Olga Vainshtein
Olga Vainshtein is a Senior Researcher, Ph.D., at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Russian State University for the Humanities. She is the author of the book "Fashioning the Dandy: Style and Manners"(Anthem Press 2023). Her book "Dandy: Fashion, Literature, Life Style" (in Russian) went through 6 editions (2005-2023). She edited "Smells and Perfumes in the History of Culture" in two volumes (2010). Her research interests include History of Fashion and Body, Beauty and Gender, European Dandyism, Fashion and Literature, Vision Studies. Her chapters are included in the books "The Fashion History Reader" and "Men's Fashion Reader"; "Fashion’s World Cities"; "Fashion and Modernism"; "The End of Fashion"; "Fashionable Masculinities". She has written for the journals Fashion Theory; Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion; Fashion, Style & Popular Culture.
She has taught courses on Fashion Studies as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and Stockholm University. She was a visiting researcher at the CNRS in Paris. Olga Vainshtein founded the Russian Fashion Theory journal in 2006 and currently sits on the editorial boards of the journals: Fashion Theory; Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion and Russian Fashion Theory.
Address: Mailing address:
Olga Vainshtein
Russian State University for the Humanities,
Institute for the Advances Research in the Humanities,
Moscow, 125993, Miusskaya Square, 6,
Room 168.
She has taught courses on Fashion Studies as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and Stockholm University. She was a visiting researcher at the CNRS in Paris. Olga Vainshtein founded the Russian Fashion Theory journal in 2006 and currently sits on the editorial boards of the journals: Fashion Theory; Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion and Russian Fashion Theory.
Address: Mailing address:
Olga Vainshtein
Russian State University for the Humanities,
Institute for the Advances Research in the Humanities,
Moscow, 125993, Miusskaya Square, 6,
Room 168.
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Papers by Olga Vainshtein
The paper is focused around the changing concept of fashion in Russia in 1920s. There was a lot of debate about the new functions of clothes among Russian avant-garde artists. Russian constructivists advocated for replacing traditional “the so called Fashion” with rationalized clothing. Developing the notion of “prozodezhda” - practical everyday working garments - they reformulated the complex symbolism of femininity and gender inherent in a dress. In their view, Fashion-as-Art, unique and extravagant, belonged to the culture of the past, much as easel painting. High Fashion expressed individual taste, while new Russia patronized collectivity. And finally, the artists opposed fashion because it implied additional expenses, impossible luxury after revolution.
However, Russian construstivists Varvara Stepanova, Liubov’ Popova, Alexandra Exter, Vera Mukhina, Olga Rosanova were remarkably attracted to clothes and textile design in the 1920s. The new important emphasis was laid on fashion and production: in 1924 Stepanova and Popova worked at the First State Cotton-printing factory in Moscow. That was an attempt to design industrial mass produced fabrics and become artists-productivists. Their designs expressed constructivist desire for transparency, rationality and minimalism and could be compared with the simultaneous style of Sonia Delaunay. The expressive rhythm of colors, simple geometric forms created the textile pattern with three dimensional visual effects to give a sense of space, as it was used in Cubism.
The formal simplicity of constructivism was not necessarily a response to Soviet demands but rather was inspired by utopian ideas. The constructivists felt that the geometric, analytical forms were linked directly to the world of technological efficiency and mechanical wizardry that they identified with the immediate future. The new constructivist “Fashion” was an integral part of the strategies of utopian “life-creation” and “life-building”, blurring the dividing lines between “art” and “life”, including human relationships and even bodily movements. This transformation included the new concept of the clothed body: the human body and its reconfiguration were at the very core of constructivist aesthetic. Following this line, Alexandra Exter produced interesting designs of dress-transformers. In the constructivist fashion designs the function determined form: rational, streamlined form allowed avoiding the capricious gesture and unnecessary expenditure of energy.
The topics that tended to reemerge in different stories, focused around the strategies of self-fashioning, used by the soviet women: having one's clothes sewn by a dressmaker; the art of altering things; getting all the possible information on current western fashions through available journals; buying foreign clothes from the traders. The role of dressmakers as cultural producers turned out to be absolutely crucial: practically all the favorite outfits described and shown during the interviews were sewn by private dressmakers. The article is focused around the figure of Soviet dressmaker as social and cultural type.
The paper also explores stilyagi in the context of international oppositional fashion: the British Teds, Japanese Taiyozoku, and Australian Bodgies. Local variants of the stilyaga movement are described, including the musical counterculture of Baku. The article argues that stilyagi often experimented bravely in a “mix and match” manner, and in many aspects may be regarded as the forerunners of contemporary street-style fashion. This argument is supported by the analysis of the stilyaga as flaneur, including strategies of observing, identifying and categorizing others by appearance.
The paper is focused around the changing concept of fashion in Russia in 1920s. There was a lot of debate about the new functions of clothes among Russian avant-garde artists. Russian constructivists advocated for replacing traditional “the so called Fashion” with rationalized clothing. Developing the notion of “prozodezhda” - practical everyday working garments - they reformulated the complex symbolism of femininity and gender inherent in a dress. In their view, Fashion-as-Art, unique and extravagant, belonged to the culture of the past, much as easel painting. High Fashion expressed individual taste, while new Russia patronized collectivity. And finally, the artists opposed fashion because it implied additional expenses, impossible luxury after revolution.
However, Russian construstivists Varvara Stepanova, Liubov’ Popova, Alexandra Exter, Vera Mukhina, Olga Rosanova were remarkably attracted to clothes and textile design in the 1920s. The new important emphasis was laid on fashion and production: in 1924 Stepanova and Popova worked at the First State Cotton-printing factory in Moscow. That was an attempt to design industrial mass produced fabrics and become artists-productivists. Their designs expressed constructivist desire for transparency, rationality and minimalism and could be compared with the simultaneous style of Sonia Delaunay. The expressive rhythm of colors, simple geometric forms created the textile pattern with three dimensional visual effects to give a sense of space, as it was used in Cubism.
The formal simplicity of constructivism was not necessarily a response to Soviet demands but rather was inspired by utopian ideas. The constructivists felt that the geometric, analytical forms were linked directly to the world of technological efficiency and mechanical wizardry that they identified with the immediate future. The new constructivist “Fashion” was an integral part of the strategies of utopian “life-creation” and “life-building”, blurring the dividing lines between “art” and “life”, including human relationships and even bodily movements. This transformation included the new concept of the clothed body: the human body and its reconfiguration were at the very core of constructivist aesthetic. Following this line, Alexandra Exter produced interesting designs of dress-transformers. In the constructivist fashion designs the function determined form: rational, streamlined form allowed avoiding the capricious gesture and unnecessary expenditure of energy.
The topics that tended to reemerge in different stories, focused around the strategies of self-fashioning, used by the soviet women: having one's clothes sewn by a dressmaker; the art of altering things; getting all the possible information on current western fashions through available journals; buying foreign clothes from the traders. The role of dressmakers as cultural producers turned out to be absolutely crucial: practically all the favorite outfits described and shown during the interviews were sewn by private dressmakers. The article is focused around the figure of Soviet dressmaker as social and cultural type.
The paper also explores stilyagi in the context of international oppositional fashion: the British Teds, Japanese Taiyozoku, and Australian Bodgies. Local variants of the stilyaga movement are described, including the musical counterculture of Baku. The article argues that stilyagi often experimented bravely in a “mix and match” manner, and in many aspects may be regarded as the forerunners of contemporary street-style fashion. This argument is supported by the analysis of the stilyaga as flaneur, including strategies of observing, identifying and categorizing others by appearance.