Lady in Red

Soviet style and communist dress

From the Bolsheviks’ rejection of Western fashion to Vladimir Lenin’s short-lived New Economic Policy, from constructivism to Joseph Stalin’s red fascism, getting dressed behind the Iron Curtain has long been associated with shapeless silhouettes and muted tones. Even though this perception isn’t entirely wrong, it fails to capture Russia’s full sartorial history throughout its many iterations of communism.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks denounced Western European and American clothing, seeing it as antithetical to the goal of creating a full communist state. Doing so meant rejecting any ideology that allowed the individual to thrive over the good of the group.

From 1921 to 1928, Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) returned land that was forcibly taken from the Soviet Union’s agricultural class during the first world war and allowed them to sell it at a profit while paying taxes to the state. This privatization of land, in addition to the return of agriculture and retail trade, created a new class of “NEPmen” — young entrepreneurs who took advantage of private trade and created a network of wealth that looked awfully close to capitalism.

Fashion followed suit and denoted class status by style of dress. Someone who worked in the fields, for example, wore simple clothes that allowed them to work, whereas a NEPman and his wife were dressed to the nines and dripping in jewels, a look that let others know who the NEP really worked for. Once the…