I have come across a very neat collection of the old Soviet fashion magazines from the forties, and I thought I’d share them with you. Very elegant, stylish images — and a little surprise from the insides of one of these magazines. Please read on.
Summer 1936
Chemical photography as we know it today was not invented in a day — one of the stages in developing was the glass negatives photography, when the glass plates were covered with a protein emulsion — invented in 1841, the process was clunky and difficult to reproduce. Those images can now be identified by the uneven coat of emulsion, rough edges, thick glass and maybe even photographer’s thumbprint on it.
All in all, below are the 20+ images from the glass negatives — the shots of Soviet countryside life, shot around 1928. People, harvests, views, tools — whatever the photography aficionado encountered. Considering that this is pre-film, the spirit of these photos is mind blowing. We hope you’ll share our excitement.
A fashionista.
All images are by Lisa Larsen, for LIFE magazine.
In 1956 an array of British designers were trying to expand their market share into the Soviet Union. So a fashion week of some sort took place — in Moscow, Gorky Park, twice daily the shows took place. What a huge success it was! Every day it was a full house, and the public were in love with the British models and the fashion. Jeans, for instance, were very trendy and could cost as much as a month’s salary — yet one still had to queue up to get a pair.
However, after so much ado, not a single British clothing company ever received any Soviet offers of cooperation. Sad, really — just like Christian Dior in Moscow, it could have been a beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Life and Look on the 50th Anniversary of the USSR, 1967.
In 1967, when the USSR turned 5o, it was a big day for both the country and the world. The Soviet Union had made it through, despite everything — and the world now had to take it seriously. The Cold War, which was at its highest at the time, kept the USSR in the spotlight, too, so the media were more than interested in the young Russian country. It really is a shame that the writing cannot be deciphered due to the low resolution of these scans. However, these images convey the atmosphere of the times quite well — a wild yet sophisticated country in the eyes of the civilised world.
1959. The official photo shoot, images courtesy of LIFE archives (Howard Sochurek)
The Khrushchev’s Thaw was to bring change to many aspects of the Soviet life, and fashion was one of them. The decision to allow the Soviet fashion designers to learn off their French counterparts was made as high as at the government level, which implicitly put fashion above politics or international ideological regimes. The colour of the Soviet Union, a generic grey, was about to be mixed up with the motley and lithe palette of the French fashion.
Late 1960s. Actress Svetlana Svetlichnaja is doing a wee strip dance for a movie. This was probably the most R-rated scene of the Soviet cinematography.
Due to a series of not so fortuitous events ( the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, the First World War, the overall rundown of the young Soviet country) women never had their needs attended to properly. Underwear was made, first and foremost, for the working class with no preferential treatment for the females so women had no choice other than to wear those sexless garments. This is probably the saddest part of the Soviet history.