the early 1910s and brought bright colors of spices and exotic plants to the catwalks instead of pastel shades. The famous French couturier Paul Poiret was also considered a trendsetter for orientalism. He became an innovator of this era: Poiret freed women from corsets, highlighting a new silhouette with straight vertical lines and a high waist. He also simplified the cut of the dress, making the silhouette soft and natural, and added bright color and ethnic style decor.

At the same time, the first years of the new decade draw inspiration from the 1900s, which are not far removed from fashion history. For the ladies of beau monde, the daily routine still involves four changes a day - morning, midday, tea and evening dinner. Girls prepare for marriage, which is obligatory in this era, by collecting a dowry in advance. It included at least twelve evening dresses, two or three evening capes, four street dresses, two coats, twelve hats, ten tea dresses, and dozens of pairs of shoes and stockings.

In 1913, sportswear was added to the lady's already extensive wardrobe. The passion for sports spreads across Europe from England, where horse riding and cycling are extremely popular. Ladies begin to play golf, croquet and tennis, ice skating, horseback riding and open cars instead of horse-drawn carriages - all these active activities required getting rid of the corset with metal rods and abandoning overly fluffy dresses with long skirts in favor of light dresses with straight, slightly fitted silhouette and ankle-length skirt.

A lady is allowed to take off her corset during the traditional five o’clock in England: “tea” dresses had a lace shirtfront with a high collar, puffy puffed sleeves and a long skirt with a floral pattern that flowed freely from the chest and today would remind us of our grandmothers’ nightgowns. But the evening dress code was still strict: ladies competed in the luxury of their hats, and silk dresses sparkled with expensive lace, embroidery or fur trim...

1914–1919: military of new times

In August 1914, Germany declares war on France. General mobilization begins in the country, and couture fades into the background: all light industry is thrown into the needs of the front. Evening dresses practically disappear from seasonal collections (only the United States remains their main customer during the war), and ladies no longer need to change clothes four times a day, as before. Dark colors that were previously used only for outerwear are coming into fashion: black, gray, dark blue and khaki.

Since 1914, women's clothing begins to be influenced by the military style: the silhouette of day dresses becomes minimalist, the length of skirts is shortened almost to mid-calf, and pockets appear on them. A work suit for a woman consists of the main must-have of this era - an elongated fitted jacket with large buttons - and a narrow long hobble skirt, which has become the “grandmother” of the modern pencil skirt. The English brands Burberry and Aquascutum have been making a name for themselves these years by introducing the military trench coat into women's wardrobes.

As the length of the skirt changes, the role of shoes becomes more and more important - in this era, leather shoes with an ankle strap and ankle boots with buttons or lace-ups are in fashion, but always made of leather in two colors.

It was during the war years that Coco Chanel had her finest hour: having opened her first store in Deauville in 1913, Chanel was actively recruiting clients. Her simple but elegant jersey suits, consisting of a white blouse with a V-neck collar, a loose jumper with a belt and a turn-down collar (Coco borrowed it from the sailors) and a full calf-length skirt, were incredibly popular and allowed Chanel already in 1916 year to join the ranks of couturiers and demonstrate his first haute couture collection.

The war gives a colossal impetus to the development of the ready-to-wear industry - companies that during the war worked for the needs of the front and produced military uniforms, already in peacetime begin to switch to the production of ready-to-wear clothes and shoes for everyday wear.