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A cut above: Fashion as meta -culture in early -twentieth -century Russia

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A cut above: Fashion as meta -culture in early -twentieth -century Russia

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Content A CUT ABOVK: FASHION AS MHTA-CUL1TJRE IN HARLY-TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIA by Elizabeth M. Durst A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CAUFORNÏA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) December 2003 Copyright 2003 Elizabeth M. Durst UMI Number: 3133262 Copyright 2003 by Durst, Elizabeth M. All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3133262 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 900891695 w W er fA « ffirecliom «/ A _ & K _ diw errafw rn co m m iM ee, w w f opproveff uff iff memterf, /w u bcem prafenied (p oW occepW 6y (A e Director ({ ^ G M w A ia fe w w f f m/èfjwnaf ffogwmf, m paffA xIJifÿîffm M f fA < feqw irfm fm w ,/br fA c « d eg ree qf D o c ro ;; o f fHTW ^opHy Director Dare December 17. 2003 O w jerfofM M Gommùfw y— ^ 3 '1 5 '^ w C : . 7 / „ . f 4 Ü A . D J \ 7 } - n / " ' " / TABLE OF CONTENTS I jst of Figures iîi Abstract vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Why Fashion? 17 Chapter 2: Women's Magazines and the Emerging Discourse of Fashion 65 Chapter 3: Early Russian Cinema and the Theater of Fashion 1 (X ) Chapter 4: Dress as the Modem Medium: Russian Artists and the World of Fashion 141 Chapter 5: Modem by Design: Ihe "New Woman" and the Evolution of the Trope of Fashion 250 Conclusion 312 Bibliography 322 Appendix A: Russian Fashion Magazines of the Early Twentieth Century 348 Appendix B : Foreign Images of Fashionable Women circa 1905-1914 Distributed in Russia 349 Appendix C: Russian Postcards of Fashionable Women circa 1909-1917 357 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Russian production, 'Tlarem Secrets/' ca. 1913 142 Figure 4.Z Evening Jacket for Ekaterina Geltser, designed by Lev Bakst and made by Nadezhda Lamanova, 1913 151 Figure 4.3: Dresses and Hats designed by Lev Bakst, made by Jeanne Paquin, 1913. Reproduced in yogwe, vol. 41, no. 12 ^une 15,1913), 29. 152 Figure 4.4: French postcard, unidentihed woman, ca. 1913 160 Figure 4.5: Sonia Delaunay, "Simultaneous Dress, ' at the Bal BuUier, 1913 162 Figure 4.6: Natalia Goncharova, "Sketch for a Woman's Dress," watercolor and graphite on paper, 1912-1913 166 Figure 4.7: Alexandra Exter, Suprematist Evening Bag ca. 1915 167 Figure 4.8: Olga Rozanova, Design for an Evening Bag, watercolor on paper, ca. 1915 168 Figure 4.9: Russian postcard, unidentified woman, ca. 1915 170 Figure 4.10: Russian performer Lidia Lipkovskaia, ca. 1908 172 Figure 4.11: Russian singer Anastasiia Vial'tseva, ca. 1905 174 Figure 4.12: Russian performer M. P. Tobuk-Gherkass, ca. 1908 176 Figure 4.13: Polish postcard (distributed in Russia), "Tango, " ca. 1913 178 Figure 4.14: Lev Bakst, "Fantasy on Modem Costume," 1911 181 Figure 4.15: lÆv Bakst, "Fantasy on Modem Costume, Atalanta," 1912 182 Figure 4.16: Lev Bakst, "Oriental Costume for the Princess Gorchakova," for a ball at M. E. Kleinmikhel's, 1914. Reproduced in PeferWrgskaia gazefa, no. 49 (February 20,1914), 3. 183 Figure 4.17: Lev Bakst, "Oriental Costume for the Princess Gorchakova," for a ball at M, E. Kleininikhel's, 1914. Reproduced in SfoEfsa ; w sadW , no. 8 (1914), 18-19. 184 Figure 4.18: Aleksandra Kokhlova in a dress by Nadezhda lamanova, 1923 191 in figure 4.19: Paul Poiret's traveling mannequins. Reproduced in ZheM skof (1911). 200 Figure 4.20: Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, in an outfit designed by Sergei Sudeikin, 1916 203 Figure 4.21: Vera Shilling, in a dress by Sergei Sudeikin, 1916 205 Figure 4.22: Tamara Karsavina, in a suit and hat by Boris Anisfeld, 1916 207 Figure 4.23: Lidia Lipkovskaia, in a dress by V. A. Barahanskii, 1916 208 Figure 4.24: Ksenia Boguslavkaia, in a Suprematist suit, hat, and handbag by Ivan Puni, 1916 209 Figure 4.25: Tamara Karsavina in Swan Ltke, 1905 213 Figure 4.26: Tamara Karsavina in a dress by Drecoll, 1913. Reproduced on the cover of DamsM ndr, no. 4 (1913). 214 Figure 4.27: Olga Rozanova, Forfroif Lady in P zfzk (Portrait of A.V. Rozanova), oil on canvas, 1911 218 Figure 4.28: Olga Rozanova, untitled lithograph, ca. 1913 223 Figure 4.29: Olga Rozanova, Suprematist bag, 1917 227 Figure 4.30: Natalia Goncharova, Danw z ? sW iape (Lady in a Hat), oil on canvas, ca. 1913 234 Figure 4.31: Alexandra Exter, Umbrella, 1916. Reproduced in ZA eM skw dels (1916) 238 Figure 4.32: Alexandra Exter, Design for a Woman's Cloak, ca. 1922 Reproduced in AfcFe, no. 1 (1923), cover. 241 Figure 4.33: Woman modeling a dress design by Nadezhda Lamanova, 1923 245 Figure 4.34: Liubov Popova, T rzzneler, oil on canvas, 1915 246 IV ABSTRACT In my dissertation I seek to explore the role of visual and narrative representations of the "new woman" in fostering modes of collective femmine identit)' in urban Russia in the early twentieth century. Though much scholarship has asserted the limited political activism of Russian women in the pre-Revolutionary period, I argue that in the first decades of the twentieth century reformist attitudes were widely disseminated in Russia on an aesthetic level, through the vehicle of dress fashions, and that in this guise such behavior was more readily emulated. These fashions reflected a transition to a more creative, independent, at times explicitly sexual, and overtly feminine ideal, and to patterns of behavior that were more disruptive of traditional dictates regarding the appropriate role of women in culture. I approach tlris topic through an examination of literature, film, and artwork of the period, which, I propose, reveal a heightened interest in fashion in Russia and a grondng awareness of the importance of imported fashions in conditioning women's collective behavior. I consult several Russian women's magazines to determine the types of fashionable images proliferated at the time and the contexts in which they were presented. 1 further pursue this task by examining several popular melodramatic Russian silent films of the late pre-Revolutionary period. In addition, my analysis of select works of several women artists and writers seeks to reveal an emerging self- consciousness regarding gender among creative women and a willingness both to embrace and to subvert expectations. The discourse of dress, I argue, is often central to this process. INTRODUCTION The most disUnct "Ruesian" fashions of the twentieth century— those that have warranted most critical attention outside of Russia— are the radical designs of the avant- garde artists of die early Soviet period. The Constructivist prozodezhda (worker's overalls) and other articles of "revolutionary" clothing created by Liubov Popova^ Varvara Stepanova, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Alexandra Exier, Vladimir Tatlin, and Nadezhda Lamanova, among others, stood to break Russia of its dependence on Western sartorial standards and to aid in the complete transformation of everyday life under the new regime. In the years leading up to the Revolution, given the rapid urbanization and increasing embourgeoisement of Russia, it did appear that men and women of several classes began to resemble their Western peers more closely than the)' had in previous periods. The domestic textile and garment industries also grew at tremendous rates in these years, as they entered the fold of modem market practices. i However, though deference to Western sartorial supremacy was the rule for the most populous areas of Imperial Russia— including most significantly, urban areas, which were the domain of the expanding merchant and middle classes— throughout the provinces folk culture often prevailed. In particular, former serfs and members of the working classes who remained in the rural areas continued to cling to native traditions of dress; in fact, one could argue that such customs were disrupted more deeply by institutional changes brought about as a result of the Revolution, the ensuing hardships I For a discussion uf Moscow's i omuM ix ial development at the turn of the centui \ . .Yt- I homas C. Owen, "Doing Business in Mereh.mt -ow, " irina V. Potkina, "Moscow's CommenrWI M(w,ue," and lurii A. Petrov, "'Moscow City': Finmieial f. itadcl of Merchant Moscow" all In MmAanf Mis use Iwagcs of Rwssw's ViiMzsW gowrgeoÙK, eds. I . West ,ind lurii A. Petrov (Princeton, Nji Prino ton University Press, 1998). of war, and the further urbanization in the Soviet era than by the market developments of the late-imperial perkxi. In addition, for centuries nationalist impulses in Russia were periodically articulated in dress and the issue of dress was at times polemical.^ Therefore, while the political sentiments that served as a backdrop for the Soviet experiments in dress and textile design merit the consideration they have received, what is most unusual about the Constructivist fashions in terms of clothing history is the degree to which they reflected a transparent application of modernist principles of art to dress. Furthermore, these radical experiments in dress should be recognized as the culmination of a more subtle transformation of women's fashion— both in aesthetic and social terms— that began before the Revolution, and which, until recently, has warranted even less critical attention than the later developments. Admittedly, the Soviet designs for revolutionaiy clothing of the early 1920s were quickly dismissed by the general public in favor of more "conventional" styles of diess, yet the artists involved in the movement initially received both government sanction and critical acclaim from abroad for their projects, the latter, in particular, following their celebrated appearance at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925. Though most of the artists who contributed to the Constructivist and folk-inspired Soviet projects remained in Russia,^ they soon were compelled by the state to abandon their radical "formalist" experiments in dress, as well as their parallel work in painting, sculpture, and photography. Throughout the Stalinist Era, in Russian costume histories published during the period, little mention was made of the bold geometric clodiing and ^ This was the nion' ( nmmonly in men s clothing through military and govcmmcnta! uniforms tlwn m women's clothing I or a JcM (i;)tlon of the various uniforms of imperial Russia, see la. N. Rivosh, I H ue < resiid».' po Mfeni nMknarHoi tul'fury r Rossn ««xWia XX (Moscow: Iskusstvo. 1990) See also Christine Ruane, "Caftan to Business Suit: Tlw Semiotics of Russian Merchant Dress," in MmVeoft Miksow, eds. West and Petrov, 53-60. ^ Exter immigrated to France in 1924. Lhihov Popova died In 1924. 2 textile designs or of the folk-inspired dresses that appeared after the Revolution. The first comprehensive study of the innovative designs of the 1920s was undertaken only in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Russian scholar latiana Strizhenova, whose monograph Iz isfenz sorvkkego kosffwnw (From a History of Soviet Costume) appeared in 1972, following the publication of related articles in Soviet scholarly journals beginning in the late 1960s.^ Strizhenova's research has remained unparalleled in subsequent studies of the period. Ihe book presents photographs, programmatic statements by several artists, exhibition materials, and excerpts from numerous fashion periodicals.^ The object of study, however, is not limited to the work of the avant-garde, but encompasses other parallel projects of the 1920s such as the propagandistic Revolutionary textile designs produced by a few textile factories and die military uniforms designed by Lamanova and Exter. Many of the specific designs that Strizhenova discusses were presented at the Soviet pavilion in Paris in 1925. For the next two decades foUowing the publication of her monograph, undi her death in 1991, Strizhenova worked on an expanded version of her initial study. To date the text has been published only in English translation, Soukt Costume and Tcrhles, 197 7- 1945.(' Strizhenova's work is largely descriptive, as dictated by the task at hand; she undertook to unearth a period of Russian fashion history that long had been forgotten, both at home and abroad, and to characterize the goals of the various movements of the early Soviet years. Following the appearance of her initial monograph, however, as Soviet and Western art historians were rediscovering the art of the pre-and post- 4T-Skrizheno\.i A f'-A 'n' thvUo/hink, l')72). In HwNimr (kxMi)e,N. M. Kaminskala'!» Z Z m m ' A w Znm h; I rxLzw indii'tlilw, W/T) nwL's hncf mention N thv H\unt garde designs of the IV JU s. ^ A large portion of the material Strixhenova used for her research remains housed in the private archives of the artists' families. A Ta W ana Strizhenova, ÿwà i Cwtsmc and Tczhks, 7Ü17-7 945 (Park: Klammarion, 1997). 3 Revolutionary avant-garde, several more analytical works appeared that conHulcn d the relationship between the artists' designs for costume or textiles and dieir parallel work in other media. In an article on the textile designs of the 1920s, John Bowit examines the efforts of several Constructivists to embrace production as a dominant artistic principle and the "creation of new objects" for a revolutionary society as a primary goal of their endeavors.^ Bowlt also demonstrates the importance of dress, accessory, and textile design to these interests and notably points out several related efforts by artists in the pre-Revolutionary period to embark on experiments in the applied arts. In an article on the "science of dressing" Nicoletta Misler analyzes the various scientific theories of color and design pursued by the State Academy of Artistic Sciences in the early 1920s that served as an ideological foundation for several Soviet textile projects.^ These and other articles appear in the catalog for an exhibition held in Italy in 1989 entitled f/Akto deüa Rirofwzioue, organized by Strizhenova, Bowlt, Misler, and several other scholars.^ Most articles in the exhibition catalog— RcnoluffO M a/y Costume.' Swict C loflw M g a/id Textiles of tlie 1920s— limit their scope of analysis to the textile designs of Soviet artist, from the geometric Constructivist designs of the avant-garde to the later revolutionary propaganda motifs, or trace the potential links to several Bauhaus artists who pursued theories of dress and textile design, including Wassily Kandinsky. With die exception of Bowlt and a few others, most Western studies of Russian fashion have focused exclusively on the projects of the Soviet avant-garde artists and 7 ]oh)i E. Bowlt, "Manulartunng Dnstms: Textile Design in Revolutionary RussW," in Rero/wliowny Cwfume,- Soviet C loflziM g and Teziiirs i!/" Ac 7920s, by Lidia Zalctova, et a). (New York Rizzoli, 7989), 77-31; John E . BowlL "Constructivism .m,l l 'arh ' mviii I cslium Design" (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, Kennan Institute for \d t ant ed Ihiwian Stu&lies, 1987). * Nicoletta Misler, ' I he lent c o( I irmn Ihe Industrial Workshop: The Russian Academy of Artistic Science and Costume A Sumni,u v" in /«delova, et at, ( \) .fiO M C , 45-57 * Lidia Zalctova, et al., H iiry I csho»*', So, wl me/ L 'a /;/i's c/ //« 7 920s (New York: RIzzoli, 7989). 4 have ignored the pre-Rcvointionary precursor: to tlie movemenL More recently, tliere has been some attempt by scholars to explore the efforts by several artists in the 1900s and 1910s to apply their artistic theories to dress and accessory design, but little connection has been established between the pre- and post-Revolutionary periods. The Florence Biennale Exhibition Art/Fashion of 1996, for example, featured works not only by Stepanova, Rodchenko, Popova, and fellow Russian Constructivists, but also, notably, by Natalia Goncharova, who began designing dresses the Revolution, but the parallels are not discussed.^" Before settling in Paris permanently in 1917, Goncharova designed hundreds of contemporary women's gowns in her native Russia, particularly in the years 1912-1914. Her designs appear to draw heavily on the more amorphous, popular, "mass ' movement in fashion in Russia of the late-Impeiial years, in contrast to the programmatic state-sponsored approach of the Constructivists, but her drawings reveal an attempt to integrate the colors, shapes, and motifs of her paintings and theater design into women's everyday dress. Goncharova was not alone in pursuing an interest in women's clothing design before the Revolution. She was accompanied by several of her peers whose artistic affiliations at the time often varied. For some, dress design could be seen as an extension of their efforts to create a total aesthetic environment. In this sense, men's fashions would have been an equally relevant endeavor, although most artists limited their interests to designing women's clothing. For others, however, including several women artists such as Goncharova, it could be argued that an interest in contemporary women's fashion revealed a recognition of the vitality and importance of contemporary women in the public sphere. It signaled an acknowledgement of fashion's ability within the M fyTogAioM .' A AViict;, 79% ed. Germano Celant (Milan. Skira, 1996), modem urban coiitext to iHustrato and propagate a profmmd challenge to traditional notions of women's role in society, and in a more visual, expressive sense, to articniate for (he general public a revolutionary understanding of artistic form and color, lake the modernist art of (he tvi entieth century, the new fashions were disruptive of the status quo and embodied unrelenting change in a modem urban environment. Despite die profound commercial and, arguably, aesthetic importance of the fashion industry, die dress culture of twentieth-century pre-Revolubonary Russia has received only modest critical attention, and few scholars have examined in depth the pre-Rcvolutionary work of artists in dress design. There are, however, some brief, (hough notable, exceptions. BowlTs essay in RerW whoM ary C oshoM C , cited above, is one important example of this trend. In addition, in an essay published in the catalog for the Guggenheim exhibition A m azoM S AmMi-Garde (1999), Misler discusses the presence of motifs of sewing and fashion in the work of several prominent women artists of the avant-garde, beginning in (he pre-Revolutionary period, and their shared tendency to keep in their possession "the most feminine of ol^ects"— "embroideries, or purses and evening bags" — and thus embrace rather than rqect popular elements of female identity.il In addition, the catalog for a recent retrospective exhibition of Goncharova's work, held at Hie Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow and Russian Museum in St. Petersburg in 2001-2002, includes a discussion of Goncharova's dress designs, both in Russia and in Paris following her immigration. The essay, by art historian Evgeniia Riukma, argues the Nicoletta Misler, i i p and Dressing Down: The Body of the Avant-<3arde," in Am azoM s of f/ie A i'M ik-C arde; A kzaw dN t ? , N aW ia G o M c fw m w , L ndw i P c y m w , O lg a R o zg n w o , V am iM S h y a rz M W , g f W Nodez/ida UAIkmw lohn K . Bowlt and Matthew Dnilt (New York: Guggenheim, 2000), 95-10$. 6 importance of Goncharova's dress designs in the 1910s to her parallel pursuits in painting and in the theaterjz In contrast, much scholarship has appeared on the influence of the Ba&k Russes on Western fashion in the pre-War years, and of the dress designs of the artist and theatrical designer Lev Bakst. However, most studies of this period ignore the larger Russian context of fashion of the period and focus, instead, on the artistic merits of the specific designs of the BaRef Russes productions and on their reception in the West.^^ Ihe most valuable contribution to this topic, however, is by the Russian scholar Elena Bespalova, who has researched in considerable depth Bakst/s interest in dress and has published articles on Baksf s trips to the United States in the late 1910s and early 1920s before his death in 1926. She has also written on the fashion tour of the prominent French couturier Paul Poiret to Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1911 and, importantly, on the positive reception of his designs by Russian artists.]* Scholars who have researched men's fashion of the period include Russian art historian lulia Demidcnko, who has looked at the personal fashions of several male n E. A. Iliukhina, "Goncharova i moda," NaUdiw CoMcharwa. Cody r Row:: (St. Petersburg: Palace Editions/State Russian Museum, 2002), 246-51. This seems justified when one considers that the Balki Russes only performed in the West, but in looking for the impulses behind th^e designs it seems valid to reflect on their relationship to popular trends in fashion that were affecting Russia, particularly since Russiaiw could read about the Influence of the Baikt Russes and could see reproductions of the set and costume designs. Charles S. Mayer, "The Impact of the Boikts Russes on Design in the West, 1909-1914," The Anmt-Gurde FroMt^: R:wsw Meets (he W ks(, 1910-1930, eds. Gail Harrison Roman and Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992), 15-44. Alexander " k hou\ aloff, "Leon Bakst, the Indispensable Designer" in Thsakr of Rewort/Thcater of Desire: The Art :^Aku7?!:fn' Bcoois and W » Bakst, by John Bowlt (Geneva: Skira, 1998), 57-60; Charles Spencer, Leon Bakst ami the Batkts Russes (London: Academy Editions, rev, ed., 1995), 90,175-180; Aleksandr Vasil'ev. Chapter I: "Russkie sezony ( moda," Rnwota n izgrnmii: tern i (« M Russkikh miignwton pcmot wicy; iskusstw) i M w d i: (Moscow: Slovo, 19%), 9-35; Charles Spencer, Erte (\o n tork: Crown Publisher, 1981, revised edition), 21; R.l. Vlasova, Russkoe teafml'MWckoratsiMnae isk;:-» tif :wcWs XX ncky'R M S^im ; TWtricai Dcsigf! of (A e Buriy 70fi: ', fdon/ (LcnIngniJ. 'Khudozhnik RSFSR," l%H, 133, Scholars often not,' Iho influence of the color, oi Ikikst s dc,signt, for the Balkts Russes, in parla uLn, on fashion- "can,«r)' yvllou, bright blue, jade, censc, c^clamon. henna, and red." Marlin Battersby, (& Ikwrufiw («rcuiics (luiidon, 1969). 1 4 Elena Bespalova, "Leon Baksf s 1 extile and Interior Design in America," Studies (« B w : DrcoruthY Arts 5:1 (1997-98); E. Bespalova, "Benois and Puare (Poiret)," Piuaketcku 6-7:3-4 (1998): 56-60. avant-garde artists of the p i i \ olwtionary period and also at the contributions of several artists to the design of numerous costume balls in St. Petersburg.i^ John Bowlt's article on the cult of Ac body present in the work of male and female avant-garde artists in the pre-Revolutionary years treats tire rising tendency in Russian culture to seek artificial means to perfect the body, either through devices, diet, or cosmetic products. He also documents the artists' related interest in modem fashion."» Ihese studies of the pre-Revolutionary period, however, seldom characterize the broader changes in the world of fashion for Russian urban culture nor do they consider how pre-Revolutionary developments may have infoimed the better-known designs of the early Soviet period, both of which are objects of my dissertation. Furthermore, within the scholarly literature no mention is made of the implications the transformation of the fashion industry may have had for women in Russian society, nor does one find critical analysis of Russia's direct application of a Western model of modem femininity as embodied in the new popular fashions. Numerous factors indicate that after the turn of die century Russia's garment industry was beginning to mature to meet a heightened interest in fashion, particularly among residents ol Russia's booming urban centers. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, studies have emerged that more carefully consider the economic development and urbanization of the late-imperial period in Russia. While the field awaits a comprehensive economic history of the pre-Revolutionary textile and garment industries, several recent works have begun to reveal (he commercial activities of lutta Demtdenko, "Nadcnw ta y.hetluiw btuzu," Awngünbw pvwiWi»' (St. Peteraburg: Print Intemeabnl, 1998), 63-76. " J o ^ E. Bowlt, "Body Bcjiiliful: llic AitWic Search for tlir t'frlw i thysiqiie," in Lalwmfivif c/ f T/tc R ifA M d M AzwHWîWf ifH i/ f 1 .ip M M h v/f, ed«. John t. Hnwlt and Matich (Stanford. ( A 'ilanlord University Press. 1996), and " I lie Btrlh of the New Soviet Woman, " m CMi/for; f ifsvowmf mid Order in flir Rwssùm X t Ailnfmw, vd, .Abbott Gle,con (Bloomingkm, IN: Indiana Untversily Po'ss, |48S) 8 residents of Russia's urban centers in the years leading up to the Revolution and argue that Russia's market economy had blossomed to a greater extent than previously was believed. Christine Ruane, for example, has looked at changes to the clothing market in early-twentieth-century urban Russia and the degree to which consumers modified their shopping habits in response to the increased number of department stores and introduction of ready-to-wear clothing.^? Cultural historians Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly assert that numerous memoirs and other documentary material reveal that in the early twentieth century, women of the working class began to demonstrate an interest in modem fashion in increasing numbers.i^ On a commercial level, in addition to the rise both in department stores and dressmaking shops, sewing machines became widely available in the early years of the twentieth century, an indication that a growing number of women were able to construct Western fashions for themselves. In the decade preceding 1914, for example, the Singer Company, who had sold various models in Russia since the 1860s and had opened a subsidiary company in Russia in 1897, saw unprecedented growth, selling more than five million sewing machines throughout Russia in the period.^^ Singer shared the field in Russia with numerous competitors at the time, but with its sophisticated installment payment system and concerted efforts to accommodate the idiosyncratic demands of the Russian market, it maintained a substantial hold on the market until the Revolution.%) Christine Ruanc, "Clothes Shopping in Imperial Russia: Ihe Development of a Consumer Culture" of Sot'W Hzsfory 28.4 (Summer 1995): 765-782. Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly, Ch. 2. "Commercial Culture and Consumerism," in Cwzshwchug R w ssw m Cwlfwit,' m the Age (/RmwiwhuM: 7887-1940 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998): 706-764. Fred Carstensen, Amehcmz Kntezpn'sr in Mahtcls; SludzM am d iM iemahoM al ffmvesler in Impehai Rzwsw (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, cÎ984), a Ibid. 9 Other evidence of a bourgeoning fashion industry include the sudden emergence of numerous women's magazines, the appearance of social tracts that critique the growing influence of dress in women's lives, and the escalating references to fashionably dressed modern women in visual and narrative media of the period, all of which 1 will draw upon for my analysis of fashion in the period. Larger Russian costume histories that might also provide insight into the period until quite recently have done little more than describe broad trends in style and provide limited data on a few Russian designers.:^ During the Soviet era scholars generally downplayed or ignored developments of late-imperial Russian life, as the state made clear its desire to emphasize Russia's crippled economy and pohticai conflicts before the Revolution rather than its gradual modernization and urbanization and market expansion. In addition, the reliance of the Russian middle and upper classes on Western sartorial standards, may have eliminated the need among scholars for a discussion of "Russian" styles. Several works of cultural history, however, confront the issue's of Russia's adoption of Western standards more critically, albeit for other historical periods, most notably luri Lotman's semiotic analysis of dress in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia and Raisa Kirsanova's encyclopedia of costume in Russian artistic culture through the nineteenth-centuryThough these authors acknowledge Russia's complicated sartorial relationship to the West, neither discusses Vol. V, ed. \ K\d»i (Moscow: Vserossibkoe WtratnoeotwhchMlvo, 1972); N. M. Kaminskata, /atord# WtwwM (Moscow f (% kuia industriia, 1977). ^ lu. M. Lotman, Tcx^tlkn t^tovogo povcdcuikt v russkoi kulture XVIH veka, " m fw . M, skff'i, vol. i (Tallm- Mvkwndra, 1%2): 24A lianslaUon into English from ju. M, Lotman, " The rocKc;: « u Everyday behavior in Rnwilan Eighteenth t cnluiy Culture," )u. M. Lotman and B.A Uspenski;, Ua' < . ofRwssid* Culture, ed, Ann Shukman, trm ns, N. E . C, Owen (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Contntiutlum, 1984), 231-256. R , M. Kirsanova, XoshHrno n/ssW A A w d ozA estoeM fim ' l8-pemii ;wWMy20T).t'. (Moscow: Bol'shaia Rossiiskaia entsiklopediia, 1995) and N, M. Tarahukin, ( ii fh ilri /'« islorli kwhufna (htoscow: Igdatel'stvo Giliz, 1994). 10 the trend in the context of the early twentieth century when it applied to a much broader segment of the Russian population and to a more nuanced, modem culture of fasluon in the urban centers. Most significantly absent in these veuious discussions of fashion is any attempt to measure the impact of the dramatic changes to fashion design of the early twentieth century on women in Russian society. Analogous studies consider the theoretical significance or social relevance of modem fashion for gender identity among women in areas of western Europe and the United States, but even in the broader studies of European culture, Russia receives little mention.:^ One exception to this tendency is Mary Mcleod's essay on modem architecture and fashion design. Mcleod, however, limits her discussion to the women of Russian Constructivism, and implies that their work constitutes a radical break horn any preceding tradition of dress.^^ Mcleod applauds the Constructivists for "seeing dress reform as part of a larger socialist revolution, changing domestic patterns and traditional sex roles," for which "the radical reorganization of the 'outward forms of daily life' was a requisite step," rather than merely depicting women as "fixed objects in an imagined Yet, while Popova, Stepanova, Exter, and, importantly, also the men of Russian Constructivism, sought to enact social reform through dress, their efforts should be understood as a more overt manifestation of a process that already had infiltrated Russia— on a popular, more subconscious level— in the decade the Revolution— one which did not Anne Hollander. Sex md SKda. ErolwfW of Modm; Dress (New York: Kodansha, 1994); Valerie suvle, Pone F aeW oM ; A i Idfwol I lisAv 1 / (2 " » ) ed., New York: Berg, 1998), and PaahioH and Erof/oem i.' Ideals of I oiM oiM r Beouly/rom tk ViiAufOi I le In llie /«zs (New York: Oxford UP, 19M), Jennifer Craik, Tlie Culfnml Sfiidà's in I ikV iion (London: Roufledge, 1993), ^ Mary McLeod, "Undressing Architecture: Fashion, Gender and Modernity," in Ardzilccnur; In fWiloM, eds, Deborah Fausch, et al. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994): 39.123, » Mary McLeod, "Undressing Architecture," 77,79. 11 seek to impose change «"A.irily, but to piggyback on a corresponding, parallel impulse of modernity in a dynamic area of aesthetic culture. In addition to dixrumenting the emergence of a modem fashion craze in Russia, one that took hold in many spheres of narrative and visual culture, my task will be to look at the ways in which this "unassuming" arena of fashion threw into question traditional patterns of behavior and prevailing notions of female identity, Furtheimore, 1 will argue that the establishment of a more creative approach to women's fashion set the stage for the more radical experiments of the Soviet avant-garde, and indeed that the subtle propaganda of the pre-Revolutionary period— that is, developments within popular culture— enacted change more effectively than either overt political agitation or the politicized designs of the early Soviet period. In the first chapter of the dissertation I will describe the theoretical foundations for my study of fashion in Russian culture of the early twentieth century. Drawing upon Wtman's semiotic analysis of eighteenth-century Russian culture and on several works by fashion and cultural historians of the Western context, I will discuss the relevance of Russian women's adoption of a foreign standard in dress in the early twentielh century to their collective emulation of modem creative and social behavior. Furtheimore, I will provide a description of the cultural context within which the radical changes to women's fashion took place, and provide evidence of Russia's adherence to the modem fashion craze. In the second and third chaplurs of the dissertation 1 will explore the ways in which a wider population of urban women were exposed to an extraordinary range of new fashionable images in Russia by examining several popular women's magazines 12 and Russian melodramatic films. I will assert the instrumental role of the women's press in the creation of a feminine discourse^ a discourse of fashion that existed in proximity to issues of reform and allowed independence and creativity to penetrate, albeit indirectly, the mindset of many women. As Russian women with increasing intensity embraced the "alien" culture of Western fashion, they also adopted a novel appreciation for the artistty of dress that could be felt in the often exotic styles and radical changes to the female silhouette. The silent cinema also greatly aided in the proliferation of images of the "new woman" and provided a more nuanced, detailed exhibition of the new fashions that were introduced for women. Audiences witnessed fashion models in motion, similar to the new fashion shows of ateliers and department stores, an early twentieth-century innovation that more fully displayed the dynamism of modem styles. With such "living" illustrations, the larger public was able more readily to emulate the new styles. The emergence of native fihn production in Russia allowed for a more immediate assimilation of this ideal: while the fashions were still perceived as Western, the role models were suddenly Russian. Thus, an appreciation of the artistry of dress could be coupled with an acceptance of the creative aspirations of women. This interest in the new styles endured throughout the war years, even as the craze for fashion was tempered by calls for support for troops and patriotic fervor, and many women traded their fashionable dresses in for nurses' uniforms. In the Russian films of the war period, regardless of their narrative relevance or their morality tale, however, well dressed women provided a visual celebration of beauty and high fashion. In this context, even the most demonic women, if fashionable, could be found appealing by cinematic audiences. These new types encouraged women to continue to abstract fashion from its social relevance and to read and accept it merely in terms of its aesthetic appeal. 13 Subsequent chapters will examine the role of the fashionable woman, the "new woman," and of dress designs themselves in the artistic production of stweral women in Russia. Neither the artists nor the writers of early-twentieth-century Russia were considered arbiters of taste, even if a handful of them were fashionable in their personal dress. Superb artistry did not translate necessarily into personal style, but an awareness of fashion's evolving status and form is e\ddent in several works by women in the period. Several leading women artists— among them, Bxter, Goncharova, Rozanova, and Liubov' Popova— recognized the expressive potential of the medium and included dress and accessory design in their own art. Far from merely "women's work " the new fashion system was disruptive, an agent of change, not unlike the work of the European avant-garde in general. Rather than maligning the "lower" genre of fashion, these artists took ownership of what traditionally was relegated to women. Ihey made a "subordinate" art something dynamic and expressive of a modern aesthetic sensibility and expanded their theoretical understanding of art— including rhythm, form, and pattern— in the process. All art, including the new "art" of fashion, could be exdting, if given the opportunity to move beyond traditional notions of beauty. And the more modem "analytical" approach to fashion allowed them to expose and abstract the device of form as essential to any visual message. Their collective interest in dress and accessory design, and their incorporation of fashionable women in their drawings and paintings indicate an awareness of the increasing complexity of the visible woman in an evolving, modem society. lire poetry and prc%e of several women writers of the turn of the century and immediate pre-Revolutionary period reveal an unusual trajectory in the evolution of themes and tropes characteristic of "women's writing." In the late nineteenth century, 14 some women writers, most prominent among them Gippius, shared a tendency to resist associations with traditionally femmine subjects, including dress, and a desire to hide tlreir gender identity, In contrast, in the 1900s and 1910s several women writers (and there were suddenly many), such as Akhmatova and the lesser-known PaUada Bogdanova-Belskaia, appeared eager to incorporate more traditionally "feminine" themes in their work, and drew instead upon the expressions of female desire that appeared in the late nineteenth century in the works of Mirra Lokhvitskaia. The figure of the "new woman" offered a device that was on the one hand safely attractive, yet less explicitly erotic than an expression of personal sexual desire. But the new styles and the new woman simultaneously embodied dûs eroticism and spoke to a desire for more widespread feminine expression. If one traces the trope of fashion in several of these works, it is evident that the larger cultural reference for this element had changed radically by the 1910s to allow for an understanding of the new woman, the fashionable woman, as modem, independent and empowered, qualities that were in part achieved through her visibility and personal creative production. Issues of power and influence are often associated with the notion of being seen or gaining presence, in other words, claiming a right to a position in the hierarchical structure. Like silence, invisibility is often an indication of subordination within the cultural arena, and one played out in works of literature and narrative media in numerous traditions. To be counted among those with legithnate claims to presence and influence in society, Russian women gained visibility in culture in the early twentieth century. Some garnered this status through their professional achievements as artists, doctors, performers, journalists, entrepreneurs, or philanthropists. For those who did not achieve such prominence, the mode of fashion brought them closer b o such 15 professionals by fostering the recognition of individual and creative expression. The "new woman" may have been conveniently caricatured, kept as a foreign or "other" phenomentm in an attempt to limit her appeal, but her association with fashionable dress was deeply disruptive in the long term. An intimate and ubiquitous exercise, dressing was both accessible and exciting for many women in Russia during this period. And though, I would argue, it acted as a catalyst for change, many women (and men) probably never consciously sensed this influence. My task, therefore, is to make apparent ihat which was to many invisible in the visual culture of early-twentieth- century Russia and to expose the complex meta-culture of fashion that emerged at this time. 16 CHAPTER 1 : WHY FASHION? The idea of making women s'em as real as men had to include visibly ))n'Mxvlng and encouraging their own v ,,f iemaleness, and keeping them attractive to Utemselves, self- aware and self-possessed.' Anne Hollander, m id Swik' T 7 « Euelw tion (^Modern Drws Russian fashion? In a study of eafly-twentleth-century pre-Revolutionary Russia, one migltt question what is to be gained by considering the dress fashions of the period. Far from innovative in their styles, most men and women of means in Russia took their cue from designers stationed in the long-established fashion centers of western Europe. Natives of Petersburg and Moscow were considered fashionable in the eyes of their peers if they could pass for Parisians or Londoners, fulfilling the wish of Peter the Great who at the beginning of the eighteenth century decreed Russian national dress unacceptable for the country's eU te.:: Peter's attempts to "civilize" Russia led to an often burdensome pattern of cultural mimicry, one articulated in the arena of dress perhaps more visibly than in any other sphere of culture. In the nineteenth century, for example, the refined young men and women of the Russian aristocracy who could aAord the luxury of a costly wardrobe ordered their clothes directly from Paris and from other fashion cities in western Europe, just as, for the better part of the period, they were inclined to use French instead of their native tongue. Their Western sarmrial habits often aligned them more closely with Western attitudes, at least superficially, and caused a visible rift ' Anne Hollander, 5 e% om d Sink,' Tlie CWiilioM Atcdrr» Dress (New York: Kodansha, 1994), 126. z Peter called for drew "in the Cermen style," but would likely have approved of Russia's inclusion in the pan-Europeonlookoftheearlytwentiflh'''i,tun\Qtd.inC.Ruane, '( a(wntoBusm'".s$uit: nwSemiotics of Russian Merchant Dress," in Alcn Vwnf iV l,,;,, iiNages 1 /im k d eds, J.imi's 1. West and lurii A. Petrov (Princeton, Nj: l'rinu4i)n Ihuversity Press, 1998) 17 between them and the members of the peasant and merchant class. Though efforts were made at times to foster Russian national identity through dress, even among the aristocracy, and peasants and many merchants long endured in their adherence to traditional costume, by the turn of the century Russia had begun to adopt the consumer culture embraced by much of European society at the time, and as a result had allowed Western fashion to widen its influence in Russia. In a study of eighteenth-century Russian culture, Yuri Ixitman proposes that the rapid assimilation of patterns of Western dress by the elite classes of Russian society led to the heightened semiotization of their sartorial and social habits, particularly in the early years in which this behavior was acquired.^ Numerous translated manuals on etiquette and polite culture appeared in Russia as a small, but significant, portion of the public, those notably responsible for most production of literary and artistic culture, schooled themselves in the manners of the West.^ Perhaps of greatest importance in this transition, Lotman argues, was that a part of life— the everyday— that was normally "natural," habitual, and unconscious, quickly became for members of the aristocracy an acutely deliberate, "conscious" activity. As "outsiders" the Russian elite were in a position to perceive the "alien" culture of the West, which they were forced by law to acquire, more aesthetically than they would their native or "natural" culture.^ In other words, for the upper classes, "Daily life took on features of the theater."* ) lu. M. T.x)tman, "Poetika bytovogo povedeniia v ruaskol kutture XVIII veka," in iw. M. IniuM M . IztraM iiye tom 1 . (Tailin: Akksandra, 1992), 348-68; translation into English from )u. M. Lotman, "The Poetics of Everyday Behavior in Russian Eighteenth Century Culture," Ju. M. Lotman and B.A UspenskiJ, Scmii'hcs of R w ssw M Cultwrr, t?d. Ann Shukman, trana, N. P. C. Owen (Ann Arbor Michigan Slavic Contntmtions, 1984), 231-56. * Catriona Kelly echoes the assertion of this development in her recent comprehensive study of Russian polite culture. Catriona Kelly, Rf/iM ing Russia. Adwtv Likraturr, PWik Cwhure, aad GemdrrCaihcnne to ycffsim (Oxford: Oxford Unn < i ,iiv Press, 2002), 5 Wtman, "The Poetics of Evvi t d,iy Behavior," 231-32 A Lotman, "The Poetics of E\ » i ^ da\ Behavior." 234, 18 In his discussion of the transformation of the Russian aristocracy following Peter's reforms, Lotman draws an analogy between the study of a foreign language and the acquisition of other types of foreign cultural behavior/ He argues that in learning a foreign language one is made aware of its rules and grammatical structures, whereas such elements of one's native language are rarely considered consciously * In addition, one also senses more acutely the sounds and formal qualities of an "alien" language than one does the characteristics of one's native tongue. This tendency to perceive Western cultural behaviors or cultural artifacts outside their "natural" domain is equally relevant to a discussion of early twentieth-century Russian culture. For precisely as fashion in the West was becoming what some have argued to be a more conscious artistic endeavor for many women, Russian society had begun to look to the West for sartorial instruction on a notably wider scale. Russian urban women, in particular, engaged in the visual, tactile emulation of modem Western styles and, indirectly, in the acquisition of an emerging discourse of fashion. That dress fashions in the late-imperial period remained equally derivative of the West was not unforeseen, given the long cycle of cultural self-deprecation among members of Russia's higher classes. However, following the dramatic urbanization of the late nineteenth century in Russia, a larger, more diverse population fell under the sway of the imported marmer of dress and into a pattern of theatricalized daily behavior. At the turn of the twentieth century, pamphlets and inserts in popular periodicals, most of which anticipated a female readership, offered members of the ^ Though (hr putttlk l with ia used as an analogy, the acquisition of a foreign language was ako a real t of tlir emulation of the West. * tolman, "Thr l\x'ln m of Evciydav Behavior," 232. 19 middle and lower clashes instructions on how to adapt to modem urban life.'' By the 1910s to most observers the urban centers of European Russia had begun to appear more assimilated into the modem, pan-European look, as native traditions of dress were soon either modified or abandoned by many city dwellers.'c Some significant challenges to Western sartorial supremacy can be found in the experiments of several artists in Russia in the 1910s, precursors to the better-known utopian designs for revolutionary dress in the early Soviet era. Yet, though more readily associated with the avant-garde, this line of innovation is heavily indebted to the popular or bourgeois culture of fashion of the pre-Revolutionary period." The advent of World War I, in particular, prompted members of the artistic community to question the country's reliance on foreign styles, a predictable response in a period of increased patriotism. Iheir showcased designs in exhibitions and competitions, however, were only subtly "Russian" and did little to challenge the sartorial status quo in the countryW ith rare exception neither the artists nor the talented dressmakers of pre-Revolutionar)^ Russia could be considered "trendsetters," even if their artistry and skill often rivaled that of their foreign counterparts. Quite the contrary, some members of the Russian public at times appear to have taken conformity to Western sartorial standards to an extreme. The innovative and V See, for example, Daww w ! e a 1913 translation of a French pamphlet by Inna tjmmnt, and the Kalenda/ published annually by Demskl mir. For more discussion of the topic, see Catiiona Kelly's chapter "Advice Literature in Late Imperial Russia," in Russia. "Zhenshchiny" in Moskw u gepmsW yM: i wstowshchcm. vol. 10, ed. 1.2[abeilin (Moscow: Obrazovanie, 1910- 1912): 52-56. See also G. Vasilich, "Ulitsy I liudi sovremennoi Moskvy," in volume 12 of Moskw u « : g prosWyw : naskiasWKM, 3-120. This claim is also supported in a newspaper article by the {oumalist O. Sevtnlch, "Kofeinye tMuyshni," Ufm Rosszi 76 (2 Aug. 1913); 5. He writes, "Moscow is catching up to Europe with gigantic leaps " 1 1 See, among others, Liubov Popova's 'Prozodezhda. " Alexandra Exter's designs for Atel'e mod, and Varvara Stepanova's Coottriu in dr, .md Iv'iil, d,"si;yis u SolHke Rossii and i 'iWf if Ixdli i over a * omp«'tition that took place in 1916 and reproduce designs or photographs taken at the event. See 'ModotxiiclK.t,ti u,' Wnfw Rm ,% , 329-23 (May 1916): 12-13; and Russkli parizhanm, "Po povodu vechera mody" SielitM ; uWfw, 60-61 (May 1916): 14-15. Additionally, Ae magazine ZhurW W zu ziu M promotes a what appears to be a separate competition for modem Russian dress in 1916. 20 experimental approaches to dress by artists and creative dressmakers, however, reflect the emerging importance of fashion in Russia and its eWvadon to the near status of high art in the early twentieth century (a shift that will figure prominently in my study). Ihey also set the stage for tlic radical designs of the early Soviet period and the discussion of dress as integral to the construction of personal and national identity. While there are many parallels between the early-Petrine and late-imperial periods, the socio-political landscape in Russia was far different in 1900 than it had been when Peter mandated the country's new wardrobe. Though the commercial sphere lagged behind that of the West, recent studies indicate that by the twentieth-century conditions in Russia's major cities at least approximated, though in much smaller measure, those of western Europe. The robust Russian garment industry did much to fuel this expansion, and the modem invention of the department store, though delayed, also eventually graced Russia and slowly prompted consumers, primarily women, to modify their shopping habits.)^ At an accelerated rate dressmaking ateliers became the preferred destination of rural women hoping to create a living for themselves in the big city, and men and women began in unprecedented numbers to find work in factories that produced fabric and articles of clothing in the budding business of ready-to-wear.i"* At the same time, a flowering of the arts in the early twentieth century put Russia on the map for artistic innovation. Among others, the World of Art, Primidvist, Cubo-Futurist, Rayonist, and Suprematist experiments in the visual arts, and the u See Christine Ruane's "Clothes Shopping in Imperial Russia: The Development of a Consumer Culture" foumai of Sodai Hfsfnn/ 28,4 (Summer 1995): 765-82: and Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly, Ch. 2. "Commercial Culture and Consumerism," In CoHsfruchng i u/iufi': ilk' of R tT u o lH iio M ; 1881-1940 (Oxford, UK: Oxford Universily Pmss, 1998): 106-164. Both .trln Iv, u ill In - dis» iix."d later in this chapter. I » In Russia, much of the ready-to-wear goods w n e exporled to other parts of the Empire. Yet, as E. A. Oliunina argues, the domestic ateliers that made dresses to order were also somewhat faetory-like in their approach. E . Oliunina, Perhzouskzi prumysrl c Meskv ; e dm m eM iaW ; MwWshii 1 RwzoMsh)/ g # . Mdm'aly f tsforz: domas/iHci prom ysW eM M csli u Riwsii (Moscow: A. I. Mamontov, 1914): 21 Symbolist, Acmeist. Futurist works of the literary avant'f^arde earned Russian artists and writers the recognition of their international peers. Several groups aspired to a more complex integration of the arts, as experiments in the theater and ballet allowed for a rich expression of modem ideas of rhythm, line, and color. Some artists worked to elevate traditionally "minor" arts such as kwsfar crafts and embroidery to the status of "high" art, or, more precisely, to eliminate such classification for arts of various media. Several artists at the time who we would now consider leaders in modernist approaches were often derided in the popular press for their bohemian lifestyles or avant-garde "antics." Even so, the artists and literati of Russia's urban centers gained a greater public presence at this time, as did artistic production itself. Similarly, popular culture including the cinema and boulevard literature reached epidemic proportions, which brought Russia one step closer to western Europe os it shared in its irrevocable transformation of the urban landscape. Thus, a more vibrant public sphere and a culture that valued the production of various forms of visual stimulation provided a fertile environment for the heightened complexity and artistic ingenuity that women's fashion had begun to acquire, a transformation that appears a consequence of both modernism itself and the maturation of the fashion industry. The Transformation of Fashion As Western fashion took its dramatic turn toward artistry in the early tw entietlT L centur}', photographic reproductions and various promotional materials— sources for fashionable images— suddenly became ubiquitous and, thus, strengthened the emulative appeal of the new designs. In Russia, representations of foreign and native female role models, i.e., images of the new fashionable ideal, were available to women of all classes 22 in unprecedented quantity and frequency. Numerous studies of western Europe during this period point to the detailed workings of the conspicuous arena of fashion in relation to issues of gender and class identity in this evolving urban sphere. Given Russia's status as a "modernizing " urban environmenb parallels to studies in the West that draw upon both aesthetic and socio-economic developments in the system of fashion appear warranted for Russia's major cities. My concern therefore is not necessarily R w ssioM fashion, (hough I will discuss the notable experiments of Russian artists and dressmakers of the period, rather the importance of fashion iw Rwssia between 1908 and 1917, and its particular relevance for women. In recent decades "dress studies," to borrow Christopher ^reward's term,^: have moved beyond the narrow socio-economic focus of works such as Thorstein Veblen's T T ff Theory o f" the Edswre C/ass (1899). In his critique of "conspicuous consumption" Veblen identifies dress foremost as a means for the exhibition and exercise of wealth and social status.!*' According to Veblen, women dressed fashionably to flaunt their surplus of leisure and to provide a legible gauge of their husband's financial success or political prowess. Examinations of fashion in the twentieth century, however, have revealed a radical shift in the system of fashion itself, and the scholarship has evolved to better reflect this transition. Veblen's study appeared on the eve of what scholars have identified as "the birth of modem fashion" in Europe and the United States.!^ This term u Christopher Breward, "Cultures, Identities, Histories: Fashioning a Cultural Approach to Dress," FasiH on m a n / 2:4 (1998): 309. * * Thorsten Vehlen The the /.eiswn; C faps ( 1 (New York: Dover, 1994): 43. 1 7 ^ This has Ixvn ,isvrtud in nunwroui, hisl^'iM "' of tivenUetli i entuf)' Fwfo;ie,m and Amei i, an women's fashion. Foi a imm'm depth deaussion ui tlie twnsitlen, w», amon;; others, Yalerie Skvle "Fashion Revolution" in Fans Issl/KH: ,1 < 'w/fm wl History ed. New York. Berg, t998), and "The Changing Ideal of Feminine Beauy" in I wdiieii iiiid I n'te isw /desk lÿ Fim iiitiM c /mm d* W i farimi f.m te die f«zz Ago (New York: Oxford Univ isit^ Fieis, 1985) .ilso Marianne Thesander " " T h e New Slender Look c. 1910-29" in Tlie FfM iiM iiKtdei;! (London' Fojktioii, 1 * * 9 7 ) 23 is most Arequently applied to women's fashion, where the changes in form and silhouette were dramatic, and it implies a revolution in the understanding of the relationship between the individual and the dress and between the dressed individual and society, Such an assessment does not deny the commercial dimension of fashion, which, in many ways, was enhanced during this period of rapid embourgeoisement of much of European society, but recognizes the growing importance of the image of the new woman in interpersonal and broader social exchange.^* Fashion is understood in this context not exclusively as a commercial or socio-political endeavor— the efforts to meet any financial or class-based pressures to create a particular look— but as an increasingly aesthetic one— a reflection of the individual creative desires to do so. In Russia, where, as Lotman argues, approaching Western fashion more aesthetically appears to have been an established pattern among some classes as a consequence of their forced acquisition of a foreign standard, one finds that the general public in urban Russia appeared particularly receptive to these modem changes in the sphere of fashion itself. Furthermore, this "artistry" helped make the fashion "system" in Russia an institution of public fascination. The revolution in fashion naturally also elevated the role of the designer, who best reflected the notions of innovation and originality, amid growing competition from the ready-to-wear industry and the widespread dissemination of mass-produced articles Some conkmporary atudics of fashion history s W M focus on the socto-economic factor* of dress and the dynamics of power associated with it Philippe Parrot, for esampk, emphasizes issues of class and power that can be derived from the cultural shift In France with the rise of madv tn wear that sou^^ht b) make everyone look like a "bourgeois." The ehte, Iw ar^^um , had to dislmpulsh itself |i)' i realin^ Id;^ fashion. Most recent studies, regardless of fot us. argue that suih "ye! tignomies" to uw' Pcrrot's lerm, must he placed in specific historical contexts, so thalULvse leHiuiiahips of geudu,ilu!,s, orarlian be better detected, Philippe Perrot, fasAiommÿ d* /t Histon/ «« t/k' Nm'A cfd/! ( cHhoy. Trans. R. Bienvenu (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), See also Diarw ( 'mne i aVne» luid its Socitrl .Agendas! Ckss, Clender, and tdfKh'ty in Qetking (Chicago: University of Chicago P, 1990). 24 of clothing. Hie transition to a comparatively more prominent role of the image in culture and to a greater emphasis on the aesthetic role of dress appeared to realize on a more prominent scale the observations made half a centuiy earlier by Charles Baudelaire, who perceived fashion as a complex reflection of contemporary principles of art and found the sphere closely aligned with modernity itself. "The idea of beauty that man creates for himself/' Baudelaire writes, "affects his whole attire, ruffles or stiffens his coat, gives curves or straight lines to his gestures, and even, in process of time, subtly penetrates the very features of his face. Man comes in the end to look like his idea image of himself."^* Modernity, like fashion, Baudelaire asserts, is a fabrication; it looks to the future, regenerating itself and always proposing something different. "[Bjeauty," he continues, "is always and inevitably compounded of two elements, although the impression it conveys is one; [...] Beauty is made up, on the one hand, of an element that is eternal and invariable [...] and, on the other, of a relative circumstantial element, which we may like to call, successively or at one and the same time, contemporaneity, fashion, morality, passion/'^ Baudelaire's assessment of dress as a reflection of prevailing ideas of beauty, even fleeting ones, was hardly earthshattering. But to identify fashion as an impetus for change, the motivation for the renewal of an artistic ideal, and to equate it with modernity, was indeed a bold claim. In an article that examines the progressively mechanized nature of industrialized European society of die nineteenth century and its correlative relationship to modem artistic production, T.eila Kinney argues that Baudelaire's greatest contribution in his analysis of dress was to Charles Baudelatre, "I r * inln' dr la vie moderne ' ImnsLik'd as "The Pamter of Modem Life" (1660) in 5ekrW O M /1r! i/nj I drndHM, brans. P. L . Chan el (I ondon: Penguin, 1972): 391. 2 0 Baudelaire. "The Painh r," 25 "grant fashion a place in artistic theory."^' More often dismissed as mere feminine frivolity, die artifice of women's fashion was suddenly the object of more serious reflection, an opportunity to better understand beauty in its particular "historical envelope/':^ Though Baudelaire saw fashion evolving already in the mid-nineteenth century, much of what he anticipated was predicated upon a culture of looking and mingling, an exposure to others and understanding of the interplay of images and subsequent redefinitions of beau^, that was more fully realized, in Russia certainly, in the twentieth century. It was perhaps only at this time that Baudelaire's ideas of fashion could truly be bom out. The art historian Anne Hollander also sees fashion as closely aligned with prevailing ideas of artistic beauty, those that are articulated in paintings and other works of art. The twentieth century, a period of vast visual reproduction and widespread proliferation of artistic images, provided most members of society with greater exposure to various artistic forms. Hollander concludes that the perception of a fashionable image, whether self or other, is preconditioned by this visual training: "[The] way we see clothes," she writes "[is] mediated by current visual assumptions made in pictures of dressed people.''^) With the emergence in Europe of abstract art, for example, Hollander argues that the public was able to see itself in terms of geometric images, and thus was receptive to the more angular dress designs of the 1920s.2* Yet such an understanding of the fashion system appears to allocate all responsibility for innovation and change to artists and designers, when in practice this process is much 2 1 Leila W. Kinney, "Fashion and Figuration in Modem Life Painting" in AfrhricctwM !. in F a s& io M , eds. Deborah Fausch, et al. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 275. 2 2 Baudelaire, "The Painter," 402. 2) Anne Hollander, fhrowgl! CkiW (Berkelty: University of California P, 1975,1993), xi. 2 ^ Hollander. Secing dnvwgh Cfodies, 336. more ambiguous. Such professionals dream up some styles/ hut these styles are chosen, adapted, modified and "made real" by individual women. Other trends, in contrast, appear to emerge "from the street" before they are perhaps re-interpreted by designers and other fashion connoisseurs. Regardless, the proximity of aesthetic trends and designs in dress proliferate an awareness of the persuasive power of a personal artistic statement. While the swap of images is an essential element in the evolution of styles, and one that appears to have gained in pace and prominence in the twentieth century, it does not follow that other simultaneous influences should be completely disregarded. When one recreates a modem fashionable image, while aesthetic notions might gain prominence in this gesture, the "borrowed" images used for such a composition often carry associations of behavioral or ideological attitudes that might also prompt one toward one detail or another. A beautifully embroidered pocket on a woman's dress, for example, might not register as an overt claim for financial independence, but it might indicate both a desire for ornament, and a place to put one's money, an i?:direcf claim for such purchase power. Perhaps most of these choices are not made consciously, but the implied associations of dress are integral to their appeal. Living people witnessed on the street or in personal encounters who wear fashionable clothes comprise a significantly different phenomenon than a pictorial or even photographic depiction. To the extent that fashion contributes to the formation of individual or collective identities, one's interaction with other "live" fashionable images plays a role in dûs process. In other words, though modem fashion has moved dress firmly into the realm of aesthetics, one cannot deny the continued existence and power of those additional nuances and messages. ITie alliance of dress with particular political, social, or cultural attitudes is most readily "decoded" in extreme examples of fashion. Contemporary subcultures, for example, youth groups such as Goth or Neo-Nazis, adopt a transparent indicator of their political or social status as belonging to a specified group.» Women's dress reforms of the nineteenth century were often the conspicuous undertaking of progressive feminists fighting for suffrage. Their push for equal treatment under the law was reflected in their choice of dress, styles such as the famous "bloomers" that more closely approximated men's clothing.^A For the most part, however, their efforts at sartorial reform failed and were unaccepted by the wider public.:? po allocate fashion the primary importance of agitation was to make the desired statement perhaps too obvious or too loud for most observers. Soviet propaganda fabrics from the 1920s that bore tanks or symbols of the Revolution seem to have witnessed similar popular rejection. Following the turn of the century, during the women's suffrage movement in England, suffragists and suffragettes were more successful in gaining sympathy for their cause when they chose to adopt the dress of a modem fashionable woman.» These groups did not ignore the propagandistic function of dress, radier they enacted it more surreptitiously, drawing on colors that signified their alliance rather than promoting u See, for example, Cheryl Herr, "Terrorist Chic: Style and Domination in Contemporaiy Ireland" in On FWiim, eds. Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferrios (New Bmnswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 235- 66, or Z b Crane, "Women's Clothing Behavior as Nonverbal Resistance: Symbolic Boundaries, Alternative Dress, and Public Space," Fas/iion and lis Social Agendas,' Class, Gcnder, and Idenfiiy in CloAmg (Chicago: University of Chicago P, 1990), 102-107, n i-14. Steele, "The Revolt Againsi Fashion: Dress Reform and Aesthetic Costume," in fasldoM and Emhf Ism i, 145- 146,156-157. Beginning in Ihe IBoO s radical women and Uiose a'lhiciated wilh the percdvizhniki movement were known for their sober, masculine dress. They wcie regul.;rly derided for their sartorial habits and the association of liberated women with coarse, masculine drc s «mdured until the twentieth kvntury. 2 * ]oel H, Kaplan and Sheila Stowell assert that "suffrage feminists opted to dress convenlionally' in unconventional circumstances. The main thrust of their argument remained women's right a .? worm m to occupy space previously occupied by men alone," Dnsrln' miil 1 irslilon. Oscar Wide to lire S»;ÿrggg(tcs (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994) Si\' also Diane Atkinson % 5wg6ugctics in PichuM (Thrupp, ÙK: Sutton, 1996). 28 styles that might appear "radical ^ or non-femmine. As practitioners of fashion, several women's groups who pushed for enfranchisement at the turn of the century realized that their dress was not merely die expression of some social or political change, but a shared interest among women, and one in which the potential for creative and individual expression was great. It was not unusual, for example, for the radical suffragetks who broke windows and stubbornly held to hunger strikes to don a sumptuous fur or a remarkably chic hat. It has also been documented that some designers who supported the battle for suffrage, or more importantly sensed and sought the suffragists' publicity, on occasion even donated articles of clothing to the feminists for their public demonstrations.^ Fashion in the West m the early twentieth century was clearly perceived by many both as a personal art and a means of latent public propaganda. To separate the two was impossible, but to inflate one over the other often proved alienating and dismissive of fashion's subtle register. Indeed the contradictions inlierent to fashion and the complexity of its engagement are manifold, and seem to pose die greatest challenge to students of dress. Practitioners of fashion must negotiate the rival forces of individual/group, innovation/tradition, exposure/protection, and artistry/commerce. In certain historical periods those contradictions can multiply, and even apply to the styles themselves, such as the combination of aggressively feminine and strongly masculine elements in the evening gowns and daywear worn by women in the 1910s. Elizabeth Wilson argues that the ambiguities of fashion are central to its enduring appeal and determine its historical relevance. She cites the extreme waste yet tremendous productivity of the fashion world in the twentieth century as an example of this paradox, and one could easily add to the 2 * Atkinson, T/ic Acfwirg, 60-61. 29 list the dual hmction of conformity and independence at work in every expression that is fashioned through clothing. "Fashion/' she claims, "is modernist irony/'^ an irony rich in implications for women as they adapt to a modem social sphere. If the "meanings" of fashion are relative to a particular period and social group, as they appear to be, to understand the ambiguities of fashion one must recognize the intricacies of its contemporary reality. Several studies in recent decades have used an examination of fashion to uncover issues of gender or class negotiations in a particular culture, or very often both.^^ Some scholars have discussed the tendency to treat the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe, and the period's entry into modernism, as a type of femininization of culture, largely as a consequence of the emergence of the modem commercial sphere and its patterns of material consumption. As one of the primary sectors in retail expansion, the fashion industry figures prominently in such assessments. When considering dress, these claims, however, have been muted in recent years by several studies of men's fashions of the period. Despite the "Great Masculine Renunciation''^^ to cite 1 . C. Flugel's term for the "sobering" of men's fashions in the nineteenth century, it would be misleading to argue that men's dress at the turn of the century was at ah simplistic or even transparent in a figurative sense, not to mention the enduring, though limited, presence of the dandy. As Hollander and recent scholars note, the complexities of social and visual exchange bom out m popular men's fashion were merely more subtly realized during this period.^^ Christopher Breward's recent work, for example, explores competing ideas of X : ElizabeA W ikon, /tdwufV P fivw / VWrniify (Berkeley: University oi tlilik mw l \ 15, See Permt, FasWonnix Ik' li'N/fyni'fi,' ( i,me. I Ik S u i W J e n n i f e r U% ,ul., Ik- liai' , 1/ FaskioM ; in Faslvm (lx)ndon: Rniilk'dpe, 1993), Gilles Upovetsky, Tk? u/1 Wk)», Mmkm Democrmy, tram. C. Porter (Prim flon, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), among others. ^ J. C. Flugel, TlK PsyiW rgy Cktk:* (London: I he Hogarth Press, 1930), 117. Hollander, IhrowgÀ Ckthfs, 360. 30 masculinity and male sexuality at the turn of the century that were enacted in dress.^ While men's fashions may have appeared to be more "democratic," the quality and cut of a fine suit could always bo distinguished from a cheap imposter. In addition, as Flugel demonstrates in his study, if these less expressionistic fashions did not announce socio-economic differences as emphatically as fashions did in earlier centuries (or from as great a distance), men could express their exhibitionist tendencies in other related ways, such as "professional bragging."^ Kaja Silverman notes that though these substitute patterns of behavior are not necessarily reflected directly in dress, they reveal an awareness of being watched, a position more often appointed to the modem female consumer.36 So, while women were the most avid window shoppers of the period, and found venues to be seen in unprecedented number and frequency, men maintained an active part in this cycle, and not exclusively as viewer or spectator, but also as subject of another's gaze. In other words, everyone was looking, everywhere and at everyone. In Russia, even after Peter's decree, men's fashions more often reflected the nationalist impulses of the country and the sublimated antagonism toward the European "other " as it threatened the legitimacy of that which was native or Russian .3 ? Perhaps due to the patriarchal predisposition of Russian culture during this period, as the sartorial standards of the West widened their influence in Russia, women were more readily defined as "other" and were permitted to adopt the imported styles. Chfiatopher Breward, Tf* H iddm z C o M a w M K r; FW iiom azid O'ty 7860-Ï974 (Manchester Manchester University Press, 7999). ^ Flugel, Psydiologv ofC/rdies, 118, as discussed in Kaja Silverman, "Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse," in StwÂ'cs in t-d I Modleski (Bloomington; Indiana University Press, 1986): 141. 3 * Silverman, Traguivuk ol a l ashionahlr Discourse." 142. V For a discussion "I the 1f.idltiou,il dross i if the merchant class, for oxample, six' l :hristine Rua«x''s f hapter "Caftan to Busmi'ss Suit Ihe^s'iniotss of Russian Merchaul IhX 'S'," in A t o li,m( A<lnw:w; hwii^is nfRiMsw's l A m i j H i s A c d « Us. ]. I. W 'esl and I A. Petrov (Printt'tun. Nj: Prhkohiu Uiilverslt} Pro's, 1998), 53- 60. In Russia nv n ol \ anous ranks and st,itions wore uniforms m puhht, im luding unlversih' students. 3 1 whereas for men such patronage was often considered disloyal. An avid interest in fashion could also mark a man as a dandy, and Aerefore as eff^inate, precisely as the standard in western European men's fashion grew progressively more sedate. In Russia, such dalliances might also imply Western or Westemizer political sympathies, or later literary decadence, where for women such intellectual prerequisites would not be anticipated.^^ In addition, an enduring trend for merclrants in Russia was to adhere to traditional dress even as their wives and daughters emulated the imported styles. However, by the twentieth century, perhaps given that socio-political ideas were also crossing over, most male urbanites were also assimilating into the Western fold.^ Yet, despite this transition, if one were to characterize Western fashion for men in the early twentieth century, it would not involve a remarkable sense of artistry, as was ascribed to modem women's fashions. On the contrary, recent studies even seem to argue the existence of a heightened socio-economic function of men's dress, to counter claims of the emergence of more "democratic" or class-neutral styles in the lûneteenth century. Among Russia's cultural elite, on the one hand, several artists and writers took an apparently derisive attitude toward emerging fashions. The early-twentieth-century artistic and literary avant-garde, h)r example, on several occasions publicly mocked the growing homogenization, or, more accurately, the increasing embourgeiosement of Russian society, by parodying its preoccupation with dress. Members of Russian avant- garde groups claimed to reject "tradition" for Ae sake of modernity; by this, however, they meant the standards of the academy, not the tradibonal society of provincial 3 ^ R. M. Kinwmova, K oshwrn v niaxW poWmy ZOv.v. (Mo@cow: W »haia Rossiiskaia cntsiklopediia, 1995) and N. M I arutmkin, poigfor» (Moscow: tzdaWstvoGili% 1994). * * Ruane "Caftan to Business Suit," 57-58. 32 Russia.^ The avant-garde's critique of modem dress appears to have been aimed at the capitulation of Russian urban societ)^ to a greater, all-knowing sartorial force of western Europe, not unlike the presumed authority of the academy. The "native" culture, in contrast, gained the allure of the exotic, rather than "provincial" or traditional in a negative sense, and their demonstrations reflected their interest in the artistic principles of primitivism.^! Hence the public exhibitions of "primitive" face paintings and tattoos by David Burliuk, Mikhail Larionov, and Il'a Zdanevich, in 1913, together with fellow artist Natalia Goncharova, or the "anti-jewelr}'" they included in Üieir outfits— spoons and other mundane utensils appended to their breast pockets.^^ Yet, despite their campaign against bourgeois tastes, numerous members of the Russian avant-garde drew upon the exhibitionist capacity of dress that was so bnlliantly exploited by modem women's fashions. Numerous artists of various groups of the period, including several of the avant-garde, even chose to design modem clothing in earnest. The work of women artists in this sphere will figure more prominently in my study, but as noted earlier several male artists also took part in such activities, most predominantly in the design of elements of a woman's toilette, which appeared to be the more attractive outlet for such impulses. Other male artists chose signature outfits for themselves, such as the writer Vladhnir Mayakovsky whose outlandish yellow blouse (zA elfm a kq/k) * 0 See, for example, "Poshchechlna obshchestvennomu vkusu" (1912) of the Hykea group, translated as "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste," in Rwrnn Adwnsm llirougii ik Maoi/êgtem;, 19V2-792S. Ed. Anna Lawton (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 51-52. * 1 John E. BowlL "Body Beautiful: The Artistic Search for the Perfect Physique," in Laboratory lÿ " Dreams. The Rnsswn AwMt-Cünie t u/twraf l.A/x nwHf, eds. J , E. Bowlland t i Matich (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 53. Bowlt aweits that llrese Cubo-Futurists w«'i\^ likely "drawing on primordial sources," for their tattooing and face-paintmg. For a discussion the "Menih"*lo to men" on fashion b» tih' ' head of Moscow Rayonism" wh' tire artu Ir "Manifest k muzhchinr, inamlesl k zhenshchinc," niulM f (15 Sept, 1913), 4. The at In le mentitm* thatasvmmetrv was a dominant piinciple of the Ray onlst s,utonal aesthetic, including one sided mu&laihes. 33 became legendary/^ In general, however, among most members of socieliy — wealthy, middle-class, even working-class, and bohemian or establishment— an interest in fashion among men could not begin to compete witli the infectious desire among women to flaunt and foster new styles.^ And while the scholarly literature has persuasively demonstrakd the enduring complexity of men's fashion of the period, and the ways in which it acted to inform a masculine identity within certain groups, in other words, patterns similar to what is discussed in relation to women, one cannot deny the prejudice of the period itself, both in western Europe and in Russia, to associate fashionable dress and particularly the "art" of dress foremost with women. In Russia, as throughout Europe, an avid interest in contemporary fashion was not only considered a feminine pastime ("zAeuskoe dele") but it was also seen as the signature passion of the "new woman," whose entry onto the scene in the early twentieth century posed a tremendous challenge to "traditionar cultures. The presumption of a new feminine ideal was of paramount importance to Ihe exercise of fashion and informed the impact of new styles on a personal and public leveL In an article that aligns fashion with femininity and modernism and treats the relevance of this association for architectural movements of the period, Mary McCloud demonstrates the tendency among many western European artists in the early twentieth century to associate femininity with "change, fashion, capridousness, play, artihce, frivolity. lu R V Bakst, Kazimir Makvich, Sergei Sudeikin, and Vladimir Tatlin, among others, designed women's dresses or accessories. For discussions of the significance of Vladimir Mayakovsky's "zkciima iüÿk," see luliia Denddcnko '"Nadeny ia yJicliuiu hluzu..."" in.ApdnyzrdMW potidcwic (fil. I\'tcn,hur;y kliannzizdat, 1998), 65-76; soc also Svetlana Boy m's clx^ipter on Mayakovsky in her i kvdii iw C w llM rai Myiks off/ic .Modem Pcef (Oinihridgc' I larvard University Press, 1991), 4 4 Demidenkn argues that bolil innov.itiotv. in women's fashion "in the era of Bakst" were regularly anticipated and even considt'osj (lie sWndaid, whcn'as kfayakovsky's "yellow blouse" was an unusual masculine fashion statement at the time. Demldenko, ' 'Nadeny la zhcltuiu bluzu.. .,"' 74. 34 charm, delicag, ornament, and maaqncrade/''*^ Kaja Siiverman asserts that beginning in the nineteenth century, gender became primary in importance in dress, surpassing socio-economic factors such as political hierarchy and the accumulation of personal wealth.*^ Though it appears that gender for several centuries had been a major player in dress, given the extreme difference in the masculine and feminine silhouettes alone, I would argue that in the first decades of the twentieth century women's styles revealed a more evident discawrsc of gender difference, in other words, the elevation of female identity as a topic of discussion or even debate, particular in terms of sexuality, in addition to an evolving visual riddle. Several recent studies of tum-of-the-centmy^ European culture isolate issues of gender as informed through dress, and contribute to what joan Wallach Scott defines as feminist historiography, an effort W understand women as agents of history in ways often overlooked by traditional histories of the period.^? As mentioned earlier, much attention has been placed on the primary role of women in consumer culture, their exposure to modem techniques of advertisement and display, their increased presence in the public sphere, and the subsequent influence of those new activities on gender roles and the public and private lives of women.^ Christine Ruane has demonstrated ^ Mary McCloud, "Undressing Architecture: Fashion, Gender, and Modernity" in Arc/iikclurc. In FW iioM , ed. D. Fausch et al. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 4 * Silvermaii, "Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse," 148. vjoan Wallach Scott, C cM der and (lie Polfflcs ofHistory (rev. ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 17. 4 » One dimension of this phenomenon is the new purchase power of women in a modem consumer culture. Proprietors of dcpartmoul stores identified women as the primary target whom they would lure into their businesses with various mcarw of promotion, prompting them to purchase goods through elaborate displays and demonstrations of products, including newly arrived gowns and suits. For more on tltis development in the European and American < nntcAt, See Rosalind Williams, Dream W orlds; Mass ( tv; i/im/ Inai in Lak NnKkcntii-CcMtuty Fraucc (bt'iki'lev, University of California P, 1982) and William I r,wh, 1 insl of Desim; Airrdemts, Power, om d (he Rlsr o/ < / ,'V o io .AnfcncoM Culr^m (New York Vintage, 199)). 35 the equal impact of such changes on the habits of women in the major cities of Russia.'^ Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly echo Ruane's conclusions and argue that far from what was previously assumed by historians of late Imperial Russia/ the consumer impulse garnered unprecedented support from members of Russian society, and from women in particular: The department store [.. .j emerged as a pivotal site of identity formation for the growing urban population. Displaying commodities as spectacle, using goods and promotional images to construct fantasies, it powerfully moulded die modem, urban consumer, educating her (women were specifically targeted as customers) in fashion and good taste. It was, of course, principally a place where the urban bourgeoisie constructed its class and gender identities, learning how to dress, furnish its homes, spend its leisure time. But at the same time these stories were agencies of diffusion, schoolrooms where members of the lower orders, particularly women, could leam the fashions of the day, criteria of taste, standards of 'respectability' and comfort', if only through working in the shops themselves. Muir and Merrilies, which had a mail-order service covering every part of the Russian Empire, could stimulate and realize the fantasies of those too far away, or too shy, to enter its august portals th em selv es, As Ruane also documents, traditional markets remained in Russia, but the new large departments stores such as Gorod Lyons and Muir and Merrilies, and other smaller venues for this modem pastime soon grew up in Russia's major cities. There is also evidence that the fashion salon, a site for die live demonstration of fashionable gowns and a recent innovation in the dressmaking industry, appeared independently of department stores and directly in the ateliers of Russia's premiere couturieres.s) Coupled with cinematic portraits of fashionable women and photographic reproductions (postcards) of celebrity figures (postcards) that were collected by the public, the promotional mechanism for current fashions reinforced the notion of dress as a carefully Ruane, "Clothes Shopping in Impenal Rusaia," 765,77(1-77. so Smith and Kelly, "Commercial Culture and Conaumerkm," 111. An account from 1911 reporta that Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova twd retmllt tier atelier and had included a new arena for fashion "JemnnUratii'ns." Siuh i venk, m .*^ Iui\e ^ ulirity after Paul Poliet ! » vuilt to Moscow and St. PeU rxburg in 1911 \\ith h i" » ' traw ling" (aclihni n up of models % ho pn ouerod several of his nmvest designs.. 36 crafted vehicle for personal and collective creative expression. These two modes of expression operate simultaneously in fashion and add to the complexity of what we find so challenging in the fashion system itself. Many women at the turn of the century, though novices in the art of adapting, manipulating, and exposing this personal fashionable image on a regular basis, quickly became great observers in a culture of frequent public sartorial display. Less exclusively confined to what may have been idle or isolated lives of domesticity, or alternately more burdensome lots, depending on their social origins, women of varying social classes in the major cities of Russia, as in Europe, found new venues for their own exhibition of dress. Numerous Russian periodicals lamenied the sudden increase in fashion's commercial and social role and the rise of female fashion "victims,'' innocent women who were quickly impoverished or ruined by a compulsive desire to have die "right" look.sz This affliction, which evidently plagued women throughout Europe and the United States, was believed b) lead to impaired physical conditions and harmful or scandalous behavior, such as eating disorders and more widespread gallivanting with men. The negative consequences of the pressures to look a particular way, which admittedly are recurring elements in many cultures (both for women and for men) and have endured until modem times, caimot be denied. Some scholars argue that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, among women who desired, or by nature of their profession were required, to dress fashionably, there were some who may have resorted to prostitution to finance their wardrobes.s^ However, though there "Moia lektsiia o zhenshching," H e; sH 111 f'l b 1914): 5, ^ Catherine Schuler has documented Uw fnqucih v of prostitution among aciresaes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who wen'm])"; led hi dress in the most aw courant styles for their performances and who found it diffli ult 1» afinid such lavish outfits on their modest salariif.. Catherine Schuler, tVmwu m Theaim; T/ic in f/L ' Siftvr Age (Wndon: Routledgc, 19%) In late-nineteenth- 37 were unqnestionaWy negative dimensions— economic and physical— of the fashion craze, it is equally important to recognize what women might have gained, individually or collectively, from their participation in the modern art of fashion. Some recent works of dress studies, such as those cited by Maureen Turim and Anne Hollander, have proposed that this revolutionary fashion system introduced styles that more closely reflected women's notions of beauty and sexuality.* Though women's fashions have often been excessively feminine and somewhat outrageous— when we consider, for example, the height of women's wigs in the eigliteenth century or die breadth of women's crinolines in the nineteenth century— the new fashions of the early twentieth century were less a technological feat or decorative appendage and more an expression of the physical sexuality of a woman, which, these authors argue, more closely reflected what a woman might value in feminine beauty. An essential element in the development of these new designs, and a process enhanced by "window shopping," was the heightened emphasis on fantasy in the world of fashioiL^s Fantasy was not completely absent in earlier periods, but the widespread aspirations of women from a variety of ccntuty French literature, there is a tendency to associate fashionable dress with prostitution, and often milliners and dressmakers with prostitution. Wendy Camber argues, however, dwt these fictional or literary scenarios reflect an interest in discouraging women from business and entering the workforce. Wendy Gambler, The Female Economy,' The Add/im ery and Dressmak'n^ Tmdes, 7860-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois P, 1997), 17-18, ^ This claim has been made by several scholars of fashion, including Maureen Turim, "Seduction and Elegance: The New Woman of Fashion in Silent Cinema" in On F asT w on, eds, Benstock and Ferriss; Anne Hollander, Sex mid Suds.' The EWwhmi oTModem Dnzss (New York: Kodansha, 1994); Steele, Fashimi and EmtidsMi, and Ann Freidberg, tViiidw Slmpping; C nieiM a and idc Postmodern (Berkeley: University of California P, 1993). * 5 Several studies explore the role of the female consumer in the modem urban commercial environment. Anne Friedberg discusses the importance of the department store to the rise of the "flâneuse," the modem female observer of culture. "The department store [,,,] constructed fantasy worlds for itinerant lookers," Friedtterg writes, Windote Kheppiag, 37, Other works elaborate on the "purchase power" of modern women and its ability to erode traditional notions of sm uil a'ul familial roles for women, Nan Enstad looks at working women In New York and the liberating I'lfwt of lanlasy and dressing up. Tadws Labor, Cirb tÿ " Adwnfun?.' kVortdny kWnien, Popidar Cuiiun', and f iduT robin s oi dir Turn of iiic Ccwfury (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), For a look at a similar 1 * ^ 0 (1 0 0 1 y, s if Kathy Pciss's Oieiy AmusciMoifs; Wm-tmg W iW K M and ia-isun' in TvrM -e/^ÜK-Crm fury Ncre 1 crA (Mnkidclpliia: Temple University Press, 1980). 38 classes to look like the icons of popular culture altered the relevance of such dreams. Fashion became a common vehicle for one's own transformation, a process that was more tangible for many women than it had ever been before. As consumers, women expressed and acted upon their desires more directly, and by choosing and purchasing fashions they subsequently determined the demand for the capitalist supply. These desires never before had been articulated so directly nor so often, nor had the styles changed so rapidly to meet them. The pace of fashion was suddenly frenetic and the new choices were innumerable. Women were simultaneously engaged in consumption and "commodified self display," as Rachel Bowlby has termed it* In other words, they were conscious of being looked at while also themselves looking. On a commercial level, they were exposed to luxurious gowns, fantastic designs that they could see and touch, and perhaps even reproduce themselves, in measure, if they could not afford a couture or even ready-made model. Bowlby asserts that with the rise of the department store and consumer culture women were urged to "purchase sexually attractive images for th em selves." 57 Indeed, the extent to which fantasy involved issues of sexuality in this process is notable. As Laura Engelstein has documented persuasively, in early- twentieth-century Russian popular culture the growing prominence of sexual themes transformed a formerly prudish society into one of more frequent erotic display.* This explosion of eroticism deeply influenced the contradictory impulses of euphoria/paranoia that characterized the modem social sphere. In the history of % Rachel Bowlby, CoMMfwr CWfwK w i Dmwr, awl Zo/a (New York; Methuen, 1965), 11. See also Friedberg, SAoppi»;;. ^ Bowlby, /uat LoohM ÿ, 11, ^ laura KngelsWin, Kfys (o Sirarc/i/ôr AtnjrrMily bi Fm-Æï-Sièdc RHwia (Bhaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). 39 women's dress, elite fashions, mostly evening gowns, were by definition titiUating, such as the empire sheaths of the early nineteenth century that exposed arms, necks, and dramatic décolleté, or even die voluminous gowns of later decades with tlieir expansive, open shoulders and brimming bust In Russia, where the middUng classes began to emerge much later than in western Europe, these styles (and even their representation in jkshion magazines) were long the domain of a select few. In a study of early-nineteenth-century "dressy-dress" fashions in Russia, Helena Gosdlo, sees a primacy of the issue of decency in these public yet intimate cultural exchanges.^ Decency or propriety is a relative notion when discussing styles of a given period, yet a universal function of dress is (he dual quality of revealing and concealing. The tension between the two and its cultural referent is defined by the particular age. In an extensive study of western European women's fashions from the Victorian era to the 1920s, Valerie Steele, author of numerous additional works on dress, summarizes: All my research has led me to believe that die concept of beauty is sexual in origin, and the changing ideal of beauty apparently reflects shifting attitudes toward sexual expression. At the deepest level, the meaning of clothing in general and fashion in particular is also erotic. Symbiotic with changing ideals of erotic beauty, the evolution of fashion has an internal dynamic of its own that is only very gradually and tangentially affected by social change within the wider culture [...] Fashion is not a power unto itself, but the principle dynamic of fashion is an internal one. World historical events and subsequent changes in popular attitudes might appear to precipitate dramatic changes in fashion [...] but closer investigation wiU reveal that the roots of the change in fashion prticede the great event— be it (he French Revolution or the First World War.* In keeping with Steele's assertions, we might then propose that as fashions in the early twentieth century began to more closely reflect women's ideas of erotic and sartorial * Helena Goscilo, "Kecptng A-bmist of the Waist-land" in R w M W HW e« eda, H. Goadio and B. Holmgren (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 31-63. Steele, F asM oM am d Erofiosm, 5. 40 beauty, this palpable sexuality, while clearly threatening for some, became suddenly and overwhelmingly excidng, not merely for the women who wore these fashions, but also for their male and female peers— designers, dance partners, audiences— wherever they encountered them. The new fashions also popularized a creative and visual vocabulary previously unfamiliar to most women and allowed for a more personal expression of this understanding of physical and decorative beauty. "At least in part, the feminine rite of self-beautification was auto-erotic," Steele continues, a type of self- satisfied sexuahty that was unprecedented for most women. Is it then, perhaps, also feasible to propose that women's flaunting of their sexuality and flouting of taboos in Russia, a country whose legal reforms in the area of women's rights progressed at a sluggish pace, indirectly led to changes in women's roles in society and ultimately to more concentrated efforts for equal legal or political reform? If one considers the widespread patronage of new styles among women in Russia and the incessant impact of something as quotidian as dress, this reasoning does indeed seem plausible. A closer look at the culture of the period also lends credence to this position; while the role of clothing until recently has been underestimated as an agent of identity and potential change, in early-twentieth-century Russia some social critics were already threatening that the power of fashion to alter women's behavior needed to be checked. In considering period styles retrospectively it is easy to regard them as the consequence of the dramatic developments of a historical period, but a careful examination, such as Steele's, shows that new styles often emerge before the historical shift that might "explain" them, even if such developments later, after the histoiical events have come and gone, manifest themselves more overtly or more pervasively in popular styles. Steele offers the war crinoline of 1914-1917 as an example. Ihe raised 41 hemlines often have been interpreted as (he outcome of women entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Yet before the outbreak of war in July 1914; Steele reveals, skirts already had begun to expose the ankles and widen in girth. Studies that tend to oversimplify die causal relationship between historical conditions and dress styles, and the subsequent decoding of their significance, deny many of the ambiguities and contradictions that lie at the heart of these sartorial decisions. For example, a wealth of documentary material from the early twentieth century indicates that the somewhat mythological figure of the "new woman," with her aggressive femininity and exquisite taste in dress, was a consequence of the growing liberation of women. But her appearemce preceded, rather than followed, any significant gains in women's legal and political equality, certainly in Russia, so her appearance was not necessarily the outcome of reform, but perhaps a subconscious impulse toward it.^^ In Moscow and St. Petersburg imported dresses were perceived as less threatening, and perhaps more expected for women, than imported politics. The somewhat enigmatic "new woman" may have surfaced in "real" life more seldom in Russia than in Europe, but as a prominent cultural phenomenon and enduring social preoccupation the "new woman" also quietly inhltrated Russian narrative and visual culture. The slow and steady emergence of this modem "type" initiated a craze in which women from a variety of classes attempted to approximate (he "new woman's" appearance, even if these same women often chose not to engage in much of the compromising behavior (smoking, drinking, carousing) that often accompanied the propagated image, M For more on (he women's movtuwnt m so,' I I («irrict lù.lmondwn, Fem iH M m m 7900- 7 (Stanford: Stanford Unlvcmtty rhts;,, IV"4) and RidwrJ Stiles, 1 % - A/lopcmenf R w K W .' Fem im sw*. Nz/dfiiw, ftiW f9:tO (Princeton, N|: Trinceton Univcrsit)' Press, 1978,1991), 42 This is precisely where a study of fashion becomes relevant for Russia. In a country where only a small minority of women rallied for greater legal and social equality in the pre-Revolutionary era, die majority felt the influence of fashion on their daily lives, as did their counterparts in the West. Fashion was a persuasive means to convey—subconsciously— reformist ideas in part because it used femininity, even heightened femininity, in its redefinition of the feminine ideal. Russia's distance from the "source" of these new fashions also allowed it more readily to divorce the "look" from any potential political "leaning" that others might associate with it, particularly given the Russian cultural predisposition to perceive Western fashions more aesthetically and superficially. Fashion, then, in this context did not act as a consequence of social change, but as a catalyst for it. Collectively women were more receptive to fashion's influence because it belonged to the more traditionally "feminine sphere" of culture and seemed an "appropriate" occupation for women. However, by their adherence to Western trends, Russian women took part in a process that on some level defied traditional notions of what a woman should or could weeu and ultimately do. If considered on the level of the image, for example, fashion may have accomplished the unanticipated task of bringing Russian women into a cycle of creative, visual, and social reform that never completely reversed itself. And perhaps, in broader terms, one could argue that creative achievements rival political ones in bringing about greater long-term challenges to women's roles in society. 43 The Russian Context In his analysis of Russian oighteenth-centun^ culture, Intman sees as a consequence of the semiotLwtion of daily life a tendency to look to artistic culture for models of daily behavior. In early-twentieth-century Russia, this attitude is most acutely sensed in the mythologies of the Symbolist poets. The elaborate pursuit of zfiizMefuorchcsfco, or the application of principles of one's art onto one's life on the part of artists and the literati has been documented and argued by numerous scholars.^ That the general public, particularly women in search of a new ideal, may have also turned to art, literature, and film for models of daily life, until recently has received little attention. Yet a study of the "new woman" — the fashionable, liberated, creative new "type" that appeared in these various artistic spheres of the early twentieth century— will demonstrate the pervasiveness of this theatricalization of life. A repercussion of this approach, for many women, was the emulation of a more independent, creative, modem ideal. Scholars of the Silver Age in Russia have pointed to the expansion of women's artistic production during this period and have noted the equally significant emergence of the female celebrity— singers, film stars, dancers, and actresses of the theater. Yet, with some exceptions, few of these public or "notable" women aligned themselves with any of the feminist political groups that were active in Russia before the Revolution.*^ " z Lotman includes reference to zluzMch'orcWAw at the conclusion of his article on aristocratic culture after Peter's reforms and Indicates an emergence of parallel phenomena in early twentieth-cenhuy culture. "Poetics of Everyday Behavior in Russian Eighteenth Century Culture" 25Z M Writers were more likely to adopt fnnlnist political views than performers given their typically more Intellectual backgrounds. Ilowever, s,'\eral, such as Zinaida Cippius, despite apparent individual "liberation" resisted organized cttorts In lobby for change. I hem were certainly exceptions to this trend. .Alexandra Kollonlai, a political activist and reputedly fashionable woman, worked to gain gn-ator equality for women as a part of the communist revolution. Anastasiia Verbitskaia the widely read, highly successful writer of melodramatic literature, often represented feminist tlremes in her work, particuLirh m the early 44 Of the more prominent @ e t at the lime, writers such as Zinaida Gippius, Teffi, Anna Akhmatova, and performers such as Anastasiia Vial'tseva, Vera Kholodnaia, Tamara Karsavina, and Vera Karalli preached more by example than by pulpit. Although diey were neither suffragettes nor suffragists, nor a significant voice for social and political reforms, these more "visible" women of the early twentieth century enacted their own type of challenge to society by pursuing successful professional careers,** The few leading feminists of Russia from this period, the journalists Sofia Zarechnaia and Bronislava Rundt, for example, often publicly criticized women writers and artists for failing to lead their peers to greater independence and, in contrast, praised those whose work was more transparently and provocatively feminist.*^ Yet the more explicitly activist voices of the period, Liubov Stolitsa or even Alexandra Kollontai, arguably have not endured to the degree that writers such as Akhmatova or even Gippius and Teffi have.** That is not to say that Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, and the others who emerged as the canon of twentieth-century literature did not challenge gender assumptions regarding artistic production. Yet, particularly in this early part of the century, the challenge was typically more subtle, and several women artists often drew upon an assumed "women's world" as a source of literary inspiration. In the process. year@ of her carwr. The heroines of her later works, such as Mania of füys (o Happiwas, were often criticized for compromising their feminist ideals. w Writers were generally visible through name rather than face, although Beth Holmgren has written about the tendenci^ during this period to promote works of literature by women by using photographic images of the writers in advertisements. B . Holmgren, "Gendering the Icon: Marketing Women Writers in Fin-de- siecle Russia" in Russia lAWen Cu/fun;, eds. Gosdio and Holmgren, 321-46. See, for example, Sofia Zarechnaia's critique of Gippius In "Zhenskoe o ne-zhenskom" (neskol'ko slov o Gippius). ZAcuskoe defo 10 (1913): 14-18. While Alexandra Kollantai, for cramplr. had a successful career bodi before and after the Revolution, her reputation has diminished in moic rciont ihtadcs Xkhmatova's, in contrast, has only risen, a* have other writers die neglect of whom under (hr ici n.t lus allowed them only recently to emerge. See, for example, the anthology 5fo foi icss I'cA a, .4n/oine;iir, whkh was republished within five years of its original publication (St. I'ctersburg. Fond Russkoi ^ i i9%). See also the recent publication of the poetry of Pallada Bogdanovadleli.k,n,i, R am m : M m za. \ ^ nmgcT, Rpgdanem-BcTskmia (St. Petersburg: Izdatel'skii dom ' Kolo," 2(ltll), 155-92. 45 however, these same writers simultaneously helped redehme what was possible for women to accomplish in Russian society and led the way for more widespread reforms. One can better measure the contribution of these women by looking at the arts alone in this period. As noted, the number of women writers and artists who emerged to gain recognition is astounding, particularly considering the near absence of women from the public sphere in the nineteenlh century. Several practitioners of the visual artists, for example, while achieving public recognition as "legitimate" artists (even "masculine" artists on occasion), raised the medium of clothing and accessory design, an overwhelmingly "female" sphere in the terms of the day, to a level of legitimacy, and at times closely associated their art with traditional "women's work" such as sewing and needlework. By portraying this work as an extension of their larger goals in art, artists such as Goncharova, Olga Rozanova, and Alexandra Exter made fashion and accessory design a more serious endeavor, a bold move for women who frequently endured various forms of gender prejudice in the reception of their work. Several writers, particularly the popular fiction writer Anastasiia Verbitskaia and the poet Akhmatova, in what might be considered a parallel move, allowed representations of the fashionable woman, the "mundane" details of the everyday, to play starring roles in their works, and preserved the image of the "new woman" perhaps even more distinctly on the page than on the street. Their depictions speak to a collective desire on the part of female readers to relive at least vicariously the fantasies of the "new woman," and their mere presence as successful, professional artists equally was inspiring. The Russian women artists and writers of this period may have contributed indirectly to the flow of fashionable images, and the perpetuation of fashion as a 46 feminine discourse, but some of the most "visiWe" fashionable women of the Silver Age in Russia were the new celebrities— actresses, singers, ballerinas, and film stars— whose photographic images were cherished and circulated among their devotees.*^ These domestic stars were not alone among the celebrities represented in fan paraphernalia, but they allowed for more immediate emulation by fellow women in Russia by erasing the mythology of inaccessibility sometimes associated with foreign celebrities. These figures added creative depth to the collective feminine sphere in Russia, and helped introduce a discourse of fashion that would enable women to And greater personal expression in their own dress. Supported by a large women's press with its dominant sartorial focus, the new popular icons of fashion fed the fantasies of aspiring stars. As women were brought together by a common interest they also grew closer in proximity to discussions more political in nature. In select women's magazines, for example ZheM skoe dale (Women's Cause), Üiough fashion played an increasingly more central role in the periodical, the social and political gains of foreign women toward achieving greater equality or independence regularly were slipped in toward the end of the issues. Films also showcased the new styles, and popular literature, like the widely read works of Verbitskaia, offered extensive discussion of sartorial details. A look at fashion's integration into literature, art, and other accessible forms of narrative culture, allows one to see the evolution of fashion as an important engine of change for female identity. Fashion, while long linked to masquerade and artifice, became an exciting tool for personal creative performance and a celebration of the theater of life. Women were receptive to creative production in general at this time, and could be thrilled by their For a study ot an I'ady-t^ I'nticth century female celebrity, ace the chapter by I « \lcReynolds on the popular RussûH !»in|;rr Anast,u,iM Vial taeva: "'The Incomparable' AnasWiia Vi* I w md Uie Culture of Personality" in kwww W tm i'M i «Ih/rc, 273-94. 47 "own" beautiful spectacle. It is therefore a logical step to consider the exact nature of these styles that allowed for the spread of fashion's "tyranny" and to explore the arenas that were exploited to achieve such goals. Modern fashions Before the twentieth century, styles in women's dress also regularly had echoed earlier traditions, and such a pattern continues today. One example of a traditional model that emerged both in the early twentieth century and the early nineteenth century was the style m rzp/rc, a cut inspired by the simple elegance of gowns worn in the Classical age.^ In Ae early nineteenth century, the women of elite society could be seen in thin, white shifts made of silk chiffon or other fine fabrics. The empire line endured for at least a decade at that time, but a century later when it reemerged it was briskly reinterpreted into a collage of styles, a deliberate clash of fabrics, cultures, and periods that defined the modem dress. The pace of fashion quickened permanently in the early twentieth century, a feature that contributed to the breathless enthusiasm and anticipation often associated with it. In 1907 the French designer Paul Poiret introduced a line of dresses that appeared to break with the designs promoted by most of the major ateliers in Paris. Steele has noted that Poiret was by no means alone in his move toward an empire silhouette, in other words toward a "freer" form than the severely corseted S- curved figures of the turn of the century.^^ She and others have documented the lUs înteresUng to note diat the empire dress was derived from a style of dress worn both by men and by women, w I use "freer" here with qualification. While the empire dress was a dramatic departure from the heavily corseted figure of previous years, by 1911 the new fashions were soon dominated by what became known as die "hobble skirt," a cut that tightened narrowly at and below the knm' and greatly impeded movement. Ihe style was much aligned in the popular press and before long, skirts Iwg i" allow for a much greater range of mobilitv. Steele, fWnou snd Erohdsm, 226-28. 48 evolution toward the new line, both in fashion houses and with those associated with the theater.^ Yet, for the most part, the transition appeared fairly sudden on the scene. Ihe cuts of Poiret's gowns were familiar to the tradition, but his new designs called for plush velvets, rich brocades, and paisley silks to be combined together with the delicate chiffons and tulles of the previous incarnation of the empire style. These sumptuous, and often colorful fabrics heightened the sensuous appeal of the gowns and allowed for a softer more elongated silhouette, much like the art nouveau illustrations of the turn of the century. Sinuous, sexy, and elegant, the designs soon earned Poiret widespread praise. Large furs and velvet and paisley wraps, elaborate hats and newly visible shoes were part of the woman's toilette, ensembles that could never be summarized as merely empire, but a wealth of references— Persian, fapanese, Chinese, Roman, Greek— working together to form the total modem look. The new look was multi layered, both literally and figuratively, and now changed within months rather than years or even decades. Few women could afford these lavish gowns, but elements of these designs— transparent sleeves, an elevated loosened waistline, vibrant colors— were incorporated into more modest outfits that were either ordered from a dressmaker or, for women of more limited means, sewn b } '^ the women themselves, given the widespread availability of the sewing machine throughout Europe, including Russia. Furthermore, the vast array of photographic reproductions that depicted the arbiters of taste in society, the new female celebrities, allowed more "extreme" examples of current trends to at least seem more common among women. Ihe styles initiated by Poiret and his peers were disruptive to contemporary society both in their overt sexuality and in their fleeting quality. Ihese designs 7 0 F aa/u oM 227. 49 embodied revolution in body and in apirit. They changed by the moment and thereby facilitated change among their patrons, encouraging an orientation forward rather than backward. In the newly modernized urban sphere of Russia, these changes were jarring. In a culture that only recently had shed its more general reliance on folk customs of dress, these progressive fashions were for many beguiling. By the 1910s tlie element of fantasy in women's evening gowns seemed to overshadow their sense of utility, Thus, the most important property of these dresses, according to Hollander, became that of attracting onlookem, in other words, engaging otlrers in one's own creative designs. Hollander describes the styles as "extremely expressive, almost literary, and very deliberately decorative and noticeable."^ The "exotic" reference of the European designs for women stemmed in part from the spectacular costume designs of the wcU-received BaZkts Rwssrs productions that began in Paris in 1909. The possible influence of a Russian phenomenon on European fashions is ironic, given Russia's dutiful deference to Parisian sartorial expertise, but it is one that certainly earned them recognition in the WesL^) Though the first BaZkk Rw sses productions, managed by Sergei Diaghilev, ran until 1914,^ the designs most influentiai on the world of fashion were those of the Erst few seasons by the talented artist Lev Bakst, who, in addition to painting and work in the theater, eventually designed masquerade costumes, evening gowns, and modem outfits for many of his affluent n Hollander, awd Swtd, 360. 7 % Photographs of 8% productions were often featured in Femina, and odier prominent western magazines, Newspaper in the west, including the United States, featured artk les on "The Russians". ^ I'm concerned here with the first Ballets Russes productions iKit ran until 1914, though the later serwa were perhaps also influential on fashion. 50 Russian and western European supporters/"* Charles Mayor has argued that the enormous success of the Ra&fs Rwssty performances allowed them to foster an understanding of everyday reality as theater and spectacle,^ a process described by Lotman as already fundamental to at least one layer of Russian society, and one which was now affecting several. The productions popularized art^ as women sought to recreate the look of Cleopatra, Schéhérazade, and the several other dramatic heroines of the Bafkf Russes performances. In Iris designs, Bakst drew inspiration from Egypt, Ancient Greece, India, Arabia, and other "exotic" cultures. The "orientalism" phase of the Ba/igfs Russes influence could be felt in the "brilliant colors, richly textured fabrics, turbans, aigrettes, beads and tassels '^a that were suddenly an integral part of women's evening wear. Cicepafra spawned a fashion for dyed wigs among the elite and Sck^crazade contributed to the brief fad forjupe-cuiofk or sharouun/ (harem pants), a trend that scandalized both Russian and European societies perhaps more than any other experiment in dress of the period.^ Arguably the most spectacular of the Balkfs Russes designs were those by Bakst for C Z copR fra and ScMierazade, both jfirst performed by the elegant Ida Rubinstein, an actress whose beauty w as reputed to have far exceeded her talent. As Charles Spencer has argued, Rubinstein was Bakst's (and the period's) feminine ideal— a taU, boyishly slim, dark-eyed brunette— whose identity as a wealthy Jewish heiress apparently only enhanced the wonderment surrounding her bakst also wrote atwut women'; fashions, whkh will be mentioned later in the chapter on fashion and arL Bakst's designs for women's dresses and costumes appeared in vvcm l periodicals, both in Russian and the west. Among the most prominent were Stolitsa 1 usadba and CumcuH.i Illustre. Charles Mayer, "The Impact of the Ballets Russes on Design in the West, 1909-19^14 in The Awmt Garde F roM figr. Ri^ssia Meets ti;c ed. Gail Harrison Roman and Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida F, 1992): 15-44. See also John E . Bowit, "Body Beautiful," in Lakoruion/ e/DM g?HS, 40-41: and L , Bakst "L S. Bakst o sovremennykh modakh," Uim Rnsm i (Moscow) 33 (9 February 1914), 6. ' ' ' ' Steele, AWiion and EnitfcisM r, 227. 7 7 Bakst claims credit for such influences in an interview for a Russian newspaper in 1914. "L.S. Bakst o sovremennykh modakh," 6, 51 performances.^ In Bakst's ornately decorated costumes of ancient Egypt, Rubinstein, as Cleopatra, stole the 1909 season. In the following year, for first performed in June in Paris, Rubinstein appeared in an elaborately beaded, brightly colored, provocative costume of an Arabian woman, and other similarly erotic costumes, as she mimed the roles of the women in Schéhérazade's nocturnal stories. Ihe image of the Sultan's slave caught the imagination of Paris and ultimately of Europe and the United States. was not the sole inspiration for the concubine element in modem dresses, nor for the popularity of such costumes for masquerade balls, yet the revival of orientalism pursued by the most famous Parisian couturiers, including Poiret and Jeanne Paquin, certainly shared much in common with Bakst's theatrical designs. The highly sexualized imagery of the concubine and her abode also penetrated both the decadent and decent circles of Russian society One should note, however, that Schéhérazade was an unusual Bgure, both within the tradition of Arabian literature and within the fashion culture of the period. An unmistakable beauty, set to be sacrificed for the sins of a fellow woman (the Sultan's philandering wife), Schéhérazade earns back her fate through her brilliant stoiytelhng, while ultimately showing the Sultan the error of his ways and becoming his queen. That the inspiration for these exotic trends was a woman lavishly outfitted to please her master, yet also capable of cunning superior to that of a man of tremendous power, speaks to the age of the "new woman " and a frequent narrative scenario: an attractive, yet kept woman, who becomes empowered by her intelligence and her ability to wield Charles Speix*'r, LvH Bm & fs R M gsc* (London: Academy Editions, 1995), 73,147-49. 7 » See, for example, the photograph of a masquerade Wll at Countess Mariia Kleinmikhel's publicized in SW tw / waad(w,St. Petersburg, 4 (15 Feb. 1914): H (and reproduced In B. Ometev and J , Stuart, 5f. Portraif of an fm ipcrùd C i'h/ [New York: Vendôme, P »V U |, 129,) See also a later issue of StoKfw f uWba for a design by Bakst for one of the costumes at the hall. ; ffsadhi, St. Petersburg (2Ü April 1914): 19. 52 her craft, is able to lull her suitors and define her own future. ITiis narrative also reflects the dominant mythology of the fashions of the period, a tendency to look the port of the sex slave, while becoming liberated by this creative act, a simultaneous use of beauty and ingenuity to gain what one desires. Yet, the look was often a treacherous one, particularly when engaged by a "real" new woman, because at the heart of this expression was a deeply felt sense of sexuality. Around 1913 the "lampshade tunic" dominated eveningwear: a semi-transparent stiffly flared tunic fell to the thighs and often covered a brocade, velvet, or patterned skirt that wrapped at the fronL Initiated by Poiret for the theatrical production L e M zM aret, the tunic became a popular component of women's fashion. The cut of the accompanying skirt provided an open view of the feet, a change that might seem modest at first glance, but constituted a dramatic turn toward exposure in the history of women's fashion that within just a decade or so climbed to the heights of the flapper craze. Promotional articles for an assortment of footwear, including the new tango shoe with crossed ribbon laces modeled on the ballet slipper, gained greater prominence in Western and Russian fashion magazines. Several types of semi-transparent fabrics— chiffons, georgettes, organzas, tulles— teased the exposure of the arms, neck, and increasing décolleté. Once abstracted from its more immediate purpose of covering the body, dress could adopt the qualities of any "art." Thus, originality, color, texture, and the "total" look could compete m importance with the gown's socio-economic message. These dual elements of exposure and eroticism were also closely linked to an evolution of the physical core of these designs, the emergence of a more modem female hgure. Several works in the field of dress studies, such as those by Marianne Thesander 53 and Maureen Turim, have explored the relationship between a prevailing physical ideal (as exemplified in a mannequin or dress) and the cultural perception of ideal beauty of a particular period.*) This reigning silhouette often determines the physical model to which women aspire, either in image or in behavior, and informs their collective and personal sense of what is feminine. In the early twentieth century, an essential ingredient in the transformation of the figure was tlie corset and the various public challenges to its function and even existence. At the turn of the century the most common corset worn by women of the middle and upper classes was an article made of thick fabric lined with whalebone for strength that could be laced tightly. The dominant silhouette at the time, the S-curve, required a dramatic bend in the figure. It produced a barreled chest, a protruding buttocks, and a fine, wasp-like waist. The dress designs from this period often convey a sense of statuesque immobility. The heavily ornamented busts of evening gowns or the frilly, lacey high-necked blouses and tea gowns that women wore during the day enhanced the sense of dress as superficial ornament and women as static creatures in a larger aesthetic context. Advocates for dress reform often cited the hazardous nature of corsets for women's health. Studies appeared that documented the extent to which women permanently deformed their bodies through tight-lacing, but the degree to which women adhered to this ideal is difficult to assess. However, in 1908, as Poiret announced that the corset should go, designs began to loosen, and the empire waist soon made the restrictive corset less essential in a woman's toilette. Women generally were not willing to abandon their corsets altogether, but many did adopt the softer, w See, for example, Ihesander, f k FewmiM c and 1 urim, "Seduction and Klegancc: The New Woman of Fashion in Silent Cinema." $4 elastic corsets that were introduced to allow for a greater range o( mo\ n L » ' These corsets remained somewhat constrictive, though not on the waist per se, and certainly maintained the function of the corset as facilitating the prevailing physical ideal. Ihe new line, however, departed drastically from its predecessors; it was longer, slimmer, and more svelte. When an interest in sports and modem dances, especially the tango, swept over society, women often were compelled to leave their corsets behind, even if only sporadically, or to move to a two-piece, shorter corset. Popularized in live performances and films by professional dancers,*^ the tango became the most daring spectacle of elite society.* ) Women began bending in all directions, exposing their feet, ankles and limbs, and engaging in a dance whose titillating origins was all too well known,^ The physical ideal that emerged from this period is one in which less focus is centered on the bust or other traditional erogenous zones, but on the total body, including the head.85 Steele writes, "Clothing could be designed from the shoulders down instead of, in effect, upwards or downwards from the waist."*^ Ihe large-brimmed, elaborate hats of 1910 and 1911 soon became impractical for such a mobile crowd and were replaced by a series of heavily plumed, ornately gemmed tiaras and headdresses, consistent with the prevailing orientalist ^ Steele, F da/uoM am ii EroW oam, 227-28. ^ The couple Elza Kriuger and Mak were one example of a professional tango pair. In addition to providing performances in Russia, they sold promotional materials including a set of cards with tango poses. Elza Kriuger also danced the tango in a popular Russian silent film, Nikmi I^V ilnesscs. Early indications of the fashion craze were published In Russia already in 1911, but the dance seems to have become popular by 1913. "In Paris a new dance, the tango,' is being danced at balk instead of the waltz." "Novyi salonnyi tanets," Pclobwrgskaia gazck, (18 Ian. 1911): 3. R : The craze was so popular it spawned its own color "tango" (a Meshy, pale-orange-beigo color) in the 1913 fashion season. * 4 See M. b l Bonch-Tomashevskli, K m 'gü o Isldrsstno i (Moscow: V. Portulagov, 1914); and for a contemporary study of tire tango, Marta É . Savigliano, Tongo ami Ihc Rolltlod Economy Passion (Boulder: Wesh'iow, 1995). Thesander, Flic 1 cm m lM C Ideal, 107. * * Steele, Paslzlon ,oal l.roh iT l@ m , 227. 55 flavor of dress. These new slyles— skiits^ blouses, and head ornaments— more fully embodied the modernist impulse of dynamism. The debate surrounding the corset— including, among other commentary, Poiret's call to eliminate the corset— was perhaps one of the most confrontational elements of the new fashions. Making women's intimate apparel (in other words, the cover for the site of sexuality) a legitimate topic in social discourse unveiled the body for public analysis and inspection.^? Ihis act paralleled the performances of the dancer Isadora Duncan, whose interpretations of classical music in modem dance often scandalized audiences, not only for the erotic and artistic audacity of her dance but her failure to wear a corset and adequately "cover " herself. Duncan, like Poiret and others, offered the corset and the exposed body up for dissection. Dresses did not simply reveal the limbs in unprecedented ways, they suggested further exposure and nakedness by raising the possiklih/ of an absent corset among women. This issue was felt Üiroughout culture. One early Russian silent film, for example, depicts a young woman (likely perceived as a person of questionable morals since she is carousing with a married man) as she moves behind a screen to remove her corset during a party. Once free of the corset, the young woman is able to dance and cavort with her lover without suffocating (illustrated earlier in the film by her gasping for air). Yet her silhouette, already that of the evolved woman of the 1910s, appears little changed from the removal of the corset.^* Thus, though the total "look" of fashion became primary in importance during this period, the approach to the components of dress was conversely analytical. The See Steele's chapter on "The Attraction of Underclothes," in Ffw ino?: om d Troh'cM m , tor the emerging influence of lingerie on fashions in the ninctw'nlli century. * AntoshH korsfipoguW (Anton is ruined hy n t urset). Lucifer Film Studio, Dir. Eduard Puchalski, perf. Anton Fertner, Pelrograd, 1916. 56 mulü-referential quality promoted a recogmtion of the pieces of the wholes and women gained license to assemble their own outfits, bringing together accessories such as the newly popular handbags— "ridicules" (or "reticules") as one popular type was referred to. General discussion also centered on the feminine or masculine nature of elements of women's dress, particularly when more dramatic moves to challenge these distinctions were introduced. As women's evening or party wear grew more explicitly erotic, women's day suits began to more closely resemble men's suits. The popular kiifewr style of the 1910s, for example, can be characterized both as sensuous and feminine, but it also utilized elements of male dress, such as the tailored jacket, a more severe blouse, and, at times, a tie. Some day styles were more overtly feminine, such as the ubiquitous jabot blouse of 1913, yet the new day suits were often perceived as a "version" of men's wear. Bakst wrote of these dual developments in an article on modem fashion and found dicm equally evocative of the spirit of dynamism that characterized the age.*» Tire new styles allowed women to embody the contradictions and complexities of modem female identity, many of which implied rejecting traditional assumptions regarding women, and adopting behavior more typical of men, while remaining feminine. The trademark look of the "new woman" of the early twentieth century was one of a stylishness that connoted originality, achieved through an up-to-the-minute fashionableness. Characteristic behavior of this new type included smoking, dancing (particularly the tango), shopping, attending cabarets and cafes, and keeping lovers. An almost demonic incarnation of the new woman was caricatured in the popular press and variations appeared in films and works of fiction of die period. The Russian film Si/mf * L . Bakst, "Moda," x" 49 (20 Feb. 1914) 3 S v alwi L. Bakst, "Kostium zhenshchiny budusbrbego (Bescd,*)" M ix b - 'M /i ,, d '/r (evening edition, St. Fcterslnirg) 13463 (23 March 1913): 5. 57 kV ïfM esgcS / for example^ stars a prototypical new womar 1 1 i ne, whose elegant fashions form the locus of the film.^) Her rotating outfits, the latest Parisian styles, overshadow the narrative of the film. In the end this new woman, who tangos and carouses, dupes her fiancé into believing her promises of love and faithfulness in marriage. It becomes clear, however, that she intends to use the unwitting hancë to bankroll her extravagant lifestyle, and that she has no intentions of breaking off her illicit relationship with her lover, a dark and devious Baron. Hélëne's intimidating presence is set in contrast to the provincial Nastia, a naïve, sincere woman who, it appears, truly loves Hélène's's fiancé Pavel. A servant, Nastia loses her virginity to Pavel, but she is quickly discarded once Hélène ascents to marriage. Ihe threat seems apparent here, Russian female submission and domesticity versus Western independence and liberation. Though such explicit terms might have frightened off most Russian audiences, the images of the fashionable Hélène likely did just (he opposite. Like Ida Rubinstein, Hélène, played by the well- known tango dancer El'za Kriuger, perfectly embodied the tall, slender, elegant new ferninine ideal. Her seductive beauty, while almost terrifying in its deeper narrative implications, was found enchanting, a visual treat for tire cinematic audiences. The Russian Fashion Industry Evidence of a national preoccupation with fashion in Russia can be gauged both by the rapid increase in demand for sartorial goods and by the mass of critical literature that appeared to debate its influence. In a study published in 1914, E. Oliunina carefully 9 0 Nemye A. Khanzhonkov and Co, Dir. Evgenii Dantfr, pcrf, Dora Chitorina, Akk^andr Kheruvimov, Alvks,indr Chargonin, Eba Kryugcr, Andrvi Gromov, and Viktor Petipa. 1914. Yuri Tsivian, SiWi kViiwB*''' A iw M iSOg-lSiyreBÜMioiii aiknzimi.' A V m rw M i 190&19/9, ed, Paolo Chorchi Uwi, Ixnvnzo Codelli, Carlo Montanaro, David Robinson (Ixmdon: British Pilm Institute, 1969), 230. 58 traces the steady growth of the garment industry in Moscow in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and considers it in relation to parallel European developments. In her discussion of the socio-economic changes in Europe that allowed for the rapid expansion of textile and clothing production— the rise of the middle class, the maturation of capitalist economic methods, and technological advances in the industry— Oliunina sees Russia as witnessing a similar evolution. The numerous challenges posed by the rapid pace of modem fashion, which was more significant in women's fashion than in men's, are also treated by Oliunina at considerable length^ One of the most dramatic periods of increase in clothing production in Moscow, Oliunina argues, took place in the decade foEowing 1902.^ Though the number of factories devoted to the manufacture of articles of clothing did not change significantly during this time, the number of ateliers employing over one hundred workers— which Oliunina argues really should be considered factories— rose in great numbers, in addition, the number of female workers employed in dressmaking nearly doubled by the end of the decade, whereas the number of male workers increased only modestly. Though domestic production of ready-to-wear clothing, previously imported, began in the 1880s, Oliunina reports that the majority of production in Moscow remained dresses to order.^ The study closely examines a few high-class ateEers, including that of Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova, one of the most talented and most successful designers of women's clothing in Russia of the pre-Revolutionary period, and details the production process within tlrese businesses.* Given the statistics Oliunina cites in her Oliunina, PorMwfk; promyag/, 22-56. ^Oliunina, prowyget 14-23. According to Oliunina, once domeshf prixln, (i<m of ready-to-wear Iwgan in the late ninet«?enlh century, it was largely distributed to oHier part', ol llte i mpin' Oliunina, PprhiwatH promi/wl, 25-2N, 59 analysis, it is evident that the number of Russian women who by this period could afford to order dresses from a reputable couturier was markedly on the rise and comprised a large enough source to sustain several expensive ateliers, such as Lamanova's which employed close to two hundred seamstresses, and numerous smaller ones.^ Ih e garment industry also provided the fortunes for the families of many of Moscow^s leading fashion consumers, the merchant wives who adhered to the most elegant modem innovations, which if not brought directly from Paris were made to order from l,amanova and other reputable Russian dressmakers. In the early twentieth century, these bourgeois women began to replace the the former granddames of Russian society, as the visible fashion elite and arbiters of taste.% In Petersburg, the popular press, including several fashion periodicals, continued to devote their society pages to the activities of the nobility. But Moscow's elite, evidently a daring bunch, was depicted as more adventurous in its emulation of the latest styles. It is difficult to determine how Russian women compared to their European counterparts in their patronage of the modem fashions, and reports are often conflicting. Bakst, for example, commented in one newspaper interview that the Petersburg women were more sedate in their fashion taste, perhaps restricted by the imperial tradition and formality of the capital and court functions. On the other hand, one newspaper article, noted by * Lamanova's atelier was considered "combmed" which implied that she made dresses as well m s corsets, and it is believed accessories including, hats, bags, and shoes. Oliunina, PorfMovsbi pmmyW, 27. % Edith Clowes has written that Moscow's merchants "failed to legitimize Ihemselves as Russia's new 'ruling' elite" (147). 1 would argue, however, that on the level of popular culture and fashion, a significantly inAuential dimension of daily life in Russia, in the years immediately preceding the Revolution the merchant women began to be perceived as the elite. The court still accounted for patrons of the most exclusive salons in St. Petersburg, and such royal status was cherished among Russia's dressmakers, but the wealthy women of Moscow were more often seen, and were noted for their elegant attire on regular occasion in the popular press. For Clowes's article see Edith t 'lowes, "Men hauls on Stage and m I,ile. Theatricality and Public Consciousness," in /Vlerdwwl Al,-., tv e ." Inmges of l/A m 'sA rd liewfynv'./e, eds. fames L. West and lurii A. Petrov (Princeton, Nj: Prim i^on I niversily Mes!,, IQ % ): 147^ . 60 Sudeikin, states that Russian women had a reputation in Europe for taking the new fashions to extremes.^ Elaborate masquerade balls were common botli in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, and photographs of these events and other private festivities of die elite appeared on a regular basis in newspapers and magazines. Both cities were also home to a vibremt artistic culture that benehted from the patronage of Russia's bourgeoning capitalist economy. Museum and gallery exhibitions rivaled tlie new venue of fashion shows, as wealthy women dressed in elegant gowns arrived to exhibit their own artistic creations. Such events were also eagerly reported to the wider population, and memoir accounts note the dramatic influence such chic women had on the public.^ As patrons of the arts, these wealthy women also appeared in portraits by several of Russia's leading artists, and often were depicted wearing the dresses of Russia's leading couturierès. The attention to sartorial detail in these paintings, such as Konstantin Somov's portrait of Evgcniia Nosova or Vladimir Serov's of Henrietta Girshman, emphasize the extent to which merchant wives and the artists who painted them valued the elegance of their gowns. The proliferation of public images of fashion— real women in cafés, restaurants, theaters, exhibitions, parks, and stores, and promotional materials in films, fashion demonstrations, shop windows, magazines, and newspapers— began to saturate the visible landscape in Russian cities and led some naysayers to warn of fashion's destructive influence on women. The most common negative response was to satirize women for paying exorbitant sums to their dressmakers to have the latest "look. " 9 7 "Pq Moskve: I f Million « '.im w ," (Ijling from sometime in the 1910s, can be found in the archive of Sergei Sudeikin at RGA1J. f 'UZ. op I, r.kh. 300. ^ Viktor Lobanov, Kamimy; ; A kw .lc k siivnwi zAiz«i Mostny i gWy fMoscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1968), 137; and Vali ntin,i Khodasevich, "Porlrcty slovami " in M crm m Ty. VgknhzM (Mow on tlalaM, 1995), 125-26. 61 Cartoons published in magazines and newspapers, for example, often made light of women^s debts to their seamstresses and milliners. Some members of Russian society, however, went so far as to argue drat an interest in fashion posed a threat to a woman's moral integrity. In one lengthy publication, the author lulii Elets, a minor writer and former military officer, attributes prostitution and the degeneration of women to an excessive exercise of fashion. He warns of future consequences if the trend is not abated.^ Certainly many, perhaps even most, people tended to disagree with Elets's sentiments, one even directly and publicly,i(* but at times the atmosphere surrounding the new trends for women was palpably tense. In 1911, for example, when sharorary appeared as an element of women's evening dress the response was largely negative, with the exception of the few daring women who excitedly wore them publicly. Fashion magazines featured articles on the debate and explored the history of pants for women. Some members of society, such as the writer Teffi, predicted that the assimilation of men's and women's fashion was inevitable, and that pants were merely an early sign of this eventual outcome.ioi Others met the innovation with alarm and fought against its expansion. One newspaper reported that a woman was accosted on the street in the fashion district of Moscow for wearing the chic sharwaxy, an event that seemed a dear indication of public outrage.As several scholars have noted, the women's pants introduced in 1911 hardly resembled the better-known standard article of men's ^lulitLukianm iih ( IM « ., fk /gumwfi (St Petemburg, 1914). Petr Kardinalovakii, z hfO M iiiz wMOt f (OUcssn Kith', 1910). Adov, Bczwwmw pwafze. Ohvt m z k zw g zz ^ / VcW ' rjcuf'sof k ïZ H Z M K " k gzw rz/K M Ü w iga dam W d W z mW, R(zzf*j!ackz:;e Wn mwzfzdzm f z^;ozs/zc/»M . R r m k nzzvrnf (St, Petergburg; A, Smolimkiz, 1914). w) "Litemtura o iubkakh pantalonakh" Zkcw gA ,*' < W z ) 7-6 (1911): 37-S8. ii^Hteratura o iubkakh pantaionakh" 3*. 62 Yhg loosely Atted^ wide-legged pantaloons were more akin to a skirt dian slacks. Ironically, slwroof^n/ had also been an element of women's Russian folk costume, and in m any foreign cultural contexts were considered equally, or even more, feminine than masculine. Regardless of these alternative cultural references, "Women in Pants" to cite the name of a book published on the topic at ihe time, incited anger in those who saw this change as a direct threat to gender difference.^^w break was too extreme, too vivid for the general public, and before long, both in Russia and in Europe, the fad fizzled o u t I hough generally disregarded as mere women's concerns, as noted above, innovations in fashion did at times provoke a broader discussion of the medium of fashion. Those debates centered primarily on the issues of sexuality, decency, and appropriate gender roles, and wore part of a larger discussion surrounding the changing face of women in the modem urban sphere. While socio-economic developments and critical works of journalism provide invaluable sources to monitor these changes, a look at the narrative and visual culture of the period— films, women's magazines, and tire work of artists and writers— provides an added perspective on the issue. In addition to ideas regarding propriety and decency, fashion tutored women in the art of creative expression. In a culture that had only recently begun to accept the literary and visual works of art produced by women, the wider arena of fashion allowed women to exercise this mode of expression on a constant, albeit limited, basis. To understand this dynamic ™ Evganii tsolani, Oama T » sA ta M m W z , Ocfwrt /w igfoni mwüwkif trans. from the German. V, Miurid, ed. Vladimir Serov (Kiev: P. A. loganson, 1912), These sharovory differed from tendency of $ome women to wear men's slacks. Natalia Goncharova, for example, is cited in one newspaper article os claiming that she prefers to paint in men's clothes, i.e. pants. Such cross-dressing in public was more common in private homes, and was seldom seen in the public arena, thou^ Goncharova's admission is certainly an attempt at public exposure. Isolani, Dfrme n sfihmiddi. 63 we must consider the context in greater detail and examine works produced within this environment. 64 OiAPTER 2: WOMEN'S MAGAZINES AND THE EMERGING DISCOURSE OF FASHION The most important disseminators of the new feminine ideal in the early twentieth century were the women's magazines, several of which were explicitly devoted to fashion. These journals proliferated a narrative and visual discourse for women in Russia, which gradually grew more centered on the greater presence and visibility of women in the public sphere. Recent examinations of women's magazines in England around the turn of die century have focused on the influence of fashion journals in negotiating evolving patterns of identification in a period where women's private and public roles underwent fundamental transformation. Christopher Breward argues that in the 1880s, English fashion journals adopted a pattern of display and solicitation characteristic of the modem department stores that had begun to profit from their discovery of ''feminine culture" as a "marketable commodity."^ In a study that traces women's journals into the early twentieth century, Margaret Beetham contends that as women increasingly were associated with consumerism, the advertising industry began to capitalize on the growing arena of the women's press and to exploit feminine interests in commodity culture. The skills of shopping, the pleasures of creating a self through consumption, must always be constrained both by what the shopper can afford and by what the capitalist system offers as choice. Discursively, the writings of "Lady Betty " as of "Myra" locked women more firmly into definitions as objects not sul^ects of desire. Feminine desire was the desire to be desired (by the man) and it was to create this self that the magazines instructed dieir readers.- 1 Christopher Breward, "Pemininii}' and ConMunpdtin: The Problem of the Late Nineteenth-Centuiy Fashion loumal," /oumdl 7,3 ( I Wil)' 72. In his hook length study of Awhlon, T/ie CW twrr F < W » O M , Breward also touches upon the role ol Ihe fashion periodical in providing material useful for the study of dress. ^ Margaret Beetham, A M a g e z w r (/Her O w n,' D o m r s lfiity ( W Desirr; iV : the lVor»<Mi's M a g a zin e , 1500-1914. (London: Routledge, 1996), 200. For a discussion of fashion magazines and the œmmodtfkation of women 65 According to Beetham, the journals created a "feminized space" but one with limited transformative powers. The gossipy, intimate tone of the new journals merely coaxed women into keeping to their traditional roles as adored housewife and mother. In the early twentieth century, in Europe as in Russia, images of the uncorseted fashionable woman as the embodiment of unimpeded creativity slowly began to outnumber those of the dodle, domesticated norm. With an unprecedented number of women entering the workforce in Russia, notably in the spheres of journalism and the arts, the new ideal spoke to women's mounting desire for public activity and to a rejection of domestic isolation.^ The magazines continued to facilitate a process of emulation, but ^vith the sudden proliferation of photographic representations, fashion took on an added dimension. The prescriptive, didactic nature of tlie literary discourse of fashion is an enduring element of die genre even today. People "in the know" advise the best means of achieving the most cwmut look. In the early twentieth century, arbiters of "good taste" generally called for moderation and modesty in dress, while simultaneously tempting women with sensational reports of the daring fashion elite and enchanting illustrations of the new "art" of fashion. Numerous cheap booklets, such as "The Woman at Home and in Society" and the various women's calendars published annually, advocated similar conduct.* Despite the more predictable messages of in the later twentieth century see Marjorie Ferguson, Former Fem im w e,- Women's MwgimMfs ami (fie Cuf( F eM M M im fy (London: Gower, 1983). ' For several articles on women journalists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see the anthology, /lu fM )M U pir Pmfksiw:.' FlWeM, Gender, and jow rM nfw M Late fmperfsf R H Ssia. Eds. Rarbara T. Norton and Jetwrne M Gheith. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), * Irma Wurent, /fi' ii.-'fii fiwa « srW a i n ohshdmh*. M o!W X )w , 1912 For analysis of these types of materials, see Calriona K elh'\ ' 'x If I h Ip and Spending Power Advice Literature and Wte Impeiial Russia," in her 66 fashion's dictates, however, visual images began to contradict the stable nonns by introducing a more revolutionary ideal. As Maureen Murim argues, whereas earlier models spoke to male fantasies, this new ideal more accurately reflected feminine notions of beauty and desire.s With their heightened eroticism, frequency of innovation, and lavish use of color and ornament, the new styles drew women into a collective mode of female fantasy. Fashion magazines lured women to their pages, just as tlie department stores attracted onlookers to the well-dressed mannequins in their window displays. Women were commodified and manipulated as consumers, but now occupied positions as both the objects and subjects of desire. Christopher Breward discusses the practice of publishing images of women reading fashion magazines in the late nineteenth century to "underpin, massage, and reflect the modem experience of the reader" and to foster a process of self-referendality.* This trend is mimicked in many Russian fashion magazines of the late 1900s and 1910s, where cover photographs or engravings depict a woman reading a journal of die same name. In the Russian context the frequency of these images after 1910 appears to illustrate women's transition to a state of "active looking," and an invitation to women to join a community of readers and engage in the discourse of fashion.^ In Russia, throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, a caricature of the "new woman" as a dangerous, demonic femme fatale, who smoked cigarettes, took lovers, and dressed in expensive, voluptuous outfits was ubiquitous in newspapers and Riisgia.' /\Aice ükrafure, Po/zk C H ftw rg, izm t GowkxCgf&hMe (v yefkm (Oxford: Oxford Universily Press, 2001). Maureen Murim, "Seduction and Elegance: The New Woman of Pu>hlon in Silent Cinema," In On M iW , eds. 8iari Ben@tock and Suxanne Ferris (New Bninswick, N|. Kulgim, Univen,itv Press, 1994), 140. Muiim s focus is film, but photography inflated and accompanied the process dew ribed by Murim. The inflw n i of siknt film in Bu isi i n lUlir treated in a laler chaptnr. * Breward, "F( nnnmitv and c onsiiini'tion." X 5. 67 satincal journals. But in the growing arena of fashion— magazines, storefronts, fashion shows— styles increasingly propagated a positive, modem notion of creative individuality, and gradually more women— writers, artists, performers— began to publicly personify this new ideal. By the 1910s, popular representations of the feminine ideal overwhelmingly prompted women to be visible, mobile, and artistic. Women's preoccupation witli the new fashions often drew ridicule, not merely because it threatened to bankrupt dutiful husbands, but because it was disruptive while remaining so thoroughly feminine. Serial publications directed at a female audience quickly grew in number in both St. Petersburg and Moscow after the turn of the cenbuy, particularly under the relaxed censorship laws that were enacted in the wake of the 1905 Revolution.* Russia followed Europe's example where a renewed interest in Ae fashion periodical accompanied the surge in the clothing industry as a whole, the growth of department stores, the transformation of dress design, and the birth of Aawk couture. The expansion of the popular press in Russia was similarly symptomatic of increased urbanization and the rise in bourgeois culture.^ The various fashion magazines introduced into the major cities served members of aB classes, but perhaps foremost the upper middle-class, whose patronage of the dressmaking industry was most substantial. During the period of 1900- 1915 over thirty women's magazines with a dominant fashion component were 7 D a m w W f m û, Z A w m a f jtw W io z w e k , Ziim xtw jg/o, Z k fM g /z c M w . ( For a history of ninetfenth-century fashion journals in Russia, see Christine Ruane, "The Development of a Fashion Press in Late Imperial Russia: Mwfo; «flw swishilA fwdei" and Carolyn R, Marks, "Trovid[ingj Amus* m » nt lor Ihr I .lUh \ I he Rise of the Russian Women's Magazine in the ISSOs" in A m Improper \ortonandCheiili, 68 launched in the two urban centers of Russia JO While fewer than half of these enterprises managed to survive more than two years of operation, (he sheer number of publishers interested in backing such ventures attests to the widespread conhdence in women as consumers. In Aeir detailed memoir of pre-Revolutionary life in St. Petersburg, the Russian social historians D. A. Zasosov and V. I. Pyzin describe (he sudden flood of interest in women's dress in the early twentiedi century. They maintain that the fashion magazines were instrumental in determining trends of the time, and note that in 1915, eleven were being published in SL Petersburg alone." A few fashion magazines, such as PeslumfzW e gociefy (Modnyi svet) and the fasA foM HdMW (Vestnik mody) were in place in the late nineteenth century and continued to run through the early 1900s. Changes in editors and publishers after the turn of the century were not uncommon for these older periodicals. The popular magazines Home/aud (Rodina) and Held (Niva) featured free monthly fasliion supplements. In the 1910s these supplements, entitled the A few esf fashzoM S (Noveishie mody) and Parisian fashions (Parizhskie mody), obtained many of their articles and illustrations from a common source. While die Newest Fashions and ParisiaM Fashions were of inferior quality to many of the more lavish women's magazines, they experienced a flowering in the 1910s with the regular publication of photographic images of elegant foreign models. Fashion pages also began to appear more frequently 9 See Jeffrey Brook;, (AAoi ftasaia Leemai W RW; Uknzty m zd Po/wkr UZcwZare, 1^67-1977 (Princeton: Princeton University Pr^s, 1985) and "Readers and Reading at the End of the Tsarist Era," In Likmhnv mid Socieiy m hnperW RnssM, 7800-7974, ed, William Mills Todd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 7978). V I For an exhaustive list of fashion and women's periodicals of Ihe period, see V. M. Barashenkov (gen. editor) with Lhisiia Nikitichna Beliaeva and others, penodidieskiAh izdaaù Ross» 1907-7976 (Leningrad, 7961). " D. A. Zasosov and V, 1 , Pyzin. IzzAizi» Prlohurga 7890-7970-r godoo. Zapisti odK M 'dfsm ? (Leningrad: (.enizdat, 1991), 244-45. Zasosov and Pyzin list the following magazines: Be/âf i vysTiieki, ymst» léi*, yestnik mody, O iW M sk ü mir, UckWc plaf's i W e, Iskussioe perhiyUi, ModHyi hir'er, odnyz svet ; iM odM yim agozm , Alodiiyi srei, Msdy dho nsekh Panz7i,^W w nmda, and PorMoi. 69 in newspapers, such as the "Women's Fashion" (Damskie mody) section in the Sunday issue of the PekTsWrg Couher (Peterburgskii kur'cr). Daily newspapers were inclined to cover scandals in the world of fashion, among them the exotic shartwary (harem pants) or zuhka-pgHfoioHy (^w pe-cw lohg) that shocked polite society, the tattoos that were quickly adopted for their sensational primitivism by the avant-garde, and the colored wigs that became an adored party favor of the aristocracy." The ascendance of the fashion magazine on the market was not welcomed by everyone, and the genre often was considered akin to works of boulevard literature, like the sensational melodramatic novels written by Anastasiia Verbitskaia and other popular writers. One newspaper features an article by a St Petersburg resident who laments the fact that fashion magazines have come to dominate the market: "Red ones, blue ones, yellow ones, orange ones, smoke-colored ones, they arc all for women," he complains." Suddenly, it seems, women were a favored readership. The women's magazines diat were able to sustain a loyal audience, such as iLadics' P V o rZ d (Damskii mir), kV bm cM 's Cause (Zhenskoe delo), and fo w rM a Z /or the (Zhumal dlia khoziaek), did indeed grow more colorful and decorative, particularly those aimed at middle- and upper-class women. But they also grew in volume, incorporating more extensive journalism on a wider variety of topics, and increased patronage by advertisers. As Jeffrey Brooks has demonstrated in his study of the growth of literacy in u A series of photographs published in PgicrhHrgsW m gazeio (2 Feb. 1914) depicts women in pants getthig into a car and walking down ihe street. The caption Is "Novye prichudy damskogo dnia" "Damy v..... briukakh." At a bail thrown by Countess Shuvalova all the women appeared in colored wigs. "Bal u grafinii E.V. Shuvalovoi," PcZ erbw rgskaM gazeta, 43 (13 Feb. 1914): 4. o Pikkvik, "Moia iektsiia o /h, n':lichine'' Lffre Res;», Moscow (11 Feb, 1914): 5, The article is a satire on tailors, on women and iheir interokl in fashion, and on tiro works of the popular writer Anastasiia Verbitskaia. Pikkvik publish* \ a loiter bv his friend /ban Frikasse, who introduces himself as a women's tailor. Frikasse has bt\'n urged by a friend to give a kt turo on women, since his profession has made him such an authority on die topi*. I he article is full of mistakes, which Pikkvik ascribes to Frikasse. Frikasse 70 pre-Revoludonary Russia, the popular press of this period reached an unprecedented number of readers both in the major cities and in the provincial tcn^TS. A cheap fashion periodical entitled fasAzoM^r A M (Mody dlia vsekh) mimicked the more expensive journals in its fashion content, altliough it admittedly relied more heavily on engravings and simple catalogs of dresses, blouses, and skirts for illustrations. It can be assumed, particularly when one considers the extensive distribution of the magazines H cm giA H d and Fff id, that while the dressmaking industry primarily served members of the middle and wealthier classes, representations of the new fashionable feminine ideal were disseminated to women of all classes." In their description of patterns of consumption in late Imperial urban Russia, Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly argue that the st)'les depicted in fashion magazines and department store windows were also adopted by working-class women as standards of contemporary taste.is The sewing patterns that most magazines sent as supplements, eiAer at no cost or for a limited fee, encouraged women to reproduce these images and "remake" themselves in the image of prominent women. The women's magazines popular in Russia in the early twentieth century had differing missions. A few ill-fated projects elicited the close collaboration of prominent Russian artists and sought to underscore the emerging role of women's costume as an artform. The Parisw» (Parizhanka) featured work by two members of the World of Art group: Konstantin Somov designed the cover and Mishslav Dobuzhinsky created the names a friend who has made a fortune publishing a popular fashion journal (the journal tides are all fictional), Frikasse claims to have a salon on die chic Kuxni'kkU Most " jeffrey Brooks provides publishing data on Rodûw. and other illustrated weeklies ihat document the widespread dissemination of such periodicals in ihe Anly hwnticth centur)', ). Brooks,l\)wn RHmg Lramed to R em d , Ch. IV "Periodicals, Installment Adventures, and Potboilers." 1 5 Catriona Kelly and David Shephard, eds., ConsfruchMg Rwssimi Cwlfwre in i/io Ago « ÿ " ReWuhoM, 79:91-1940 (New York Oxford University Press, 1998), 111. 71 title page/l^ The magazine ran unevenly for two years and then folded. Nadezhda Evseevna Dobychina, director of an art gallery in SL Petersburg, embarked on a similar project in 1914. It was even rumored in the press that the Russian artist Lev Bakst, who had established a parallel reputation in Europe as a dress designer, would contribute illustrations.^^ The journal never materialized. Of the more successful publishing endeavors, the majority offered fashion reports within a larger context of news for women. Magazines with the narrow task of reporting fashion trends, such as Pahsfan, were met with resistance. The glossy journal Fashion (Moda) claimed in its inaugural issue in 1912 that it was the first artistic magazine in Russia devoted solely to fashion.^* After a spotty year of publication and waning support among the public, the editorial board conceded that women were not content to read about fashion alone. FashioM was transformed into fairy Tales (Skazki zhizni) and ran for another year before closing. Conversely, very few women's magazines chose to omit a fashion section altogether, and those that did rarely survived. If they did, it was to serve a small, isolakd, pohticaüy radical audience. A fine example of this genre was the kV bm eM 's Herald (Zhenskii vestnik), begun by Mariia Ivanovna Pokrovskaia, a medical doctor from St Petersburg and co-founder of the Women's Progressive PartyGiven the limited interest in women's suffrage, however, a feminist endeavor was considered by most to PonzAWm was published and edited by A. G. Galachiev, publisher of many periodicals. The journal was based in Moscow and ran from late 1908 until early 1910, 1 7 Prom an interview with Bakst In which the reporter, M.Ch., concludes "The artist asked us to clear up reports published in a few newspapers that he would be participating in Dobyi hina's new illustrated fashion magazine, L.S, Bakst is obligated by contract to a iParisian firm which reslru is him from publishing and of his drawings without the permission of the firm." M. Ch., "L, S, Bakst o sovremennykh modakh (Pis'mo iz Peterburga)," lliro Rossh, Moscow (9 Feb. 1914): 6. « AWa, 1 (February 15,1912): 1. Meda was initially edited by N. N, Volyntsev, but later Sofia Ivano\ma Taube. The magazine was published by Klavdia Vasil'evna Lezhoeva and ran from February tlirough July ofieil Richard Stites, Ihr IV ouw M 's LibewhoM A 'loivm eM f iu R ussia." NiAdism, end BolsAmim, 1A9-1930,2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversiU' Press, 1990), 20Z 72 be fruitless. As one magazine reported, a typical response to such an idea would be; "There is no women's movement in tlùs country, and, therefore, there could be no interest in a magazine dedicated to the topic/'^ W bM K w's Owsc (Zhenskoe delo), a progressive women's publication, appeared in Moscow in 1910, perhaps as an outcome of the Women's Congress of 1908, and ran steadily (initially weekly, but soon thereafter bi-monthly) until the Revolution.:^ In the opening issue of the magazine, whose cover page features the eighteenth-century intellectual Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, the editorial board addresses the competing issues of feminism and fashion, and debunks the outmoded notion that the two were somehow mutually exclusive. The editors remind the reader of the disappointing fate of most feminist journals in Russia and the West, and unveil their tactic to broaden the magazine's female audience. "We are not going to be purists, in the sense that we would veto fashion, women's work, housework, light reading material, and so on. Our audience is not only an audience of enlightened women, but one which reaches into a wider segment of society where prejudices of inequality remain strong.":: Women's Cause sought to make women's independence more palatable for their audience and to make femininity a more legitimate means by which to express that independence. Further in the article, one finds a large group portrait, overwhelmingly of women, taken at the First All-Russian Women's Congress in St. Petersburg, just above the picture the ZWifkw dek 1 (1910): 2. "zhenekogo dvizheniia v strane net i m te i^ k zhumalu, emu posviashhennomu, ne mozhet by t." Barashenkov with Bellaeva and others, penodidKshW; ûdanu Rowii 1901-1916. Stites has Zhenskoe delo as a weekly, but it was quickly turned into a bi-monthly. The more radical publication Zhoiskwa m ysZ' which StItK S also refers to did not Inst more than a year. Tlis IV om cM 'a /.ihcntfioM Russia, 218. 2 % dele 1 (1910): 2. "My ne budem puristami v tom smysle, chto nalozhim veto na mody, zhenskie raboty, domashnee khoziaistvo, na inatenal dlia legkogo chteniia i t. Masha auditoriia--ne tolTco auditoriia soznateTnykh zhenshchin, no i auditoriia bolee Shirokikh sloev obshchestva, gde sil'ny eshche predrasudki neravnopraviia " 73 journal states its goal to include "portraits and biographies of women who have played or play significant roles in the life of our homeland/'^ In succeeding issues^ articles covering public lectures or events often take note of die level of st)'lishness among the women gathered. At times the correspondents even seem surprised at the handsome dress of female speakers^ particularly the activists.^^ In contrast k) the radical revolutionaries of the populist movement and of the subsequent decades of (he nineteenth century, the women regularly represented in KbuKM's Cause engage women in society, rather than alienate them. The journal aims to bring its readers into an ongoing discussion of women's role in Russian society, both discursively and, perhaps more persuasively, visually. The editors condemn the acts of militant feminists in Europe who offend the public, and instead see (he task of their journal to attract women to their cause and to provide positive, M C U ) models for identification and emulation. Their extensive coverage in subsequent issues of fashion trends with expensive photographic images of foreign fashion models prove their commitment to this area of women's lives. Mid-way through 1913, not long after a woman had taken over as publisher, W brM en's Cause expanded its format to oversize sheets and began to incorporate more fashion photographs into each issue. The titles of the women's journals often indicate the extent to which their political agenda's were formulated. Even with its plan to serve a larger audience and appease women, P V c M z e M 's Cause was deemed a more feminist publication than most popular women's journal, like I'Vomea's W brW (Zhenskii mirj or Lu&s' l/V o rW (Damskii mir). "Cause" (delo) was regarded unquestionably as a more overtly political term than 3 , 14-15. 74 "world" (m;r). The incorporation of "woman" (zA cM sA riuna) somewhere in the title would be likely for feminist publications, but might be replaced by "lady" (dom w ) or "housewife" in the magazines promoting a more traditional outlook. Ihe complete title for the moderate journal yV bm am (Zhenschina), which flourished in (he 1910s with dazzling photographs of European fashions, summed up all of women's perceived responsibilities: citizen, wife, mother, and hostess (grazAdauhi, z/trua, mat', A St. Petersburg magazine that ran from 1905 until the Revolution, Ladies' lAW ld offered news for the dmuy, the wealthier middle-class women who ordered their dresses made in salons, faithfully followed European trends, took part in charitable functions, attended the theater, and most likely did not work out of the home. Ladies' World reported on the activities of the "nyskd sugf" (high society) of both urban centers, including detailed reports of the dresses worn by Russia's leading ladies.^ It was not uncommon for members of the aristocracy to read foreign fashion periodicals brought back from travels abroad, but the elite women depicted at these social events may have also subscribed to Ladies World.:^ Many of the wealthiest women in Russian society made regular trips to Paris and London to order dresses from prominent designers, and certainly kept abreast of Europe's recent trends. The women's dresses described in the society reports of Ladies' World often were the creations of prominent French designers, including (he more imaginative among them— Poiret, Doucet, Paquin, and Bechoff- ^ "A A oziaka " is tramlmW as "housewife," "hostess" or perhaps most accurately as "mistress of the house." ^ ZheMskdiiMO.'gnnfidWM— zlzow— m w ('— Ifliozw A a, ZkrashcAiM a (19074916) was published in SL Petersburg by SoAia Bogel'man. Damstfi wur also had an office in Moscow and regularly published a "Moscow chronicle" "Moskovskaia khronlka. 75 David. Russian dressmakers were also represented in the chronicles. One reporter covering a society ball in St. Petersburg makes note of a young woman in a magnificent dress created by the Moscow designer Nadezhda Lamanova. As die debutante moved through the crowd of guests, the color of her dress turned from light gray to pale pink to baby blue, drawing ah eyes toward her.z? The illustrations published in fWics' tV brW , as in most of the magazines, typicahy originated in Paris and Wndon, or, during World War I, in New York. The fashion ihustrator Erte (Roman I 1 1 rtoff), best known for his later regular contributions to Harpf/s Bazaar, worked as a correspondent for ladias' W orW when he first moved to Paris from St. Petersburg in 1912:% Erte sent Ladies' World drawings of contemporary Parisian women ;md fashion models from the French magazines, and contributed articles on society life in the French capital. Ladies' World looked to the Parisian designers to set the trends, and their readers knew to do the same. In contrast, very few photographs in the magazines depicted women modeling dresses by Russian designers. In addition to its fashion coverage, which occupied a central role. Ladies' Whrld also included sections on seasonal culinary specialties, handicrafts, beauty tips, and childcare. In the 1910s, however, the focus of the magazine began to shift and reports on prominent women in culture and coverage of foreign events relating to women began to outweigh the domestic issues. Prescriptive articles such as "A woman's every secret," "How to Dress," and "Beauty and Fashion"3i were still common, but were now coupled Charles Spencer, Erk (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981), 17. Spencer W Tites that Erte's mother often would read Parisian fashion pehodicals from the French library and that 1* also rememtxred her reading OamsW : mir. DawskH m;r 3, (March 1908). 6. The article also notes that ljunanova "can hold her own against the famous fashion houses of Paris." % Spencer. Eric, 20-22. "Vse sekretv zhenshchinv," "Kak nado odevat'sia," "Krasota i Moda." 76 with lengthy reports like "Personal impressions of the women's movement in England in recent times"^ or 'A Foreign Chronicle. The women's movement and congresses")^ At the same time, ihe editorial board of the magazine went k > great lengths to maintain a degree of impartiality when reporting on more political topics, by emphatically labeling them "personal impressions ' or distant, "foreign chronicles." Despite these caveats, Ladies' offered women an opportunity to view the parallel lives of women in Western Europe who wore the dresses they admired and were making significant gains in women's political and social representation. Slowly the magazine's course in self- fashioning began to include donning corresponding roles and attitudes, and such changes in women's identity began to be mirrored in the lives of real models for emulation present in Russian society. A less expensive alternative to Ladies' World was tire popular biweekly Moscow publication, /owmol ybr ific Howsewi/g (Zhumal dlia khoziaek), which began in 1912 and ran steadily until the Revolution. As the tide suggests, the publishers of Housewi^ saw the major concerns of its readers as those of childrearing, diet, beauty and "practical" fashions. A more affluent dama would not be burdened with the responsibilities treated in the cheaper magazine, but would have hired help to do so. Hmsewi/ê provided the reader with patterns for dresses (which one might have made for oneself, or might employ the services of a tailor or maid to do so), dps on keeping one's family well fed and healthy, advice for maintaining one's youth, and coverage of political and cultural events of interest to a contemporary women. In a regular column, the "Miniature Marquise" responded to women who sought advice on relationships, natural beauty 3: E, A Serebriakova, "IJchnye IwUcmki o Khcngkom dvixhenii v AngUi v poalednæ vremia. OwMfth mir 5 (1913): 25.% 6 (1913): 6 (1913) 10 13 . 77 remedies, domestic chores and other employment. was a less sumptuous journal than (A /b rW or Guis^, bul hkr these magazines it also had a dominant fashion section, and the illustrations, albeit fewer, were comparable, also originating in western studios. The inaugural issue of the features a photograph of a woman in an elegant tiara, k dmurr crze of 1912, holding an issue of the magazine. The cover reinforces the notion of self-referentiality and encourages identification on the part of the reader with the fashionable model. A significant shift in /ounwl /br the took place in 1914. In January, the title was changed to /ow rm tZ _/br the Howset/;^ kV om eu's (Zhwrrwl dlia kkozM ck ; zligM shua zhiz»') to give greater credence to the latter half of the magazine that had grown substantially in 1913. In the autumn of 1914 Wbnieu's L z/ê branched off to become a full-fledged magazine. The change is significant insofar as it indicated a shift in collective feminine identity and public perception of women. A "woman's life," one rooted in public activity, had come to rival in importance a "housewife's life," one centered on domestic responsibilities and die private sphere. In 1913, in the November 15 issue of Housmei/ë, the section on P V ofM cn's included an article on the history of the women's movement in Russia; a review of a lecture given at the Higher Women's Courses on the history of women's participation in the intellectual culture of humanity; remarks b}' the "Miniature Marquise" on "]eaiousy, " a play by the popular author Mikhail Artsybashev; sections from two serialized stories written by women authors; and a brief article on the merits of dance. These articles assume a readership who shares an appreciation of women's participation in the social intellectual and artistic life of the country. That this "women's" section could maintain a readership independently of the n V. Gren, "ZagranichneiA khmnika, O zhenskom dvlzhenii i kongressakti." Dam iiW i mir 10 (1913), 12-17, ,yg "mother" journal demonatrates the stability of the modem woman in feminine discourse. When W btMm's became an independent publication its editors promised to provide coverage of events typical of an "authentic" woman's life, not simply idealizations of the contemporary woman as understood by traditionalists or radicals. Women's fervent reaction to the magazine was evident in the letters that inundated the editors following the publication of the hrst few issues. One reader made the following plea: "These days women would like so much to share their ideas, feelings, and m oo d s....] Find room for them. Allow the feminine soul, feminine thoughts, gloomy and beautiful, to pour out onto the pages of your magazine, a glimpse of the happy or sad life of a woman [...] Don't mince words [.. .].Let a woman's life be drawn as it is in reality." W o M zeM 's Lÿé did not have a separate fashion section, but photographs of stylish contemporary women appeared regularly in the magazine. To a significant degree, W oM ien's L z/ê grew closer to W om ezz's G zzzse by covering more extensively political and legal issues that might concern the modem women while remaining embedded in a larger context of feminine interests, including women's budding presence in the rich urban cultural life of late-imperial Russia. In Western Europe, photographic images found Iheir way into fashion magazines by the end of the nineteenth century. In Russia, photographed models appeared in magazines a bit later, after 1905, precisely as the feminine physical ideal began to undergo its radical alterations, and fashion magazines were growing rapidly in size and number. Fashion scholars Marianne Ihesander and Anne Hollander, among others, have argued that by 1910 the reigning feminine ideal in Europe, as reflected in 79 prevailing fashions, was somehow more "real" than in many preceding decades.^* The constrictive S-cnrve corsets of the turn of the century that had squeezed women's waists into diameters of less than twenty inches, were now generously unlaced and ignored in the cuts of popular dresses. However, despiW Paul Poiret's campaign in 1908 to rid dress of corsets, many women continued to rely upon them, albeit for less extreme measures. The new corsets sat low on the body, tightening most at the hips, and were made increasingly of more flexible material. Some designers referred to these new corsets as body stockings.^) The new feminine ideal had fewer curves and a freer bust and waist, yet was considerably more slender- than earlier forms. Ihe elasticity of the feminine form grew mote apparent, particularly in photographs of fashion models that depict them stretching or turning to demonstrate die clothes. Caricatures of serpentine women were common in the period.^^ While many Russian women may have found the slim, athletic ideal as equally unattainable as the dght-waisted, hourglass figure, die graceful agility of the new models may have made the new form seem notably more "real." Hollander describes the innovation eis "a new style of female corporeal pleasure, one more visibly expressive of what women had always liked about their own bodies, the physical feel of flexibility and articulation in both limbs and torso even without vigorous activity, the sense of subtle muscular movement and the strength of bones under smooth skin, the rhythmic shift of weight.")^ Mobility and flexibility, if not realized in one's own life, were repeatedly emphasized in the media. Terms such as zhmyc w aM skcM y (live mannequins). Hollander. Sex mid ,'^iiik. Ch. 4 "Modomily," 116-V.t Marwoix' f liesander. The f gm iM fiic lukiil, trana. T. SkiAer (London: Rt'akllim Hooks Ltd., 1997)^ C h 6, " Ih,' Now Sit nder Look, c. 1910-1929,107-129. * Thesander attritrnO'» Ihe name to Paul Poiret Mm lanrw: I ht sander, Idee/, 109. % For an interesting example, see Natan Al'tman's earlwlurc ol ,\khmatova at the Stray Dog, published In Nouyt SahnkoM, 15 (1914), 6. 80 zMuaw M /sfarfci) (live exhibition) and zkhwa r&kma (live advertisement) were coined to describe the new fashionable women. Diaphanous fabrics-tuUes, chiffons, and crepes-exposed the outlines of the arms and shoulders; soft velvets and satins sat snugly on the hips and legs. Ladies' World instructed women to stand in a way that made them look "energetic" and "on the go/' and it provided its readers with lengthy articles on gymnastics and exercises that would help foster the new feminine physical ideal* Dance and sport, and their suitable costumes, began to receive increasing coverage in the magazines, including avant-garde tren I s i I is the school of modem dance founded by Isadora Duncan.* Finally, if one could not be thin, then one should at least look thin. A series of illustrations in the March 1912 issue of Ladies' World instructs heavy women on how best to "hide" their portliness. The waist is further de-emphasized to allow the straight line to be preserved, and the result is a more fashionable, albeit wider, C U t.4 0 As with any craze, women anxious to look fashionable often resorted to desperate measures. Rumors of women starving themselves were played out in cartoons, and were addressed in women's magazines by scolding critics who cautioned women against permanently harming their health In one satirical journal, a fuU-page series of cartoons depicts a woman who submits to several primitive forms of stretching simply to look more svelte and fit into the latest designs by the dazzling Bakst. Dazed and deformed, the woman awkwardly towers over her short plump Russian peers.*' For those who were fashionably or physically disadvantaged, manufacturers of beauty aids ^ Hollander, Scr mid 137. * "Kak sleduet nosit komtlumy, i kak no sleduct. zhivol maneken" Dam gW ; mir 7 (1910): 23 25. ^ PelM g, "Vospilaniia v krasotv i radosti: Shkola Aisedory Dunkan" Mir (Moscow) H (1912). 8-9. "Shkola Dunkana" and poem entitled " Akedora Dunkan" ZAfiistor iklo 6 (1914): 5-6. ' K ' "Kak ne nado odevat'sia polnym. Kak nado odevat'aia." Damwhï mir 2 (1912): 31, 81 offered miracle cures and devices. These products appeared in numerous popular magazines, and were not directed only at womcn.*^ iT n » mass of available goods is best understood as a consequence of democratic impulses in an evolving market. As class holds loosened, beauty, perfection and prestige were more readily purchased, rather than simply inherited. Physical identity, like class identity, could be improved upon. Admittedly most urban dwellers could not regularly afford these cures, but those who could purchase them began to challenge outdated assumptions of class and clouL Beauty gave members of many classes leverage for power, and the widespread availability of beauty enhancers only reinforced this opportunity. Female consumers were a particularly lucrative target group, one willing to go to great lengths to perfect its appearance.^ At times, however, companies who promoted beauty products attempted to slow the pace of change and counter the whims of the "real" fashion authorities. In a climate where competition prevailed over loyalty, women were often courted aggressively for their patronage. For example, as designers in Paris fought to eliminate corsets, advertisements for corsets published in the major Russian fashion periodicals began to outnumber those for any other good. Eventually the designers (or women?) won out, and advertisements for "new," "healthy," "soft" corsets and even "anti-corsets" began to replace the old-fashioned ones. The new rate of stylistic Nmyi SaAhkoM 5 (1913): 9. John E. Bowll; "Body BeauÜfuL" in LahoMkfy eds, John E. Bowit and Olga MaUch Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 41; also see Sally West, CbmshvrhMg CmswwKr Cwltu/e." AdrwrhsiMg fmpmai Russie to 1914, Ch. 6, Sex Appeal: Gender Roles and Sexuality In .Advertising. Ph.D, Dissertation, Univenlty of Illinois, Urban,1 1 h.impaign, 1995. West argues that in Russia advertising was diretily equally toward men and women, and not predominantly toward women as It was in the W est o On adveitiviiii'. in Russia, particularly in relation to female consunMM, ,see West, CoMstrurhng Consumer Cwltun:; AdiS flmn/g hi liHperial Rtwsùi to 1914, Ch. 6, "Sex Appeal: Gender Roles and Sexuality in Advertising." 82 change was exasperating for some and prohibitively expensive for many.^ Yet if the modernized system of fashion created hardships for many individual women who felt outpaced by it, it also created a rare opportunity for women collectively. Ihe general public's adverse reaction to women's fascination with the fashion process and the fashion press, was perhaps a response to the powerful force of change embodied in the mechanism of fashion. The great financial burden incurred from dressing fashionably each season might be factor enough to alarm society, particularly when earlier traditions allowed that women would wait years before buying a new dress.^ Poorer women often "remade" their dresses several times over.'*' More threatening to the status quo, however, was the particular nature of the stylistic innovations in the period, which when embedded in the social and economic climate of the modem urban sphere, translated into "revolution". At the very foundation of the new ideal lay certain contradictory notions. While many touted the bold move to a freer form in 1908 and the new athleticism, many women felt just as inhibited in their movement during this period, such as by the popular hobble skirt of 1912 Perhaps women were indeed thinner and lived a healthier existence once dance and gymnastics were in vogue. But more importantly, it can be argued, the designs were more pleasing to women and had begun to reflect feminine notions of sexuality. Hollander writes that the new fashions following 1908 "began to aim at 4 4 Kelly and Smith retell the story of a Moscow textile worker who is determined to buy a sak. a loose fashionable coat, Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly with additional material by Louise McReynnlds, Ch. 2, "Commercial Culture and Consumerism" in C, Kelly and D. Shepherd, eds, CoMsirwctmg ItHssiau Cwlbue in th e A geo/R m offdion; 1 1 1 . 45Note the preponderunce of cartoons mocking wonwn's Increasing debt to iheir tallois, tor the increasing need for Russian a * Ire .^es to dress well and their difficulty affording these expensive sl\ les see Catherine Schuler, L V tvrK t m nzeNtn-; U w Arimss m ilic SilwrAgc (New York: Rmilledge. hM6). 4 4 Tatiana Georgievna Shatunova, archivisl in the costume section of the Mu//'i goiod.i t ankt-Peterburga v Petropavleskom kreposte Evidence of prerevolutionary twentieth century dresses in the holdings of die museum show the manner In which dresses were re-stitched to suit a new season. 83 creating a visual unity of bodily fomif and the disappearance of the emphatic breasts and hips was part of Ihe tre n d /'It was as if a woman's two halves were reunited. The move away from a heavily fetishized figure during this period is understood by some fashion scholars as the beginning of a process of reduction in the feminine form that would eventually culminate in the 1920s with reduced, abstract, geometric designs.^ The near nudity of the dancers of the sensational Ballets Russes was reinterpreted into the elegant styles of the 1910s, which dared to reveal the outlines of the female body,*» By 1913, attention, both male and female, was drawn to the erotic appeal of the euhrc body, as transparent outer layers of dress playfully exposed the underlying contours of a women's physique enveloped in soft silk crepe and satin. In more avant-garde circles, where women were also gaining ground, audiences witnessed public undressings of what had heretofore been reserved for private intimacy. This bodily exposure might be interpreted by some as women's tendency toward increased vulnerability and submission to the male gaze. Yet, it is not the case if the process scandalized men and intrigued women. It is difficult to know to what extent Russian women adhered to the daring dictates of the 1910s, even if it is apparent that they read about them on a regular basis. Dresses in the collections of the Hermitage and other Russian museums indicate that tire elite certainly wore cutting edge fashions, but for others the evidence is less concrete.* ' G ' Hollander, and Sink, 127. ^ Aime Hollander, Sedmg Clodie*, 4th ed. (Berkeley: Universil}' of California Prew, 1993), 334-38 and Ser iW Sink, 127. * Charles S. Mayer, "The Impact of the Ballets Russes on Design In the West, 1909-1914," in AwMf-Garde F r o T ftM f." R M sm m Mark ifie Wasf, 1910-1930, and Bowit, "Body Beautiful," 40-41. 5 0 Tatiana Timofeevna Korshunova, R osfw um r Rosmf. XWff- nackrla XX t'ska iz sofmuriM goWfMstwMucgy mmffazfw (Leningrad: Khudo/hiiik RSFSR, 1979). Some of the drmst", m the Hermitage were from Moscow residents, but many were confjMuted from private estates in the relersburg area following Ae Revolution. 84 Members of the Muscovite elite, generaUy merchants' wives, were greater risk-takers than their Petersburg peers, and their frequent fraternizing with members of die artistic and theatrical community is well documented in the fashion magazines, among other sources. In LWies' P V erW , the frequent "Moscow Chronicle" features descriptions of intimate performances where women boldly cross the boundaries of decency for the sake of art. In one article, a performer is described as almost naked, dancing in the barefoot manner of Isadora Duncan.51 In St. Petersburg, one prominent venue for the intermingling of avant-garde and bourgeois members of society was the Stray Dog Cafe, where prominent women could show off their provocative styles. At least one female Muscovite, however, failed to see the excitement. In a review of the Stray Dog for the journal kV bfM O i's Cause, Sohia Zarechnaia concludes that the "famous" cafe is overrated. Zarechnaia then extends her assessment to St. Petersburg society as a whole.s: Yet, if one is to judge by the fashion magazines and high society's pattern of following Western shmdards, one can assume that wealthy women in both major Russian cities were exposing more of themselves than they had since the early nineteenth century. And with the change in the urban landscape these undressed women were now more visible to a wider public. Women's substantial participation in Russian culture could only come about once their feminine identity was "laid bare" and perceived in more real terms. Hollander sees the unveiling of women's sexuality as essential to this process. Back in this century's second decade, the most important change for women thus occurred when fashion began to demonstrate female sexuality in direct bodily terms, instead of referring to it indirectly. Fashion had recurrently 5 1 "Moskovskak Wironika," D im tA h': 3 (1914): 20-22, 5 % S. Zarechnaia, "Ms'mo iz Pelerburgo," ZAozskoe (kk 11-12 (1912): 14-16. 85 explained the male body in the past, but it had always equivocated and poeticized about the female one.^^ In other words, female sexuality was formerly mytliologlzed, articulated in safe terms that shielded society from female intimacy, just as the crinoline and corset acted as barriers to these truüis. In Russian society the erotic styles of the 1910s pervaded a culture Hxated on sexual behavior. Of the women's magazines, W b fM C M 's Caw se was most forthright in its coverage of die pcfozw i uopros (gender question), rejecting Otto Weininge/s popular theory of sexual differences and engaging in polemical discussions of the sexual roles of men and women.^ In a study of tum-of-the-century Russian culture, Laura Engelstein demonstrates the extent to which Russian society was preoccupied with sexual themes, both in literature and in legal struggles over abortion and prostitution, After the 1905 Revolution, Engelstein argues, contraceptives were advertised in great number.G^ The woman as sexual being entered social and literary discourse, with heroines like Verbitskaia's Mania Eltsova (whose favorite clothes are transparent) having multiple lovers and shunning motherhood. In contrast to Tolstoy's novel Anna KarmiM a, where Anna's implied use of birth control is portrayed as a moral fading, the prototype of the liberated woman in the early twentieth century is simultaneously edified and demonized in popular culture. Women were expected to assume aU roles, and examples of these tom women appear in feuilletons of the " 1 ) HoUander, 5 iT % «m d Swik, 133. w On critic*! response to Otto Weininger by women writers and journalists, see "/bmonenavistnichestvo" ly Sofiia Zarechnaia. Zknskoe delo 5 (1913): 1244. also "Liubov', tango i zhensko*' ravnopnivle." tr ^ ' "Taisa Khitrovo," with citations from Miuller-Lier, füzy hubM and Ellen Kay, Imbov : kwt, /A r A A i 14 (1914): 1245; and 15 (1914): 10-12. ^ On the cultural puxx: u|)ation with sex following Uu hX)5 Revolution, see l.aura Engelskin, T/w Keys fo HappiiKss; Sex arut & 'N ' oik/br Modmn'ty in i m i/c RiM si* (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). * Engelstein, Keys Ir Uc/'pmjss. 345. 86 women's magazines, just as they were popularized by the prominent "boule\'ard" writers of the period, Verbitskaia, hvdokiia Nagrodskaia, and Anna Mar, Tire issue of women's sexuality was seldom overtly touched upon in the more conservative women's magazines, such as Ladies' kV orld and /oumal/br fA c Housczeÿê. Yet, when one considers the erotic nature of the new fashions, and the proliferation of photographic representations of the most daring styles, women witnessed and engaged in regular public expressions of the underlying sexual preoccupation of early twentieth century Russian society. The introduction of photographic images to (he fashion periodical changed drastically the role of illustration in the magazines. Photographs were regularly manipulated and "perfected" before appearing in print, yet they still enhanced tire documentary nature of the illustrations. Breward argues that regardless of medium, the dresses depicted in fashion magazines in England were equally unattainable for most women, and their presence only intensified women's feelings of envy and disappointment. Yet, it should be noted that these images often conveyed messages that could not be advised openly in the "how to" pages of the magazines. The play of transparent fabrics, the allure of the pose, and the knowing seduction of the look could not be readily transmitted through the old and tired technique of fashion engravings, nor could the behavior associated with the new styles be explicitly endorsed in the fashion column. Photography was an exciting medium for fashion. It was novel, and allowed for reproductions of some of die most sumptuous designs of Parisian fashion houses to circulate among most members of Russian urban society. Even if the images were, to a degree, false or corrupted to some degree, the look could be consumed in a moment, and gave (he impression of models as real ptxiple. These new codes of 87 "naturalism" were effective k x )I@ of persuasion. Jennifer Craik writes^ "Miotography revolutionized the representation of fashiou;^ not just in terms of the technical ability to depict clothes 'realistically', but by inventing ways to display the relationships between clothes, wearers, and contexts.''^? Women were instructed visually, just as they were discursively, to follow the lead of Parisian designers. Furthermore, without being told directly, they could learn pictorially of the trend in modem dress to reveal one's sexuality and strive for greater creative authorship. Perhaps in response to photography's rising prominence in the genre, fashion illustration underwent a radical transformation in this period, Artists such as Georges Lepape, Paul Iribe and Erté gained worldwide renown, and some designers even feared the work of the illustrators would eclipse their dress designs,:^ as illustration entered as a parzdlel art. As fashion photography began to contribute a documentary element to fashion magazines by featuring numerous "live mannequins," fashion illustration became more abstract and simplified, with less attention to detail. Departing from both portrait painters and photographers these illustrators offered an iurpression of a woman's modem toilette. Valerie Steele argues that the illustrators sought in their pictures to capture the moment and, perhaps like photography, to translate the experience of the fleeting "look" for its readers.^ While several illustrators made distinguished careers for themselves in publislung, the photograph soon overshadowed illustration as the dominant, most enduring feature of fashion magazines. Jennifer Craik, f'm r of 7 C w ffM ral 5 Wie» iM (Ix)ndon: RoutWge, i993), 93, * Valerie Steele, 7 W izcH. . \ Cidfwral 2nd ed, (New York: Berg, 1998), 221-34; end Hollander, Tlirwzgli CkffiK;, 331-32, * Steele, Parze FagMo», 225-27 //if izh lm e (kk frequently pirated illustration!; by Irlbe and Lepape for its magazines (often without n len'iut- to the authors of the drawings), including some very prominent cover designs. 88 Russian photographic studios produced celebrity postcards and studio portraits^ but European studios created the fasluon shots dominant in Russian periodicals. Zasosov and Py/in remember the propagandistic influence of foreign photographic images that spread through St. Petersburg after the turn of the century. "Photography and the cinema proliferated images created by the leading fashion houses of Paris and London. In Petersburg, as in Western Europe, the costumes of the aristocracy, bourgeoisie, and members of decent society, despite obvious distinctions in quality and level of pretense, yielded more and more to the general style of the epoch."^ Photographic images could better disseminate the foreign trends in dress and brought Russian urban culture into direct dialogue with the European aesthetic and sartorial standard. Photographs not only more accurately depicted the styles but also the appropriate manner' in which they were worn. In many ways this development was inherently democratic, and brought images from private salons out into the general arena of modem culture where Ihey were up for grabs. Russia witnessed this process of "standardization" as a consequence of their greater participation in European economic and bourgeois culture. If, in women's fashion, society adhered to a norm, it was one that embodied modem notions of sexuality and individuality, which as autonomous topics in social discourse were certainly present in Russia, but they were still divisive, and women were less privy to them. Photography fostered a leveling of European society by granting the greater public access to formerly privileged views of design and style, and therefore allowed a more diverse group to contribute to the fashionable aesthetic. In bringing about a Zasosov and PVzin, h zAizai Pfkrtwrgo 244. "Fokgrah'B i kincmatograf povshidu rasprostraniiaiut obraztsy, sozdavaemyc vedu-shchimi modeCnyi domami Parizba i Londona. V Peterburge, kak i V Zapadnoi Evrope, kosUumy arbtokraUi, burzhua i pnwto prilirhnoi publiki, pri viiekb ikh fazUdhüakh v atepeni dobrotnosd i prelentsioznosU, vee bolee podchmialis' obshcbeaui sW K u epokhl," 89 conflation of contexts, in Ais case Western European and Russian, photography exerted a potentially disruptive influence on its ''guest " environment. In "Ihe Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin reflects back on the introduction of photography into European culture. He writes: "One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the oiyect reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition [...] Photographs of fashionable Parisian models had perhaps even greater impact on a Russian audience insofar as the perceiving crowd was remote or alien. Many Russian women were certainly accustomed to looking at images inspired by French fashion gurus, but the photograph granted the depicted model a stronger sense of identity, and a greater degree of corporeality. Members of Russian society were aware of the foreign photograph's power of persuasion and not always comfortable with the general influx of foreign taste into their urban centers. In periods of heightened nationalism, after the outbreak of the First World War, for example, an effort was made to forge Russianness in dress design and to replace foreign images with domestic ones. The Russian fashion periodicals promoted competitions for the best national costume, and rewarded designers for their innovative applications of folk elements to contemporary dress.*^ Prominent women were commended for their patronage of Russian designers and appreciation of "Russian" * 1 Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in trans. Harry Zohn (New York Schockcn Books, 1969), 221. K ! Dmmsbi wur and .Wnfsc Rtissii both cover the competition in 1916 and reproduce designs or photographs taken at tlie event For more information on the competition see Wendy Salmond. Arts and Crt^s in Lik fmpgnai R w ssim : R Riizdm g the Kusfar Art iMdnstneg, 1A70-1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University FYess, 1996), 178-179. 90 styles. Numerous articles explore the influence of Russian fashion on cultures abroad and of Russian women's international reputation for beauty. Following the great success of the Ballets Russes in Europe, elements deemed "Russian" came inW style. For the most part this influence was more Eastern rather than Russian, and arrived via the magnificent costumes designed by Lev Bakst for Schéhérazade and other popular ballets of the company. However, certain individual articles of clothing, such as the Russian folk blouse or the incorporation of fur trim along the collar of a blouse (a W Russe), that were derived from Russian native traditions were also adopted by the fashion elite. The prevalence of images from foreign sources occasionally prompted Russian society to reclaim fashion and assert a degree of authority in the sphere. In an article published in PVim em 's Cause, the Russian artist Mariia Bashkirtseff, whose memoirs of a bohemian, liberated life in Paris both scandalized and transBxed tum-of-the-century Russian society, is credited with revolutionizing women's fashion. The article, entitled "Mariia Bashkirtseff as an authority on fashions," retells the legend that Bashkirtseff, who designed all of her own dresses, so impressed the father of haute couture, Frederick Worth, with her sophisticated sense of style that he found it impossible to dream up anything without her approval.^K ) The article asserts, "Her verdict was always firm and fair. Every instruction, every piece of advice Worth headed carefully. Women of all countries are indebted to M.B. for the retreat in fashion to the classical forms of the Greeks and Romans, from which Worth has not deviated even today." Thus, the first Russian "new woman" and predecessor to many others is heralded as the mother of modem European women's fashion. w luUi Klets "Mariia Bashkirtseva kak zakonodatel'nitsa mody." Damst/i mir 5 (1908): 5-8. 91 It was not unusual for fashion magazines even In the nineteenth century to devote pages to the accomplishments of contemporary men and women and admirable representatives of an earlier period. In the early twentieth century, women's magazines upheld this tradition, but with greater attention paid to famous women dian to famous men. Female role models, such as Bashkirtseff, appear on magazine covers and title pages at this time, where their lives are dissected for the purpose of instruction. Jennifer Craik has noted that throughout Europe in the early twentieth century, female icons of fashion were no longer simply royal beauties, women whose class status afforded them public attention: The aristocracy was supplanted as the elite fashion community and role models. Socialites, artists and movie stars offered alternative sources of inspiration. These role models offered desirable images and behavior that were no longer based on emulating one's superiors. Individualism and modernity prevailed.^ The new women, more readily accessible peers, prompted fantasy of a type that engenders identification rather than mere admiradon. Photography was essential to this process of emulation, particularly since women were worshipped for their individual sense of style. As Wuise McReynolds has demonstrated in a study of the popular singer Anastasiia Vial'tseva, in the early twentieth century women were less encumbered by social stigmas applied to involvement in the arts, even the tradidonaUy "lower" forms, and many received unprecedented commercial success during this period. Vial'tseva, a singer of romances who performed in cafes and cabarets, achieved fame that exceeded that of the prominent members of the Imperial 'theater, though several actresses and dancers were the well-kno^vn faces in the modem urban crowd. With the entrance of female celebrities came the development of commercial fan culture, a collective pastime 92 that swept the urban and perhaps even the provincial sphere."* Women and gids who adored Vial'tseva and others like her who shared such tame collected postcards with their photographic portraits and fashioned themselves in their images. Whereas earlier periodicals might have looked to opera singers and princesses to inspire their readers, the fashion magazines of the 1910s chose female representatives from numerous spheres. As the new feminine ideal came to embody creativity, mobility and visibility, female "artists" of all types— actresses, ballerinas, writers, painters and sculptors— appeared more frequently on the pages of both 1 jidzes' World and Wbmrn's Cause. Throughout the early years of its publication, ladies' World sought out safe role models, such as Miss Margarita Frey, winner of a prestigious American beauty contest.* In the 1910s the magazine continued to cover royal figures and members of the aristocracy, but it also turned its attention to popular performers such as Lipkovskaia, Gzovskaia, Roshchina-Insarova, Zabela-Vrubel', Vial'tseva and Isadora Duncan. Ludlt's' World also published articles on the writers Izabella Grinevskaia and Anna Mar and several series on minor Russian women painters. On the cover of the April 1913 issue of Ladles World, the ballerina Tamara Karsavina stands dressed in a luxurious contemporary design by the French couturier DrecolL Karsavina's strong, lean dancer's build was an ideal match for the long narrow skirts then in fashion, and photographs show her frequently dressed in outfits designed by the most prominent fashion houses in Paris and London. A few years later, toward the end of the War, Karsavina makes the following proclamation at an "Evening of Russian Fashions." Craik. T/»; F m cc (ÿ'F aaA loM . 74. I have collected numerous ponkards of celebriUc'S and ordiiwi) " labluonable women that were clrculaW in Russia. Many of these postcards originated in more provincial cities, rather than exclusively Moscow and St. Petersburg. * "Miss Margarita Frei," Damshi Mir It) (1907): cover. 93 It is time we asked our dear ardsta to draw us dreaaes, of courae very fashionable dresses that people now wear, but ones accessorized according to Russian national dress. We will demand that they be made by Russian dressmakers, from Russian fabric, and then we will have Russian fashion. And then? Then we will go to Paris and show Paris our fashions and Paris will bow to us and order dresses designed by Russian artists made by Russian dressmakers from Russian fabric. And then the embankments of the Moika and Fontanka, not to mention Morskaia, will look just like the sidewalks of the Rue de la Paix...^? In many articles prominent performers are asked to comment on their fashion preferences and reveal their personal beaut}' secrets. In one article we are told that Elena Roshchina-Insarova, whose performances are noted for their zMzngrmosT (vitality or lifelike quality), often designs her own dresses, even for theatrical roles, and has them sewn by the Moscow dressmaker Bulanina. When abroad, Roshchina-Insarova claims that she often receives compliments on her outfits by some of the major French designers.^ The use of the stage as fashion show during thi.9 period has been documented for both the Western European and Russian contexts.^ Postcards and photographs published in the fashion periodicals (among other popular magazines) depict well-known actresses in opulent dresses too expensive for most women of their station. Catherine Schuler argues that theater directors placed intense pressure on Russian actresses to dress at their own expense in the latest fashions of Paris and London, and that the financial burden of such requirements forced many actresses into prostitution.^ The most successful actresses among them, however, were spared such a Russkii pafizhanin, 'To povodu vechera mody" SWitw i wW6a, 60-61 (May 1916): 14-15. For additional information on this same event see SoiM isa Rosmi, (1916): Sudeikin designed dresses for Gkbova, and Anisfel'd for Karsavina. A. Matova. "K portretu artlstki K , N, Rorhrhinni-lnsarovoi ' Damski: mir8 (1913): 3, ^ For a study of the Englisfi ,n in-ss ,ind the important d f « hion in tum-of-lhe-century tlavli i, see Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell, TVh'iitn'I Wiw/f. ( 'sni/r t vd I (lir (Cambridge ( .nnlmdge University' Press, 1994). ^ Catherin» * liiiler, " Actr* s xudam» e and Fashion in the Silver Age: A Crisis of Costume," in iV oM ir;: d M ii R w ssiaM ( /dtfoe." Pmjecti f r t v'lf f \ n'pdoMS, ed, Rosalind Marsh (New York: Berghahn Books, 1998), 111-17. 94 fate. These celebrities were the women most often seen on tlie pages of fashion magazines. A select few may have even earned royalties for modeling new dresses and promoting beauty products. ITus patronage does not appear to have come only from foreign sources, such as Karsavina's posing for Drecoll.^ In the fashion magazines perfonners are occasionally depicted in advertisements for Russian Arms, such as a photograph of the ballerinas Ekaterina Geltser and Vera Karalli for the Perfume maker A.M. Ostroumov. The caption for GeltseKs photograph reads "When 1 dance in 'Corsair' I always use Viclefk Tzar. It reminds me of the East with its exoAc beauty and intoxicating nature.''^^ Russian women celebrities had the double task of embodying the new ideal as propagated by foreign fashion houses, yet simultaneously creating, or attempting to create, Russian distinctions in feminine identity. This role was also extended to fictional representations of the ferninine ideal, such as Mania from Keys to HappiMfss, whom numerous young women sought to ape in dress and manner. One advertisement promotes a dress named "Elza", perhaps a reference to the popular tango dancer and silent film star Elza Kriuger. PV bfM cn's Cause celebrated many of the women whose contribution to Russian culture is most widely recognized still today: Anna Akhmatova, Zinaida Gippius, Anastasiia Verbitskaia, and Natalia Goncharova, among others. Correspondents for k V o T M C M 's Cause, Bronislava Runt and Sofiia Zarechnaia, regularly reviewed exhibitions of work by women artists and publications by women writers.^^ The magazine makes a n Russian women also modeled clothes for foreign periodicals, such as (he photograph of Ida Rubinshtein in a dress by Paquin for a cover of Comedia IMusbe in 1913. 7 3 Damstfi mir 4 (1913), inside cover, 7 3 See "Iskaniia" ZlicMsW dck 20 (1913): 12-13, for a review of an exhibition of works by Goncharova; see "Vystavka sovremcnnogo dekorativnogo iskusstva " /kw dnc ?3 (1915): 15-16, for a review of the Verbovka exliibition whkh featured decorative objects dosigiuxl l»y Aleksandia Exter and Evgeniia Pribylskaia, amon^ others; sec Bronislava Runt, "Skojb)u.w ul\ iii.a" (Akhmatova) Z/Kfwkvdek 9 (1914): 11- 95 point of putting faces to the names of women who were present in the public domain, but were perhaps not sufficiently visible, such z w the wildly successful Verbitskaia who cultivated her own cult of personality by publishing her memoirs just as her novels were most avidly being read/-* Runt and Zarechnaia were also photographed for the magazine as well as their fellow contributors, Anna Mar and Liubov Stolitsa. Women were brought into die public sphere, exposed as artists and writers as many sought to explore the nature of women's creative impulses. In the fashion magazines, women also became real partners in journalism. A is Charlotte Rosenthal has pointed out, given women's propensity to write under male pseudonyms in the early twentieth century, it is often difdcult to know exacdy how many women journalists were publishing at this time. That women were increasingly active in journalism by the beginning of the twentieth century is known from documented careers of several established women writers who used their own names or feminine pseudonyms to publish.^ In other words, women's contribution to journalism during this period was significant, but perhaps was even more substantial than can be known. The women's magazines provide an unusual case in the publishing scenario. Women often took on an uncontested central role in these publications; they were magazines for women, they could certainly be by women. Often the readership is addressed as "she" and articles are written to uasMm dufaWMikam (our female readers). 12, for a review of "Chelki" by Akhmatov u; sn- s,,hi,i /.im bnai.». Vlk fL '.kni' o nr /Jienskom (noskol'ko ;lov o Gippius) ZAeHsktv ilrki 10 (IQIÜ): 1540, form rm few of a puMlcafion by Cippius. Beth Holmgren, "iii'nUiTing Uw k on" in ilbw;, » ( «lOfn , I lek na I ost Uo and Beth Holmgren (Bloomington: Indiana Uiuverltv I',ess, 1996), 34U /Uso R*M ,dind Marsh "Anaslasiia Verbitskaia," in GeWrr mid Ri/ssiim LiieitiW iv.' .V i w 1 V m ji& T hneg, ed. Rosalind Marsh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 7 3 Charlotte Rosonthall, "Women Prose Writers, 1885-1917" in CrM deraM d Riiwian likmdwR'.' Vm n Persprclines, 134-85. 96 Given such an environment, it might behoove a male writer to hide fiis identity under a feminine pseudonym, particularly as women increasingly held the reins in the sphere of fashion. That is not to say that articles were not published openly by male writers in these magazines. Many men wrote for the journals, particularly in the early part of the century. Yet by the 1910s women were a dominant presence in many women's magazines, contributing prose, poetry, literary reviews, social critiques and news accounts from abroad. A female voice held sway, and even in periodicals edited and published by men, women writers grew more visible. The women's magazines were a privileged sphere for women. Their content was considered harmless, and therefore women could expose their true identities and yet still be accepted into publication. The Russian scholar Irina Nekhorosheva has claimed that women were allowed to participate in the publication of women's journals already in the mid-nineteenth century, and thus by the next century a limited pattern of involvement had been established.^^ In the twentieth century, women gained greater authority and managed many of the projects, including those that had the most successful runs, such as Ladies' IVorld and Women's Cause. Scant biographical material is available for women who ran the journals, and most information can only be culled from tire publications themselves. Ladies' World was both published and edited by women. The editor Aleksandra Zakharovna Murav'eva, was reputedly a member of the aristocracy. Elena Kippar, the editor of the modest Moscow periodica], W bnw M 's Wbrld (Z/w m sldi mir), simultaneously ran a sewing school that trained women for the Moscow dressmaking shops. In several issues of the % Irina Nekhoroeheva, "Zhumal mod kak vid periodicheskogo khudozhaitvennogo izdaniia," 97 magazine Kippar runs fuU page advertisement for the sehoo) in which she emphasizes in bold lettering the goal of the school to "provide an opportunity to study the craft of dressmakings so that one can work FULLY INDEPENDENTLY and PROFESSIONALLY."^ M /bmcu's Cause was originally published by a man, but in January of 1912 Evdokiia Krasheninnikova took over the journal, and saw it into its expansion in the mid-1910s. kVbfwn's Cause offered its subscribers several supplemental publications, many of which were written by women authors. "Russian Laws Relating to Women" by V. Mikhailova and "The Woman At Home and in Society" by Irma Loran were the most widely circulated. As mentioned earlier, Sofiia Bogel'man published and initially edited the weekly St. Petersburg magazine kV bnum (ZhenshchiM s). The magazine printed magnificent photographs of Parisian models in the 1910s and remained in publication until 1916. The unsuccessful Fas/uou (MoAL which promised to be the first magazine in Russia devoted solely to the art of fashion, was edited and published by two women, Sofiia Taube (pseudonym of Sofiia Anchikova) and Klavdiia Lezhoeva. The equaÜy unsuccessful ParisWz (Panzlianka) was launched by A. G. Galachev (a man), the eventual publisher of the profitable Women's Catfse. Minor and major poets and prose writers published in the women's magazines, Many w^orks of literature of the genre migld best be described as melodramatic. Women's Cause published "serious" literature more frequently than some of the other dcmsldf magazines, but even the progressive journals had a tendency to publish impressionistic poetry and romances, rather than (he high literature of contemporary Russian society. M zritTM msgtoÿo Mwhs/.w Vypusk XVH (Leningrad, 1964), 76. "Shkola kroiki i dût ü plate'ev R . I. Kippar." mir 6 (1910): 1, Kipp.ir made attrmpts at publishing womenS ma; ,1 /ifM 'h. (n 1 9 0 * ^ shr ml iti\l .m illiKlralixl weekly entilkd 'iM'iharfrfi/, which ran for three issues, Betwct'ii iwtxwnd M X * Kipper publish'd ,md edited the monthly piiWdw, and between 1906 and I9 1 K ) she i dik'd a Luihinn and lilerary monthly, Zkoisker ky/fsfw, 98 Poetry dedicated to RpcciHc items of dress were not nmommon, and attention to fashion in prose was also consistent What these various pieces of literature do share is a common locus of interest— the contemporary life, both private and public, of a Russian woman. Increasingly, women writers were enlisted to provide these accounts. In the debate surrounding the women's periodical as an "agent" of identity, many scholars see women firmly locked into a process of consumption and manipulation, persuaded into thinking they must perfect the imperfectable. It follows that women leave this process unsatisfied, disappointed in themselves, and broken by a force larger than their own. It becomes all too apparent that the standards established in the media that feed the notion of a feminine ideal are ultimately unreachable. Evidence indicates that such patterns of behavior exist in contemporary societies. Perhaps this cycle of emulation was indeed the case in early twentieth century Russia and most women felt pained by their inadequate personal beauty. Such a theory, however, ignores the important development of fashion as a means of entertainment and aesthetic enjoyment. Augmented by photography, fashion periodicals and film, fashion and the new female role models of the twentieth century produced startling new images for women to admire and adore. While women may not have met these standards in dieir personal toilette, they were perhaps rewarded in unprecedented ways, particularly if these new styles more accurately reflected feminine notions of beauty and desire. Furthermore, a female audience who was more receptive to the beautiful, erotic images of the new woman, was perhaps also more open to notions of female individuality, independence, and creativity embodied in these new styles. 99 CHAPTER 3: EARLY RUSSIAN CINEMA AND THE THEATER OF FASHION tn shod, WM conceived of as a barrage of stimuli. %ie dressed for the part in elegant clothing whose connotations came to include a self-conscious sexual desirability, a knowing seduction.^ Maureai I'urim, "Seduction and Elegance: The New Woman of Fashion in Silent Cinema" In an article published in Ihe pre-Revolutionary cinema trade journal K tM e- zA w rM d l (Cine-joumal) a reporter writing under the pseudonym 'Vladimirov" reproaches the women of Moscow for following fashion magazines too literally. "Study fashion in a crowd/' he advises them, and secondly "study fashion in motion/' In addition to the "coveted ' magazines, the author encourages women to look for sartorial instruction in the "wonders of cinema," for cinema "provides both crowds and movement." He concludes with the rallying cry, "Go and look."^ By 1915 when Vladimirov's article appeared, film was well established as an attractive medium for disseminating and viewing fashionable images. Dressmakers often numbered among the crowded motion picture audiences, and film stars, like other female celebrities of the I Maureen Turim, "Seduction and Elegance: The New Wuni.m ni l',»hion in SUenf Cinema" 0 » T a aA ioM , ed @ . Shari Benslock and Suzanne Ferris (New Brunswick, Nj: Rulgcn, I tnivei%ity PresA, 1994), 140. Vladimirov, "Zhenshchiny, moda i kinemo (Legkomy»lenn^ ( fi I'eton dlla aer'ezrg'kh liudel)" Xiw-zkumal (Moscow) 11-12 (1915): 10I>1Q2. 100 pehod, could daim credit for setting fashion trends.) In the pre-sound epoch of film, actors and actresses spoke with their bodies, more specifically their clothed bodies, and their moving (or pausing) images conveyed the essence of the dramatic moment. Dress became an important device for communicating elements of a narrative, but it also gave cinema its much-recognized allure. Cinema quickly became a regular pastime of urban residents, and it attracted an unprecedented portion of the public.* According to one Russian cinema-house proprietor, who was well respected at the time for his understanding of audience demands, to successfully act in a film an actress must do more thzm merely display dramatic talent. Most importantly, she must know "how to wear a beautiful gown.") Given die fad for innovative dress design and a growing consensus among early- twentieth-century Russian women that dress habits could be exciting and enjoyable, the role of film as fashion show was welcomed by many enthusiasts. Like photography, film offered audiences detailed, life-like portraits of the modem feminine ideal, embodied in new styles that promoted mobility, sexuality, and creative fantasy. Yet, around the same time that cinema gained widespread popularity, various custodians of the status quo intensified their criticism of the new fashion's influence on women. Vladimirov's article ) In his book on pre-Revotulionary cinematic experience in Russia, Yuri Tsivian points out that cinema audiences often included seamstresses and saleswomen from fashionable shops. Women were known to model tliemselves in dress and in hairstyles after film celebrities such as Vera Kholodnaia, Vera Karalli, and Olga Preobrazhenskaia. Yuri 1 sivian, Egrfy C ificM W in am d iis Culfurol R ecepW oH (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 34,46. Some film stars even posed for advertisemefits. Given the quantity of fan postcards Aat have survived to diis day, it is evident that many spectators collected and sent them. Denise Youngblood also provides evidence of the composition of cinematic audiences, noting the "salespeople from kshionable shops, clerks and petty bourgeoisie'' in attendance. Denise Youngblood, T/ic Magic Mirror; Rwssia, 1908 (Madison, Wl: University of Wisconsin Press, % )00), 41. " The cinema was a lew, expensive form of ent"r(aminent than the theater and thus an affordable one for a greater number of urlxin rvsidi nis, partit uLirh .imong the growing middle class. While the arena's earliest appearance in Russia was associated w^th less reputable Institutions, fan culture and magazine articles that flaunted the glamour of movie stars, among other influences, helped establish the cinema as a more "decent" arena of entertainment. 101 (which the author calls a "light-hearted feuilleton") is ambiguous. It can be read either as a call to women to dress the part and continue modeling themselves after him actresses (despite mounting concerns over the hardships of World War I) or as a satire on those who attended the cinema merely to admire the gowns of elegantly dressed women. Both impulses existed simultaneously in culture, but it appears that the alarmist views of fashion's dominance were generally mollified by a casual dismissal of dress as a superficial concern. Insofar as it acted as an extension of the arena of fashion, which by this time had been ceded primarily to women, cinema offered women an effectual, "protected" sphere of visual and narrative fantasy. Several recent studies of silent film in the United States and Europe in the early twentieth century explore the role of cinema in relation to female spectators. Anne Friedberg sees early responses to cinema by urban women in the United States and internationally as parallel to their participation in department store window shopping, an activily which she defines as essential to the development of the modem "female observer."^ Indeed, many characteristics of early Russian cinema appear to follow this model, from the glass foyers of the cinema houses visible from the streets, to the numerous advertisements posted on the walls, and the magnificent gowns projected onto the screen. Nan Enstad looks at working women in New York in the 1910s and argues that Üieir frequent attendance at motion pictures and eager adoption of "fan practices" fostered the creation of new public identities for female laborers as "ladies."^ 51 . Kfugliakn\', of the "Khudn»:hcsivfmnyi" film company in Odessa. Qtd. in M. Landesman, Vera Kholodnaia," in B. I), /iukov, comp., V rnr (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1995), 153. (iPor a more dcüiilml discussion of the female ohscn or, or füncusc, see Chapter!, "The Mobilized and Virtual Gaze in MoUemtiy: PlÊneur/Mâm'usi'," in Anne Friedberg'e W imtW * Ciaema and Ike /Wmodem (Berkeley: Univorally of C.ililiirnia f*n«s, 1993). r Nan Enstad, Ladies Labor, Giris qfAiLi t Vohki»g W ormoi, Popwier Crdlwre, and Labor foiihcs «I Ike Twn; of Ike TwMiielk Genlwfy (New York: t itlmnl'u I niversit^' Press, 1999). Other studies that treat female 102 Both Friedberg and Enstad explore the potentially transformative power of film as collective entertainment and as an agent in the cultivation of desire among women, a development that ultimately aided in disrupting prevailing norms. While scholars dispute the essence of Ihc messages conveyed to women in the cinema regarding their roles in modem society, most agree that women's presence in the urban public sphere increased during this period and Aat the sudden, active confrontation of images of popular culture by the new feminine spectator had an impact on notions of collective feminine identity. Freiberg argues that cinema and other modem urban forms of entertainment schooled women in the process of ImhMg, of employing a "female gaze" that for the most part had been publicly and privately ignored in European and American society.'' While their role as subject of the male gaze may not have diminished during this period, women's adoption of a process of active observation, I would argue, began to foster a creative dimension to their lives. This power of vision appears closely linked to creative vision, particularly in the context of fashion, and the artistry with which women begfm to approach their own "look" by means of dress may have provided a foundation for their participation in other creative processes. Scholarship on the parallel period in Russia also treats the importance of cinematic spectatorship, including the distinct area of feminine spectatorship. in her recent study of Russian cinema before the Revolution, Denise Youngblood devotes a chapter to the function of Him as a "guide to life," for members of the middling classes and emerging bourgeoisie who patronized the cinema. She also notes, among other gpectatorshlp include, amon^ others, Tania lYawM Knew Tw Mud;,' Hüdzcod «m d F crniM ief T % eory (New York: Rouik dfy. 1%8), JïaM and Sprctafordiy m/mcncm; SikMt Film (Cambridge: Harvard Univeraity Prew, Friedberg, tMwdm' 103 trends, the popular emulation of the styles and trends promoted by cinema's female celebrities.* Tendencies in leading roles for female actresses, according to Youngblood, included the liberated career woman and the sexual predator, both of which reflect the sodal climate of a country witnessing far-reaching changes.^^) In a recent article on pre revolutionary silent film in Russia, T.x)uise McReynolds examines many of the same films as Youngblood and traces the ways in which they feed into the process of modernization taking place in Russia at the time." McReynolds explores the emergence of female film stars, in particular, and concludes that the often contradictory social roles they embodied in these films are representative of the new ambiguity in identity that arrived as a consequence of expanding practices of mass consumer culture.^: Yuri Tsivian discusses cinematic experience in the pre-RevoIutionary period in Russia in terms of the two distinct realms of the public's activity: going to the cinema and watching a fHm. Furthermore, Tsivian demonstrates that while cinematic spectators often emulated film stars in manner and dress at times, ihe narrative content of a film did little to inform this behavior. In essence, image and plot often could be perceived and interpreted independently. This tendency was particularly apparent m the early "illusion" years of cinema, but continued into the 1910s when longer narratives were common.^ Russian native film production began only in 1908, but during its most * Youngblood, chapter 8, "The Guide to Life," in T A e Mftgic Mirror, 128-39. ^ 0 Youngblood, Magic Mirror, 99,135-136. u Thanks to the work of McReynolds, Tsivian and Youngblood in recent years, die work of the talented pre- Revolutlonary director Evgenti Bauer has received deserved recognition. Bauer's films were often melodramatic society tales, or "aalon dramas" as they were sometimes called. Bauer was a prolific filmniakei, and mam of his slon^ have been preserved, at lea.st in p,irt, althou[,h often without intertitles. See Tsivian, Si/rid for biographical iuforuMtion on Bauer. S,v also Ia)uise McReynolds, "The Silent Mm le Melodwm.i livgetiii Bauer Fashions the I leroiiw'h Helt, " S ifawd Story in Russian Cidfwrr, ed. Laura hngelstrin and ^ephanie \ind1er (Idwca: Cornell University Press, 2 U Ü Ü ): 12Ô-140. u M cR ey n o ld s, " IheSilmit Movie Melodrama" passim. Tsivian, Eariy iu Rif' - la. 'wv Part II, In particular, chapter 7, "Ihe Reception of Narrative Categories," l(i2-17(). 104 productive period, 191M917, pre-RevoIuÜonary cinema offered lavish portraits of elite contemporary reality, often in the form of melodramatic tales of love and deceit or comic escapades. Society tales supplied the Russian audience with a constant stream of fashionable images, and native film stars, while at times overshadowed by the cult of foreign celebrities, allowed for a more intimate identification with the innovations of modem dress. Until die advent of cinema, scenes of high society were rarely glimpsed by members of the lower classes, except through occasional photographs featured in newspapers, and were more the stuh of dreams. Such access to the privileged life provided a new source of fantasy for audiences and facilitated identihcation with Russian female role models. Films depicted a life, once secret, to which one could now more vividly aspire, if never realize. In the few years of Russian film production leading up to World War I, women appeared in provocative styles that celebrated the renewal of classical feminine beauty: a slim, elegant silhouette that suggested an idealized, non-fetishized sexuality that could be seen in exposed hmbs and carefully placed transparent fabrics, but not in exaggerated erogenous zones as in styles of previous years. These films also reveal the tendency in modem women's day wear to simultaneously combine traditionally ferninine and masculine elements of dress, in a period in which attempts to scientifically or academically distinguish between men and women, the femininity articulated in dress was one that defied simple categorization. Femininity was in many ways a contradictory term. The allure of female celebrities certainly derived largely from their beauty and ability to wear the new fashions well. But cinema was also a particularly effective medium for conveying the tease of fashion. Female stars were worshiped for their beauty, and the apparent nudity or exposure of styles hinted at a heightened eroticism 105 of the new féminine ideal, but often these images spoke of a new independence, both social and sexual, that served to challenge assumptions of women's passivity. The onset of the war initiaUy dampened public interest in fashion in Russia and throughout Europe. Societal pressure made it difficult to openly relish the originality, exuberance, and fantasy of the immediate pre-war period. All forms of extravagance were suddenly frowned upon, even by some of new fashion's staunchest earlier adherents. Fashion magazines published "scandalous" reports of women who came to soirées shamefully overdressed and provided detailed accounts of various groups who s o u ^ t to ardculak a new national consciousness in dress.^^ Yet, despite the war, and despite the fact that the "new woman ' — a figure intimately aligned with the new fashions— seem to publicly faU from grace, high fashion never disappeared from film. Domestic film production cornered the market in Russia during the war, when imports naturally fell dramatically. This dominance provided the Russian public with a more homogeneous filmic experience. Perhaps to distract audiences from troubles abroad, many Russian films produced during this period— at least the popular melodramas and comedies— appear to be suspended in the pre-war era. If women curtailed their passion for modem fashion during the war, it does not seem that they ended their pre-war habit of "going and looking." Yet as members of Russian society hved vicariously through film, they also encountered changing attitudes toward appropriate depictions of a fictional reality. Many films continued to satisfy 50061)/s needs for beautiful images, while manipulating their reference, as one might expect during a time of hardship and "Modoborchestvo," SW mW 329-23 (May 19161:12-13; Ruaskii parùhmnin, 'To povodu vcchem mody" Stobka i w.Wh*, 60-61 (May 1916), 14-15. "Khudo/Jn-iivennyi konkurs na sostavknic rukunkov H i modeUesoviemenno) zhonskoiodezhdy," Dcmslbi miro (l'«(6): 4-5. in a later issue of Dawwhi fr/irof the same year, several "Russian domestic dresses" are featured D aM w A ii mir 12 (1916): 23. 106 necessary sacrifice. Analysis of the narrative structure of films from the war period, which I will present in a later section, will reveal an overt, albeit superficial, effort to simply "blame fashion" — firstly, for exploiting women's purported weakness for beautiful objects and luxury, but also, more importantly, for propelling women's growing social and intellectual independence. In other words, fashion prevailed as a mainstay of popular cinema, but it was often used as a scapegoat for an apparent social decline. StUI, if one looks at this narrative tendency in light of the patterns of cinematic reception in Russia as revealed by Yuri Tsivian, it can be argued that cinematic images were able to operate indcpendendy of their narrative context. Thus, fashionable images continued to resonate with women during this period, despite the moral stigma attached to them. Though few women would have likely dared to wear die expensive chiffons and elaborate daras of the immediate pre-war period, many may have managed to demonstrate their allegiance to the new fashions, and, I assert, to the more subconscious messages implied by such changes, by adhering to formal bends in dress such as shorter wider skirts and loose-waisted jackets.^^ other words, films or cinematic performances could be interpreted in two independent ways: on the level of narra dve and on the level of image or visual impression. Quite possibly, for many, the seducdve picture took precedence over the didactic message. My discussion of contemporary fashion in film will consist of two main secdons. First I will look at the way in which fashion operates as image or visual device in film and how it draws women into an active process of looking. Secondly I will analyze fashion as a bope or narrative device, focusing on several films by the leading prc- u Denige Youngblood also mentions the public's attraction to the fashions of female film stars, Magic Mirmr, 132. 107 Revolutionary director Evgenii Bauer, and arguing distinctions between the pre-war and war periods. Within the urban centers of Russia, early cinema reached a fairly wide range of viewers that included members of the various middle classes, but also, as Tsivian has demonstrated, members of the intellectual elite, perhaps even to a greater extent than their counterparts in Europe.^'* Tsivian also identifies cinema's initial association with prostitution and reports of the demonstration of films at places of ill repute.^^ However, by 1910 elaborate dnema houses had appeared all over Moscow and St. Petersburg with proprietors catering to members of various social classes and expanding cinema's overall appeal.^B Cinema-going became a popular leisurely past time for millions of Russians living in the urban centers, and many dramatic theaters lamented the new entertainment's hold on the public. The programs initially shown at the cinema when it emerged in Russia were comprised of a series of short films. Viewers did not arrive for specific films but would drop in at any point during a demonstration, often at a momenf s notice, to catcli fragmented ghmpses of featured moments from the cinematic world. As Tsivian has argued, these spontaneous spectators were drawn into the cinematic experience as much by the atmosphere of the movie theater as by tlie films themselves.i^ People went to look and to be seen, much as they strolled in parks and paraded the major shopping malls. The cinema house operated as the negotiated site between a fictional world on the N. M, Zorkaia, Na gfokA V . w igfakozj m a g g iT D o p Roseii, 1900-1910 g.g. (Moscow: Nauka, 1976). 1 7 M. Gorki!, "Sinemaktgrafa Liumiera," SoifraM /c «odoMcmia r 30 vol. 23 (Moscow: Gos. izd. Khudozhesivi ni:.iia literature, 1953), and Tsivian, Ewrfy O wiom a Kussia, % vi-% vii. See also "Kino i kafe shanlan," -f vio 14 (15 April 19T1): 9. 1 » Youngblood, Magic Mimir, xiii, 33-45. 108 screen, whether it be a fantastic tale or a documentary account of life in a distant place, and the real life of the native city. I sivian retells several accounts of cinematic emulation that were witnessed in the elaborate foyers of the cinema houses, the areas that drew people in off the streets and brought them into contact with fellow spectators: The world of the cinema foyer, being free of narrative obligations (unlike the world of the screen), was the ideal space for modelling cinema style in its purest form. The theatricalisation of life in the manner of cinema was such a fascinating business that - according to some sources - there existed a whole section of the public Ütat "took their curiosity no further than the foyer/'^o The series of attractions, thus, began at the entrance, and provided an enticement for passersby to join in at any time, As many scholars have demonstrated, the pedestrian as casual observer has its origins in the BaudelarianEarly cinema experience in Russia appears b o have shared many characteristics of this behavior. For women the freedom to meander through the urban environment came only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it took on distinct patterns of activity. While the first cinema houses in Russia may have been off-limits to "decent" women, those that followed attempted to accommodate and draw in a wider segment of the public. The pre-history of cinema as a low-brow genre may have added an element of allure to the past-time, particularly for women of the middle and upper classes who seem to have readily adopted the habit of frequenting the cinema. As Anne Freidberg has demonstrated, the female spectator first appeared as a dominant presence in the urban landscape following die proliferation of department stores in the late nineteenth century and the rise of a well-developed consumer culture for women. Freidberg sees shopping (or window-shopping) as analogous to cinema-going, in that it provided women with a ' Tskian, Corfy Owmo m RHwia, 44-48. 109 past-üme Üiat was both safe and liberating, and one that allowed for the greater perceptible presence of women In society: Shopping, like other itinerancies of the late nineteenth century— museum- and exhibition-going, packaged tourism, and of course, the cinema— relied on the visual register and helped to ensure the predominance of the gaze in capitalist society. The department store that, like the arcade before it, "made use of /Z aM crig Itself in order to sell goods," constructed fantasy worlds for itinerant lookers. But unlike the arcade, the department store offered a protected sik for the empowered gaze of the Endowed with purchase power, she was the target of consumer address. New desires were created /br lier by advertising and consumer culture; desires elaborated in a system of selling and consumption which depended on the relation between and bw yfrng, and die indirect desire to possess and incorporate through the eye.:^ Freiberg here forges an association between women's perception of art or film with their perception of consumer goods, which in most cases involved articles of dress. Proprietors of large stores revolutionized the art of shop display in the turn of the century, and bejkre long elaborate fashion shows, among other tactics, were commonly staged to capture the attention of prospective buyer's. Christine Ruane has looked at clothes shopping practices of women in late-nineteenth and early-twentielh-century Russia and documents women's increased contribution to die creation a national consumer culture. She also demonstrates a growing societal fear of women's consumer practices, in particular, of the collective power such inclusion began to afford women.^z Some feminist works, such as Elizabeth Cowie's study of women in cinema, have argued that the heightened consumer culture of the early twentieth century only served to further entrap women in behavior dictated by patriarchal notions of gender roles.^ ^ I'Nivian, Eurfv Om im RziM ia, 47 ^ Friedbufg, Kfrnfufr 37. 2 1 Chnstme Ruunc, "LloÂes Shopping in hnpenul Russia: The Development of a Consumer Culture," jowrW Hisfory 28,4 (Summer 1995): 765-7*2. 2) Elizabeth Cowie, Reprsseiuimg flK l < Vormu; C fV zom : PsyrhmMdlym. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997^. 110 Yet, elements of Ais new form of (mtertainment prodded women to reject such dictates. As Friedberg articulates in the passage quoted above, modem urban entertainments such as shopping and the cinema activated a "visual register" among women, and afforded women a power to visually appropriate the surrounding environment for one's own desires. The empowered vision proved disruptive to the prevailing norm, as it was enacted toward artistic creations, including dress, cinema, art and literature, in the same manner as it was toward consumer products. Just as women's fashion began to more accurately reflect women's notions of beauty and identity, so cinema looked to the female spectator for her demands. One of the hallmarks of female representations in early dnema are the gleaming white eyes that emerge from deep charcoaled circles on the pale faces of beautiful screen actresses. Russia's favorite foreign film star of the 1910s, Danish actress Asta Nielsen, confronted her assumed audience with eyes that appear to envelop her entire face. Darkened eyes were not an unfamiliar practice in the other performing arts either. Photographs of performances by the Ballets Russes, for example, show dancers made up with elaborate eye color. In füm, close-up shots brought the audience into an eerie proximity with the faces of the actresses projected on the screen. Such women often played contemporary figures, and their wardrobes necessarily conformed to dus role. Yet few women in Russian sodety, who might mimic film stars in other dimensions of fashion, would dare to paint their eyes as they were depicted on screen. It seems likely that the heightened delineation of the eyes was not understood decoration or makeup, but a costuming effect that allowed actors and actresses to more readily convey emotion. Emphatic fadal expressions and long drawn out gestures were part of the prevailing acting method, particularly in an epoch where fdms were sUenL But the deep contrast of 1 1 1 black and white also drew the audience close to the performers' eyes and perhaps on some level emphasized the importance of vision. With no sound, there was only vision, and the medium of film elevated Ae discourse of vision and exposed the device to a wider segment of the population. Audiences, it appears, recognized this discourse, as actors and actresses grew in fame for their ability to manipulate the right "look." Asta Nielsen, for example, was best known for her "thinks look," a drawn-out moment in the progression of the Hhn.^ Nielsen soon became the prototype for Russian actresses, and Russian audiences and filmmakers sought a native equivalent. Vera Kholodnaia, the "queen of the screen," and most beloved of Russian actresses among the public in the pre-Revolutionary period, became that model, and was often known to remark that her large eyes were her "bread."^ Indeed, many of the prominent Russian film actresses of the period and throughout the silent epoch of Soviet film shared this dominant feature. Vision also enters into Russian early cinema thematically. In Ae last Him made by director Evgenii Bauer, for Luck,:* a young girl named Lee unwittingly falls in love with her mother's fiancé. When Lee finally realizes that she will never have the relationship that she has fantasize about, her fragile eyes succumb to her emotions and she goes blind. In the dramatic moment that she loses her sight, Lee collapses to the ground and stares at the audience with large darkened empty eyes. A naive youth, she has allowed unrequited love to change her life, and abilities, irrevocably. In another of "Nieken thinks look." Yuri Tsivian. 4 rwlhimf /tnalyag Russâm Films (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Hktinmic rn«.s, l ' ^ , CD-Rom). B . B. Ziukov, comp, t'en: KWodmmi. Vci,i Khiilinhi.ii,i wa-, also a fan of the Danish star Asta Nielsen, who was also known for her dramatic eyes. In tins Lolk\,tii,m see M. Landisman's article, "Vera Kholodnaia," for further discussion of the discovery and selection of Kholodnaia as an actress. * Za sdrnt'em (alternative title K scWf'iH), dir. E. Bauer, perf, N. Radin, L Koreneva, T. Borman, L. Kuleshov, A, Khanzhonkov & Co.,1917, 112 Bauef s films, H oppfM cg;; E fiT m af a yoimg blind violinist named Lili miraculously regains her vision. Ihe transition from not seeing to seeing is articulated in Ldi's dress, as she is transformed from a young, sheltered girl in a simple black frock to a sophisticated, provocatively dressed woman. Lili is introduced to Georgii, the brother of a family friend, and falls in love with him. They soon marry. Yet when she realizes that she has been deceived by the man she loves and that she is outmatched by his fashionable mistress, Sabina, she loses her sight indefinitely and reverts to isolation. Both Lee and LiU when without iheir power of sight are dependent upon others. TJIi's temporary period of vision, however, does not prevent her blindness to her partner's deception. The blinded lover is a recurrent theme in numerous films of the period and befalls equally men and women. With modem innovations in art and technology, a lack of vision was suddenly a more serious handicap and emerged in narratives on numerous levels. Cinema created fantasies for women that centered around intimate contact with the perceptible opulence and glamour of an unattainable world. In the first years of Russian cinema, before the reign of the Russian melodramas, several documentary "chronicles" were made from the lives of members of the Russian aristocracy. These films portrayed members of high society attending balls and various celebrations, and, more effectively than the society pages of magazines and newspapers, they allowed Russian audiences to enter the private world of society's elite class. 2* Eventually these films were phased out and replaced by fictional society tales that perhaps surpassed Russia's high society in elegance and beauty. ScWCf M orf», dir. E, Bauer, perf. V. Kamlli, O, Rakhmanwa, V. Polonskii, O Frelikh, E. Popello- Davydova, A, Khanzhonkov & Co., 1915, 113 The recognition of film as a vehicle for the display of sartorial elegance is also evident in the nnmber of films in which the action centers around or in some way involves a fashion house. A popular foreign example of the genre that was well promoted and shown in Russia is the Dcparfmcfzi Store /or Mamagc.z? The plot ends in a manner that would be unlikely for a Russian film - a typical happy ending. According to a synopsis of the film published in a Russian cinema trade journal^ a young provincial woman named Gertrude goes to the city to live with her Aunt Clara, the proprietress of a sWre. Before long the young woman is discovered as a great beauty and hired by a prominent fashion house in Berlin. Gertrude is so successful as a model she earns the proprietors the recognition of the courL When offered a better position at a firm in Vienna, Gertrude threatens to leave, but is persuaded to stay by one of the proprietors of the fashion house who eventually asks her to marry him. Another foreign film. The TasMm involves a young noblewoman named flanni, who, after hnding herself in financial peril after her father's death, secretly opens a fashion salon with the help of an acquaintance to forge a successful business venture. When her fiancé suspects that she is being unfaithful to him, he follows her and discovers her secret. He begs for her forgiveness and praises her noble act to save her family. Of the known Russian examples, B eluM d t/ic Room Dows, a füm from 1913, contrasts most substantially with the German films.^ Although the film is preserved without inter-titles, a published synopsis provides the following plot: A young woman, Elena, falls in love with an artist 2 * S. S, Ginzburg, «forawKwkbOM nyi Roeaii (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1963), 62, ^ Torgwyi zlKW if'sw, Tanagra, 1914. For film synopsis see 10 (15 Feb. 1914): 63, For stilk from the film, including a shot of Gertnide on the stairwell of the salon, modeling a dress, sec the same issue, 28, * For a synopsis of &e German (llm, translated as Salon mod in Russian, see ycsinit 93/13 (1914): 65, M dwrwwi goshnoi, dirs. I. l,azarev & F, Chardynin, perf. I. Lazarev, S. Goslas'skaia, A, Kheruvimov, O. Obolenskaia, V, Turzhanskii, L. Tridcnskaia, A. Khanzonkov & Co., 1913. 114 who is painting her portrait. They begin a relationship. When her father, a landowner, reveals to her that he is nearing financial ruin, she bn%ks off her relationship with the artist and seeks out a wealthier suitor. She consults Madame Alina, the proprietress of a popular fashion salon, who "like other proprietresses of fashion salons" makes it a habit of introducing wealthy men to beautiful young women. Tire artist has forgotten about Elena until one day he and his crowd are invited by Madame Alina to visit her salon. She promises the artist that an interesting new star will be introduced. Once there, the artist is shocked to see his former lover using her fashionable beauty to attract a rich admirer. At first the artist is driven to kill Elena but then changes his mind and leaves. He goes home to commit suicide, an outcome not uncommon in Russian films of the period.^ According to published synopses and extant films, Ihe lovelorn man often falls victim to the powers of feminine beauty. A few stills from Behind the Dmwmg Roonr Doors published in the Cinewatic Herald portray Elena dressed in stunning outfits.)^ She wears small fashionable hats with large plumes and often carries a purse, another popular accessory of (he period, perhaps indicating here the financial impetus of Elena's participation in the fashion salon or evidence of Elena's act of bailing out her father by using her beauty to attract wealth. On one level the site of the fashion salon acts simply as a device to draw one's attention to the sumptuous dresses of the heroine, or even to heighten the latent sexuality of modem dress by associating it with love affairs. In addition, in Europe, and arguably also in Russia, dressmaking shops and millineries earned a reputation for encouraging prostitution among its workers. At the same time the salon has its own power and allure for the synopsis of Zo ifwnaMi gmfoini and stilb, see V 'esiM tk 17 (1913); 39. VMiniktifKwiogra/zil? (1913): 39. Abo, one still is puHishcdinTsivlan, 115 as a site for the frequent display of beauty. WiWun the context of the salon, Elena's former lover is driven mad with desire and jealousy and finds no recourse other than to destroy himself. In the films described above the fashion modeling is explicit and the references to fashion inform the narrative. In other films, even when a salon or department store is absent, fashion operates as tlie film's primary attraction with the narrative stalling on occasion to allow the actress to overtly model a dress. Film actresses wore the most aw cewrawt look at the time of filming, and remained icons of fashionable dress when the films were released. Sequined evening gowns, luxurious furs, ornate robes, and, perhaps most notably, elaborate hats were commonly worn by heroines of the society tales. Catherine Schuler has researched the costume habits of Russian theater actresses of the same period in Russia, and has found that actresses were required to provide their own dresses for performances.^ Theater actresses were expected to dress the part, and they were therefore often forced to spend much of their earnings to please their audiences. For the more unfortunate actresses whose salaries were meager, particularly those who worked in provincial theaters, the pressure to build an adequate wardrobe often implied resorting to prostitution. It is generally believed that film actresses, like their counterparts in the west, also provided their own dresses for performances. No costume designers are listed in the credits for films, nor do they appear in the füm directories.^ Denise Youngblood argues that film actresses were paid substantial salaries for their * A @ in the theater, cinema actresses generally were expected to provide their own wardrobes for productions. See chapter 2 of Catherine Schuler's study of " -t i;','- ,n ln",ws from the same period for a discussion of wardrobe. Catherine A, Si hulcr, I Vomm in Rresh/M Ikv/w; T T ie A dw s ùi tk; SiV uer Age. (London and New York: Routlcdgc, IV%). I't-Pl C ostum e may have remained within iln- doin.un of die artistic director of die film, but it is difficult to determine when tkil was die case, and Ihc vxtMil to which cinema actresses were instructed on what specificallv to wear. 116 work, and it ia important to note that the circle of film actresses in Russia was certainly much smaller than that of those working in the theater. Youngblood notes, for example, a substantial contract offered to the popular actress Ol'ga Gzovskaya in 1915 by Robert Perskii's Him company. Gzovskaya was paid 20,000 rubles to star in three films, a considerable sum for most performers of the period.3*^ Yet the burden of a costly wardrobe forced was felt by many players in the film industry and forced a degree of creativity in obtaining their desired fashions. Nina Cofman, the star of a series of adventure films about a woman robber, Light-Fingered Sonka, provides tlie following account of her experience with an unaffordable demand: For the episode in which Sonka appears as a "stylish lad y we needed "stylish" costumes, which 1 was unable to acquire on my pay. But I was helped out by an advertisement. Koretskaia the dressmaker offered her services and the scene was filed as follows. I emerge from the doorway of her Hat carrying purchases; she accompanies me and bids me farewell. And there on the front door a large board displays the words "Koretskaya Fashion House." For that I was given some sumptous costumes which, naturally, I had to return when we Hnished filming.^ There is also some indication Hiat Russian actresses modeled clothes for designers in various publications and perhaps received sponsorship in return for their efforts.* It would seem, however, given the effort of directors, particularly Bauer, to design elaborate sets for their fUms, that dress would be considered as an integral part of the total artistic effect of the interior. An article in the C iM C ?7w fegrapluc Herald appears to support such reasoning. It announces plans by Khanzhankov's company to create a production of Pushkin's The Gulden Cockerel. According to the article the fashion house Zimin was hired to produce the costumes from drawings by the director Vladeslav * Youngblood, tbr Aiagfr Alrow, 52, Tsivian, .Sifent 240. Vera Karalli in an advertisement for perfume, 17 Starevich/*' If dress shops were hired for the large "costume dramas " one would imagine they would also be hired for some of the important society dramas. Kholodnaia's sister, for example, recounts that in Kiev in 1918 when Vera was preparing to shoot a film, a dressmaker came to the house (where the studio also happened to be rehearsing) to create a dress for Vera specidcally for the shoot. It is unclear from the account who was responsible for paying the dressmaker, but the attention to dress for a particular scene seems evident. Regardless of the source of funds for the ^vardrobes of Russia's leading ladies, one can conclude that a substantial sum was needed to acquire the highly fashionable clothes featured in most films. Textile innovations of the late nineteenth century made an unprecedented selection of fine fabrics more widely available to consumers. Expensive dresses of the early 1910s were often made of luxurious sdks of assorted colors, of brocades, satins, and taffetas with rich textures, and were often bordered with mink, ermine and other plush furs. The most popular fabrics of the period were the diaphanous silks inspired by the transparent tunics of the modem dancer Isadora Duncan. Without the aid of color representation in film, filmmakers looked to other elements of modem dress that could readily transmit an essence of fashionableness, such as the use of black and white together for contrast, which came into vogue in the early 1910s. In a hhn by Bauer, kVzbiesses,^ released in April of 1914, the wedding gown worn by die heroine Helene dress is long and white with thin rows of black sequins that run diagonally across the dress. In an earlier scene Helene removes a pair of wliite gloves with black finger stripes, the type worn by the impeccably dressed, popular French comedian Max Linder. Striped I'aitnik KiMmw:h)grg/îw94/ t4 (1914): 26. 118 dresses were promoted by designers in the early 1910s, and documentary photographs from London and Paris published in the Russian fashion magazines of the time indicate they were relatively popular. In the 1913 Russian film Asi/a tlie Studemi, this fashion is reflected in the wardrobe of the lead character Asya, played by Nina Chemova.^^ The full-length, empire-waisted gown with bold vertical and horizontal stripes marks Asya's transition from a provincial girl to an urban woman. Lili's rival Sabina in ffappiM ess q/gu EkrMal N igAt wears a diaphanous blouse with ruffled collars and large white polka dots. Helene in SzkM t W liM gsses is pictured at home in a dark (probably red) blouse with large white polka dob. Ornate patterns, such as that of the cloak worn by Mary in the 1913 Bauer film CA i/d a Big were often combined with velvet or generous fur collars to provide an image of high glamour borrowed directly from the great fashion houses of Paris. In some of the Aims, such as Ould of a Big City, Ae streets do not appear to be cloaked in wintry chdl typical to Russia, yet the heroine wears a large fluffy fur hat and carries an enormous ermine muff. For Russia fur was a particularly effective selling point of women's fashion. Not only did Russia produce a significant portion of European fur, but it was also considered a winter necessity for any woman who could afford it The noblewoman Vera in TudiigAt of a l/Vbmau's 5o w l,4 3 for example, leaves her husband wearing a wide white fur hat and a matching fur-collared large brocade wrap. The sumptuous fur is indicative of Vera's * Nemye siidfkH, dir. E. Bauer, perf. D. Chttorina, A. Kheruvimov, A. Chargonin, E. Kriuger, A. Gromov, V. Petipa, A. Khanzhonkov 6 Co., 1914. "Kursistta Aeya, dir. K. Hanaen, perf. N. Chernova, B . Piametskii, E. Smirnova, R. Espagmoli. Pathé Frères (Moscow), 1913, The stiU is in the journal 8 (1913): 25. See also a still of Vera Kholodnaia in a striped dress in the film Drh wk; (Children of the Age) in 115/17-18 (ISept. 1915): 45. u Ditw WfAogogerWa, dir. E. Bauer, perf. K . Smirnova, N. Kozlianinova, M, Salarov, A. Bihkov, L. lost, L . Tridenskayo, i.ina Bauer, A. Khan%honko\' & Co., 1914. u SMmcrb zhoiskm dushi, dir. E. Bauer, perf. N. Chernova, A. Ugriumov, V Demert According to Tsivlan, this was Bauer's first film. Y. Tsivian, 5ileM t iViiwsses, ed. Paolo Cherchi Usai (London: British Film Institute, 1%9),204 119 personal wealth, but the color also appears to suggest innocence, despite her tall and her husband's accusations. Dress might inform a narrative, but it also often operates independently in isolated moments to convey notions inconsistent with the surrounding narrative. There seems to be little distinction in the melodramatic tales between the dress of women of high society and that of less reputable women, such as kept women. In Bauer's last film (finished posthumously by Olga Romanova^ The King Pan's, the film opens to a scene at a gambling casino where a group of women are fawning over jean Genare, an artist and son of the wealthy Duchess Demstein. Apart from one woman who is dressed in an exotic dance costume with sharovary pants, a sequined bodice and a tiara, the women are dressed in evening gowns and accessories typical for any wealthy fashionable woman of the period. The women reveal their true class identities more in their aggressive flirting with Jean than in their dress. In Siknt k X ^ fM esse g , a lovelorn Pavel decides to distract himself from his troubles with Hélène and joins his male friends for a night of revelry with a group of hired women. The women are depicted wearing lavish furs and beautiful gowns, and apart from being faintly overdressed, are only exposed when the group exits the club to meet the bright morning sun. It seems unlikely that unmarried women of the "respected" classes would ever spend an entire night out with a few young bachelors. But once again the boundary between decent and indecent is made hazy. Perhaps this blurred distinction between classes further enhanced the provocative nature of modem dress, much as it did for cinema in its initial presence in Russia. Women of different stations shared overlapping fantasies that were articulated in dress. Kept women grm\' more aesthetically refined as upper class women wore dresses that vaunted their sexuality. This merging of desire took place in the cinema, 120 among other arenas, fhe dnema houses made it possible for spectators to arrange themselves among class distinctions, but diey showed the collective audience the same films, which perhaps engendered parallel fantasies. A common feature of evening dresses in die early 1910s was the use of gossamer silks such as chiffon and tuUe. These sheer, lightweight fabrics were draped over shoulders and arms and used for tunics and skirts to cover layers of smooth satin. They were commonly combined with netted bodices embroidered with sequins and sparkling beads, or used with tunics made of elegant lace. The transparency prompted audiences to look through the fabrics to die body, and the soft quality of the materials made them drape closely to the skin. Often a layer of chiffon would be brought across the décolleté of an evening gown, so while the chest was partly covered the daring neckline was also exposed. Mary's evening gown for the tango dance in the 1914 Bauer film Child (/a Big Cih/ is made of a series of layers of white chiffon with a large flower pinned at the bodice for accentuation, a characteristic feature of gowns in tlie 1913-1914 seasons. As she raises her arms to dance the tango an outline of her arms and shoulders becomes evident through the dress. Youngblood and Tsivian have both noted Bauer's use of transparent curtains to veil a scene from the viewer. In Oiild (i/d Big Cily, the sheer curtain reinforces the effect of Mary's diaphonous tunic. Mary pushes the curtain aside as she walks toward the camera to speak with her maid, and then pushes it dramatically even further as she returns to her party of carousers, and gives herself over to them. Notably, the group engages in dancing the provocative tango dance. Bauer used a similar set technique in his debut film, TtM Ü ghf k V b M iam 's Seul. In this film the curtain forms a boundary between the viewer and the bedroom of the wealthy young noblewoman Vera, who at various stages in the narrative is seen seated or sleeping in 121 her bed. Vera's future enemy, the drunken Maksim who will eventually rape her in the film, peers together with the audience through the sheer drape. This sheer barrier between Vera and her voyeurs seems to imply a vulnerability on the heroine's part. Yet, like the transparent fabrics that form a part of women's gowns in the period, the message is more complicated. There is a sense that this vulnerability is conscious, and thus can be controlled, if necessary. Vera ultimately gets revenge on her attacker by killing him, and rebuffs the society that judges her for her fall by becoming a successful opera singer. Bauer used several camera techniques, such as the medium close-up, to frame the fashionably dressed woman and to direct audience attention to the detail of her elegant attire. In Siknf W ifM gssgs, Hélène, Pavel's elegant fiancé, is played by the well-known tango dancer Elza Kriuger. In the film she wears her hair tucked under in Ae him to appear scandalously cropped and i h u iges into Eve different outhts during the course of the narrative. Each dress is given adequate time in front of the camera wilh Hélène making only slow, subtle movements to better exhibit the contours of her suits and gowns. AH her outfits betray the latest Parisian cuts. In the comedy The O w e Iheusand ( % M d Second Ewsc,'" directed by Bauer and starring his wife I ma Bauer, an early shot that has brought Bauer recognition depicts the heroine sitting in her boudoir wearing a dressing gown and an embroidered silk wrap. The heroine's suspicious husband, many years her senior, peers through a keyhole to spy on his wife. To give the audience the perspective of the husband the shot is framed as if through a keyhole. The heroine is Tysiadw t/fordia dir. E, Bauer, perf. L. Bauer, S. Rasaatov, A. Khanztionkov & Co., 1915. 122 shown admiring herself in the mirror. In another Baner film, Nel/i the dramatic tale of a noblewoman's search for a more meaningful life, the heroine Nelli and her frivolous mother primp for a party in front of a large wall mirror. Nelli is dressed in an exquisite evening gown covered with glistening sequins. The plunging neckline of the dress seems out of character for Nelli, who until this moment has worn outfits that could best be described as unimaginative— dark conservative skirts with simple broadcloth blouses. As she poses in front of the mirror, the audience is given an opportunity to slowly examine Nelli's sumptuous evening gown and witness her transformation into a well-dressed woman. But NeUi's provocative, seductive elegance is also indicative of her fall, a conunon association forged in the films of Hie war period. In the King an early scene in the film isolates the elegantly dressed duchess in a stark cavernous hall of her palace. "Ihe duchess temporarily has left the charity ball she is hosting to greet her son, the artist Jean, who has come to visit. The scene last several minutes, during which time the audience is able to admire the lavishly sequined gown of the duchess with its dangerously low neckline considered inappropriate for a woman of her implied age. While her son Jean is off changing into a tuxedo so that he can join the party, the duchess waits on the balcony of the ballroom overlooking the activity going on below. The narrative is suspended during this period for the visual dressing up of tire characters. As the duchess waits, a close-up shows her chest slowly heaving in anticipation of what is to come. * 5 Net/: RAW ikoii:, dir. E. Bauer, perf. Z. Baranbevkh, O. Rakhmanova, A. Kheruvimov, K. Gorev, A Khanzhonkov & Co,, 1916. Kmvr Panz/w, dir. E. Bauer & O. Rakhmanova, perf, V, Svoboda, N. Radin i I u; r, M. Stal'skii, L . Koremeva, M. Boldyreva, A. Khanzhonkov & Co., 1917. Evgenii Bauer died i I ilie completion of this Rim. 123 These poses, which appear in most of the melodramatic films of the period, in many ways mimic the patterns of fashion display in the stores and advertisements from the early twentieth century. Viewers were often cued to pick up on i t rences to fashion in the narrative films by the advertisements posted in the theater, such as a series of ads for corsets noted by one cinema-goer, or short newsreels that often accompanied the longer films. According to the notes of the Soviet film scholar Semen Ginzburg, the Pate zhw rnaZ scries of newsreels that dominated the Russian cinema market in the 1910s covered stories from cities and places all over the world, including areas of Rusaia.^^ a regular basis Pak which was evidently distributed as Mirror Ü K P V b rZ d (ZerkaZo nura) in Russia, featured scenes from Parisian fashion houses with live models who demonstrated the latest evening gowns, hairstyles, hats, or day wear of leading designers. In 1911, when the fashion segments first appeared among the newsreels, they were featured with the caption 'Parisian People," but in autumn of that year the name was changed to "Parisian Fashions." One "demonstration," from early 1913 depicts three women modeling dresses from the Parisian fashion house Maison RuaUe. A H three women are in daysuits that feature contrasting patterns of black and white. One model is dressed in a jacket with bold horizontal stripes. The models take turns standing up from their divan and pacing a few steps in either direction to display their dresses.^ Of Ginzburg's list of Pmk zhw rrw Z films, approximately ten were devoted to fashion per year. One clip stands out for its promise to depict models in color: in green, brown, and black dresses. As a prequel to any society tale, the newsreels of Parisian fashions forged * 7 ^ Semen Ginzbuirg. "Katalo;; /li,im u , i n fond 2639, op. 1, ed. khr. 51. * This brief clip is hcmsed in the vKh-n i olh i in n of the Bakhrushin Iheater Museum in Moscow, No accession number was pro\ idcd fiu the \ id. c 124 an association between film viewing and style shopping that likely needed little prompting. The I'ak' zlfwtHa/ series also featured stories of popular Russian performers, such as one segment that looks at the life of Lidia Lipkovskaia, a soloist with the Mariinskii Theater. Lipkovskaia is featured standing in a garden at a club in Petersburg. A later installment of the "theatrical chronicle" depicts the famous ballerina OPga Preobrazhenskaia strolling through a garden .4 » These brief glimpses into the personal lives of prominent female performers were part of a large celebrity culture in pre- Revolutionary Russia that was largely fueled by the cinema. Fan postcards were published in great quantities during the period and allowed audiences to take images from the world of cinema into their home environments. Postcards featured scenes from popular films or individual actors and actresses in roles, or in life. Admirers of dramatic artists also fervidly collected postcards of their favorite performers. The actress Alisa Koonen describes how she and fellow acting students collected postcards of their favorite actors and actresses in their schooldays. Koonen claims that she and her friends had "close friendships" with these photographs and knew when new cards that they didn't have already were going to be sold.% Cinema inspired an even wider audience than the theater, and spectators who witnessed the performance of a fihn actor or actress were left with a more distinct impression of his or her features. In 1913 Yakov Protozanov and Viktor Gardin directed a cinematic version of Anastasiia Verbitskaia's popular novel Tlie Keys fe fiappiM ess. The film was an immediate success, and ultimately gained notoriety as the most lucrative No. 284a, 1914. Thia Olga Proobrazhcniikaiu was a ballerina, nol to bo confused with the film actress of the same name. 125 film of the pre-Revoiuüonary era. It played in several cinema houses simultaneously for months in cities around Russia. Olga Preobrazhenskaia starred as Mania in the Him, and according to the stills published in a popular trade journal, the film was full of elaborate, expensive outfits.^ Mania, a Russian Isadora Duncan who dances barefoot in semitransparent timics, wore, among other outfits, an Eastern-inspired silk wrap, a fur cloak, a loosely-fitted white diaphanous gown, and a slim dress with art nouveau motifs embroidered along the sleeves, skirt, and neckline. Following the release of the film, one "tailor" wrote to a Moscow newspaper to report on the film's impact on society women: "Madame Verbitskaia is a perfect writer for a dressmaker," he writes. "After the screen version of Keys to H appiM C ss a few young women came to me with requests to dress them like Mania, but with a slit for the Iegs."sz Film actresses appear to have been acutely aware of their impact on audiences and themselves developed the art of dress and of dressing or undressing on screen. Vera lureneva, the star of the popular two-part film kV ouzan o/^Tom orroro and of Tears based on the play by Mikhail Artsybashev gives the following account of her experience in Madame Sophie Kanaplin's millinery shop in Kiev. According to lureneva, she and her fellow actresses often shopped at Madame Sophie's because the hats were guaranteed to be unique. There she observed the actress Tatiana P. as she modeled several of Madame Sophie's designs: Ihe woman standing before the mirror demonstrated the most refined ability to wear (hats) and probably for that reason the saleswomen, widi brimming excitement, kept a heavy flow of hats coming out of their boxes. Once on the woman's charming little head with its soft chestnut curls, the hats came alive and were more attractive, each "speaking" its * Alisa Koonen, "Straitsy iz zhizni," RGALI, fond 2768. op. t, e.lth. 72. 5 1 13 (1913): 26-28. 5 2 "Moia lekisiia o zhenshchme," Uim RoM ii (11 Feb. 1914): 5. 126 own message, since for each hat the woman found a suitable pose and expression f^ o r her face. In truth it was a small performance in its own right, one of alternating "images."^ lureneva confesses that she learned from the actresses poses and later referred to this lesson in her performance for the film Tears. The film follows a woman's fall into prostitution, and at the end of her decline she tries to regain her sense of self-worth by trying on hats. "I stood there in front of the mirror in my dressing gown, my hair uncombed, and alternated hats, trying to replicate the enthusiasm and ability of the talented Tatiana P. that I had witnessed in Madame Sophie's store."5* As lureneva clearly concedes, dress was not merely an imitative practice, but a personalized form of art, the mastery of the language of fashion and articulation of individuality through style. A few women in Russian urban society not only played at being film actresses by dressing in the latest fashions but also actively tried to join their ranks. A report published in the fashion periodical IVomen's Li^ in 1915 states: "In Petrograd and Moscow society women are trying to get small roles in films. Naturally, cinema isn't the place for high society dilettantism, but it is interesting all the same, one of the individual brush strokes that comprise the picture of the triumph of Russian cinema."S5 It is notable that this development was reported in a fashion magazine not a dnema trade journal. Fashion was strongly associated with public performance whether through film or in the various arenas of public life throughout the city. The dance craze of the 1910s was also represented in film and the erotic associations of the craze were equally articulated in V. N. "Kogda govorit mokhanie, " Voapominamia o mbote v kino. RGAI,l, fond 2371, op. 1, ed. khr. M, i. 8 . M V. N. "Kogda govorit tnokhanie," Vogpominaniwi o rabote v kino. RGALI. fond 237Î, op. 1, cd. khr. 84,1 . 9 -1 0 . 5 9 Triumfy russkoi kinematografii," zAizm'S (22 Aug, 1915): 20. 127 fashion. The nimble, slender body was (he feminine ideal for fashions of the 1910s, and in 1913 the slit in the woman's skirt freed up the legs for the tango. Many of the pre- Revolutionary film actresses were dancers and were well suited to this physical ideal. Vera Karalli, Elena Smirnova and Vera Kholodnaia, among others, were formally trained in ballet. Olga Gzovskaia, originally a stage actress, was also known for her Duncanesque lyrical dances. El'za Kriuger earned her reputation as a tango dancer. She made a tango movie with her partner Mak (P. Ivanov) and a series of instructional postcards for the tango. In some films the heroines engage in dance themselves, such as Mar;/s tango scene in CliiW Big City, Hélène's dance with her lover in Siieat IV itM gsscs, and certainly performances by Mania in Kgys to Happiness. However, an equally common element of film of the period is the inclusion of an exotic performer. In C A iW a Big City Lina Bauer performs as an Egyptian dancer. She wears a costume in the spirit of Lev Bakst's designs for Tamara Karsavina for her role in Sc/Kkerezadc. This costume and many others for the Ballet Russes were credited with starting the trend for tiaras and sequined spaghetti straps, both of which elaborate upon a tendency toward heightened eroticism in women's evening wear. Laura Engelstein has documented the public preoccupation with sexuality after 1905 and demonstrates the ways in which discussions of sex entered (he public arena. Explicit references to sex appear to be absent in film, but are represented by innuendo and strong suggestion. The proximity of the overtly erotic dancers to stylish film heroines helped draw out the implied sensuality of their fashions. In OdZd Big Oh/, for example, Mary and Viktor arrive at a club where Mary carefully removes her furs and velvet wrap and then arranges her sheer tunic and the flower at her bodice. By means of a slow tracking shot the camera moves from Mary to the Egyptian dancer on stage. The camera follows the rhythmic moves of the 128 "Egyptian dancer" as she turns and sways, an I i )es in on the transparent skirt that clearly reveals her legs.^ Fashions of the 1910s proliferated an ideal that embodied movement. No medium at the time could communicate that notion better than cinema. In addition to the depiction of dancing, tracking shots trace women as they move through the streets of the dty wander through a garden (A Li/ê/br a walk along the beach (King of Paris) browse among die shops (OuW Big City) and through the department stores (ChiWren q/"(A e Age),5 * A general sense was conveyed in films, particularly those that traced a heroine's path from mundane to elegant dress, that people adapt to their clothes, in odier words, that form follows fashion. One early record of cinema-going reveals a tendency among men and women to mold their bodies to their clothes: The attire, both male and female, is fashionable, and it is as though its wearers adapt their movements to it. In the Egures and faces of almost aU of these people, from the effete young men of androgynous appearance to high school girls with provocative eyes, from merchants imitating foreign capitalists to semi-intellectuals affecting English style, one can detect a kind of common pattern. One can feel something second-hand, something borrowed and unnatural.** This account demonstrates both the trend to emulate film among audiences and the public apprehension of this theatricalization of life. In Szkuf kV zhiesses Hélène plans a visit to Pavel at his home to reassure him that she wül marry him. Pavel has pined for Hélène for days and at this point appears to assume despondently that his chances with Hélène are lost When Hélène arrives, she is greeted at the door by Nastia, Pavel's maid. * Of the extant films that ( have viewed, a dancer reappears in the narrative films iwn N irgm -M yi, CWdnm of the and ihe lÿ " Pari: and in comic films that involve women who dance at cafe-chantants. V Cmzy, dir, Bauer, perf. A. Vyrubov, N. Chernobaeva, V. Arens. A. Khan/honkov & Co., 1915. 5 " Ziwzn' za zidzn', dir. E. Buuer, perf, O. Rakhmanova, Koreneva, V, Kholodnaia, V. Polonskii, 1 . Peresdani. .A Khanzhonkov & Co,, 1916. * Dcii wta, dir. K . Bauer, perf. Vera Kholodnaia, I. Gorskii, V. Clinskaia, A. Bibkov, S. Rassatov, A, Botnikov, A. Khanzhonkov & Co., 1915. 129 Perhaps sensing rivalry, Hélène insists on walking ahead of Nastia to go to Pavel in his room, perhaps even to accentuate the e^ect of her sudden appearance. A; i \ ' ne enters, she dramatically pulls open the curtains to announce her arrival. The visual affect of the scene closely parallels the unveiling of a new model at a fashion salon, and with the bold gesture of her stylish silhouette Hélène powerfully asserts her presence on the scene. In the next section I will look at the narrative content of several Russian films in the pre-Revolutionary era. Ihe films I will be examining admittedly constitute only a small fraction of the films produced in the genre in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Of ihe films that have been preserved until today, many are missing reels or inter-titles. My analysis is based on viewing many of the existing melodramas and comedies, but also on consulting the extensive him synopses and stills that were published in the trade journals of the period. In the films I will discuss, "fashionableness" often supplants elements of a familiar narrative, and the intertextual association that is brought about exposes various understandings of the role of fashion in a film and ultimately in society. In several Aims from the per-War period a woman's active cultivation of style and glamour can at times shield her from the potential harm a plot may have intended for her. That is not to say that women are never ruined by wealth; such scenarios were also common, but fashion's complicity in the matter is often ambiguous. In several films from the war period, particularly those that track a woman's acquisition of wealA and glamour, a desire to be fashionable is targeted as the source of her eventual downfall. As quoted In Tsivian, Sifcwi Wiwsses, 47. 130 Often, even when heroines have demonstrated horrible lapses in morality, it is the dangerous lure of fashion that is to blame, not the woman. Before Russian fihn companies began producing society tales in the 1910s they focused their filmmaking on stories from Russia's historical and literary heritage. In drawing upon Russia's past, they could best distinguish their work from the foreign imports. With the audience's assumed familiarity with certain themes, well-known plots could be easily condensed into abridged screenplays. Several of the classics of Russian literature found dieir way onto the screen in die 1910s. The two films made from Pushkin's Qween q/Spades, and the two versions each of Tolstoi's Awna fO rrc M Û M and Wür and Peace, are perhaps best remembered today, but numerous others were produced. A reference book for the industry published in 1916 provides a list of close to two hundred works of literature that had been adapted to fibn.^'i Approximately half of those were works of foreign literature, but most of the great works of Russian literature were represented in the hst. Thus, Russian audiences were preconditioned to zm association of film and literature, and commonly witnessed literary heroes in the cinema. The melodramatic films of the 1910s, in contrast, were not overtly drawn from the classics of Russian literature. Screenplay writers such as Aleksandr Vosnesenskii, Mikhailov and Anna Mar and others perfected the art of the society tale. A handful of screenplays were written or adapted from contemporary literature, foreign or Russian, by actors and actresses— among them 2k)ia Barantsevich, Vera Karalli, Olga Romanova and Lydia Rydina— and many were adapted by the film directon). jay Leyda, the author of a study of the history of Russian and Soviet film, cites an account from a member of 6' Ta. lu. Sulimlnakü, 1/aw kzsümM fogfiÿïw; M uaW m A W adrgafww : jbiigm . 1976 (Moscow W . Chibrario dc Codcn, 1916). 131 Üie filmmaking community in the pre^Revolutinary era that claims that moat of the Aims produced by the Khan/honkov company/ where Bauer worked/ were written and adapted by Khanzhonkov's wife and business partner, Antonina Khanzhonkova,^: Ihia assertion is in all probability an exaggeration/ but it is certainly possible that Khanzhonkova played an important part in developing the stoiy lines for many films. Aleksandr and Antonina Khanzhonkovy co-directed films on occasion, and their screenplays or entire productions were signed with the name Antalek, a name formed from combining the initial portions of their Arst names. While few critics of the period would put the melodramatic screenplays of love and anguish on par with the great novels of Russian literature, they would perhaps admit that they were the popular twentieth-century descendants of the nineteenth- century novel. It is no surprise, then, to see that elements of the classics turn up in several of the society films of the 1910s. And given the audience's fzuniliarily with most of these works of literature, the reference was probably often apparent. Yuri Tsivian has argued that the modem device of inter-textual references was largely a cinematic innovation: The year 1913 weis the high point of modernism in Russian literature, and, with aH the respect there was for the nineteenth century novel, its heavy narrative rules were felt to be something of a burden. The very fragmentary nature of the screen version was treated as a way of modernising the source. The fragment was "liberated" and inscribed in a modem narrative perspective. Thus, little by little and almost without realizing it, cinenra was gaming ground as an alternative narrative model, a part of the twentieth-century poetics of quotation, of allusion and of intertextual reference.^ <^]ay l^yda, kww. A Hiaton/ of t/* « M k f SooKt Aim (Prinf eton, Nj: Princeton University PrcM, 1973), 58, ' Ginzburg, XinfMMiognÿiM jomwÜHkitOM M y: . Tsivian, Ëar/y Cimfnw m Rwss:d. 166-167. 132 Thus, as the narrative Ghns of the 1910s grew longer they contained a greater number of narrative fragments or allusions to previous stories. The overall eHect of this fragmentation, it could be argued, was to weaken the importance of the narrative to the dnema experience. Russian 61ms were known for a prototypically "unhappy" ending, a development that Tsivian sees as an effort to bring film up to the level of classical drama. But perhaps the overt subversion of narrative authority served to strengthen the more superficial elements of the film. While Russian audiences anticipated tragedy and questioned a story that lacked it, perhaps these "psychological dramas" had litde psychological impact. The melodramatic films were self-consciously superficial, but that superhciality provided a vehicle for the disrupting Influence of beauty and elegance. In this way cinema operated like the modem world of fashion; by means of its seduction it slipped in subconscious radical notions of form and content. In the 1913 Russian film IWligkf W bnwM 's Soul, Vera, a young noblewoman, seeks out ways to contribute to society and promote goodness. She joins her mother to deliver charitable donations to impoverished drunkards in Moscow's slums. On one such visit Vera is raped by a drunken, working-class man, who passes out after the attack. Before she leaves the attacker's apartment, Vera stabs and kills him while he sleeps. After some time Vera recovers 6om the ordead, but the memory of her actions torments her as she prepares to marry Prince Dol'skii. Vera puts off telling him the story until they are already married, assuming that he wiU understand because he loves her and will be right in his estimation of her. When she conhdes in him her secret she is, however, horrified by his reaction; he claims to have misjudged her and openly shows his disdain. Proudly Vera turns and walks out, forever. As she departs A -om the house 133 by foot, she is shown wearing a luxurious fur ( oU.ired silk wrap, a foreshadowing of things to come. Two years have passed and the story finds Vera abroad, now established as a famous actress Ellen Kay on the London stage. DoTskii has wandered these years regretting his rejection of Vera, and once he has found her again he begs her to return. When they meet in Vera's dressing room of the theater Vera is awash in the glamour of celebrity status, dressed in a luxurious gown befitting a woman of the stage. She keeps a cool distance from Dol'skii and rejects his plea to reunite. He had underestimated her, he confesses, but soon reali/cs it was loo late to change the course of events. Vera is married to the stage, to a life of art and beauty, and she refuses to betray her obligation to that calling. Dorskii leaves hi i with a heavy heart and goes home to commit suicide. In 1911, two years before the release of Twihght W oM M u's Soul, a screen adaptation of E w gm ze O M C gi» was released in Russia, a work that was well-known to most audiences.^ The concluding scene of TWhg/if Woman's Sow / is in many ways reminiscent of Pushkin's tale. In the modem context, Tatiana has been reinvented as a fashionable celebrity, a woman of beauty and deep emotion who has found her place in the world of art, and will not break her commitment to Aat life. In the theater, Vera's strength of emotion and artistic sincerity are applauded by her grateful spectators. Dol'skii, like Onegin, has realized too late that only the companionship of his beloved would have sustained his happiness. Ihe Ow/d B/g Oh/, filmed in 1913 and released in early 1914, depicts the journey of a poor seamstress Mania into a life of sartorial elegance. The intertextual Epgm*! O izegiM , dir. V. Goncharova, perf. L. Variagina, A. Goncharova, P. Chardynin, A. Gromov, A. Bibkov, A. Khanrhonkov, 191 ). 134 source for this film is Karamzin's tale of f'oor Uza. An early scene of Ae film shows Mania in the dressmaking shop, looking dreamily out the window imagining a better life for herself. She is dressed in a blouse with a jabot collar, a ubiquitous element of fashionable dress from 1913 that could be incorporated by even the "lowly" seamstress. From there we are taken to visit Viktor, a wealthy man who longs to meet someone unlike the manipulative society women he has tired of. He looks through a series of female portraits, of potential "candidates," but rejects them all. Ihe story returns to Mania who has been sent on an errand and has stopped in front of a jewelry store to admire the beautiful pieces, Viktor and his friend stop her and invite her to a restaurant. There she shows her preference for Viktor, who, like Erast of Karamzin's story, feels he has found an innocent girl who will provide him with true love. In a quick transition, we discover that Mania has become Mary and is dressed in the finest fashions of the time. She has given herself to Viktor, but only temporauily. Maiy uses her glamour to lure in other prospective suitors to replace Viktor when he can no longer provide for her. As Viktor agonizes over his finances, Mary sits in her boudoir reading a fashion mag;izine. She r^ects Viktor's plea to begin a more simple life, the hfe that Erast and Liza dreamed of together, and instead seduces his butler who takes over for Viktor. In other words Mania/Mary moves on. She is not the vulnerable young maiden of Karamzin's story as she may have appeared to be early on m the füm. She is a "new woman," who smokes and dances the tango, and who by enchanting her male admirers with her provocative dress and disarming beauty prevails in her life of luxury. In this modem drama, Viktor, not Mary, commits suicide. At the center of the film Siknt IVibicsscs, is a clear opposition between two "types" of women: the modem, elegant, deceptive Hélène and the traditional, simple, 135 honest Nastia. The reference in this film to the two wives of Pierre Bezukhov in War Peace seems obvious^ if not overt. Hélène, like her predecessor in PV ar wad Peace represents the artifice and lies of the west. While the innocent, provincial Nastia, a modem Natasha Rostova, offers Pavel true love that he will never find with Hélène, his fiancé. In War Peace, Pierre is freed of the burden of his failed marriage to Hélène when she dies. Eventually he is united with Natasha, who despite some faltering represents goodness and forgiveness. The fashionable Hélène of SikM f Wifucsscs shares much in common with Hélène Kuragina of Wkr and Peace: they are both Ae belle of the ball, the admired, almost untouchable beauties whom all revere. Both are described as irreverent and morally corrupt. And their noted hishionable attire seems central to their personas. In SiZent W Y hicsscs, however, Helene fares much better than Hélène Kuragina. To appease her father she patches over her difficulties with her much despised, yet wealthy, fiancé Pavel, and easily outmaneuvers her competitor, the innocent Nastia who has sacrificed her virtue and own impending marriage for Pavel. In the end, Hélène wins Pavel and his money, and Nastia is left chasing after them. Hélène gives no indication that she will be a good wife to Pavel; on the contrary, she continues to rendezvous with her lover, the Baron, throughout the film. Hélène is presented almost in caricature in Sikiit Wïhiegses, and is demonized for her beaut)', which appears so closely hnked to her fashionable wardrobe and penchant for tango dancing. She represents ever)dhing that is dangerous about Ae new look and die ''new woman," yet she is irresistible— both to Pavel and to the audience. In 1915, given the enduring war, the Parisian fashion industry took a brief hiatus, Most members of society agreed that one could not cater to such frivolous concerns when men were dying on the front. Society women traded in their evening gowns for 136 nurse's uniforms and in direct contrast to their pre-war habits of exposing their bodies, they covered themselves from head to toe. Designers throughout Europe soon returned to their work, after all women had to have something to wear, but the fashion craze that liad hypnotized the major urban centers in the pre-War period had faded. In film the situation was quite different. Glamorous gowns and exciting styles were featured in society dramas as frequently as they were in the pre-War period. Fashion as fantasy still sustained a number of cinema-goers of the mid-1910s, but they were often dissuaded from this by the moral lessons of the narratives. Stylistic changes that were affecting daywear such as more expansive skirts and shorter hemlines were also incorporated into evening wear. Women were depicted in smart suits with cropped hats and multi-layered gowns of elegant chiffon. It is difficult to gauge to what degree Russian women used restraint in their fashion in the war period. Evocative gowns that spoke of women's sexuality were inappropriate if their men were off to war, and even in times of relative peace and economic prosperity only a smaE portion of Russian society could ever afford the evening dresses modeled by film stars. The larger crowd of spectators, however, chose to incorporate ekmcM ts of contemporary fashion into their own dress. So in 1915 and 1916, when the hemlines were raised, women of many classes could continue their patronage of fashion's dictates and could easily foEow suiL The extent to which Russian audiences Estened to warnings of the danger of luxury is uiKlear, but the fact that beautiful dresses never disappeared from film indicates Eiat they continued to excite audiences. 137 In 1910 the wnter Teffi published a short farcical tale entitled ''Life and the Collar. In it she describes a naive young woman whose life is ruined by the purchase of a beautiful yellow coUar. The purchase of a collar leads to the purchase of a more appropriate blouse for the collar and a better skirt to suit the blouse and so on. The young woman begins to lie to her husband, and to pay for these various fashionable items she begins to steal— all "because of the collar. " After her husband has left her and her life is in shambles, the young woman decides to send her collar to the cleaners. There it is lost and the young woman is suddenly released from its spelL Alone am d impoveiished she has been ruined by a pretty little collar. Teffi's story reflects the panic of some in society already in the late 1900s and early 1910s who expressed wariness over fashion s influence. Teffi's exaggerated story can be seen as a model for later tendencies to blame fashion for women's weaknesses for luxury and glamour, not the women themselves. Such a tendency is evident in several of the films of the war period, for example, a comical film released in early 1916 A M toslw R w iM cd by ( Z draws upon some of the farcical elements of Teffi's story, but the more obvious intertextual reference in this film is Gogol's story 7 7 % Nose. Antosha, played by the well-known actor Antoni Fertner who starred in a series of Antosha films, is initially depicted carousing with a group of friends. Antosha's wife has gone out of town, and in her absence he has sought out some adventurous women to stand in for her. Antosha invites the group back to his house to continue their celebration, which goes wed into the night. When a telegraph arrives informing Antosha of his wife's imminent return he kicks out his guests and tries to straighten up. In doing so he * Teffi, "Zhizn' i vorotniiki,'' IMO, /A m tos/iw lorwf zw gw W /, dir, Eduaid Puchakki, perf. Antan Fertner. Lucifer Film Studio, 1916, 138 stumbles upon a forgotten corset (stripped off in the heat of dance) and immediately worries of how he will get rid of IL He tries to hide it in the chimney, but is foiled by the chimney sweep, he then takes to the street and tries to pawn it off on various passeis-by, but it keeps coming back to him. Like Gogol's nose, the corset is the "thing he just can't get rid of." Finally when Antosha believes he has disposed of it for good by giving it to a thief, he returns to his house to greet his wife. She arrives and Antosha is spared her abuse, until police enter and expose him by claiming they have recovered a corset belonging to him from a local thief. Several other films of 1915 and 1916 have titles that indicate a similar plot: "On Account of a Corset" and 'On Account of a pEur of Stockings," and numerous titles of Rims refer in some way to elements of fashion. In Gogol's tale the nose represents the vanity and insecurity of an officer of modest rank. In Antosha's tale the corset, a symbol of feminine vanity, is blamed h)r Antosha's and his friends' immodesties. C A ddrgM Age, a film directed by Bauer in 1915, stars the young Kholodnaia in one of her first major roles. Kholodnaia was a staple of the tragic melodramas of the war years, and her beautiful features and elegant dress resonated with the audience as equally as her ability to convey her heroine's suffering. In Age Kholodnaia plays Maria, the young wife of a banker and a recent mother. Maria is content with her simple life until she meets an old friend who lures her back into die high society life she enjoyed before her marriage. Ouldw; Age shares much m common with Anna K areM iM a, Tolstoi's novel that was adapted for film twice in the pre-Revolutionary period. In the modem tale, however, Maria is not lured in by romance, rather the glamour and beauty, and this fact is reinforced in the film by the department store that marks the beginning of her decline; she is repelled by the wretched l^bedev, her 139 husband's boss who has plans to saduce her. But when Lebedev fires her husband, she becomes so desperate that she agrees to leave her husband and child to become Lebedev's mistress. Her life is ruined, despite her newfound elegance, or more correctly, because of her newfound elegance. Youngblood has pointed out in her description of the film, the important role of Mania's friend Lidia as catalyst for her decline. Lidia is portrayed as a frivolous woman, and while fashionable, she is not given the refined sartorial sophistication of Mariia. Lidia's role parallels that of Princess Betsy Tverskoi in A M M g jK arcm 'M a. Betsy is Anna's link to "society proper— the world of balls, dinner parties, brilliant toilettes. " But unlike Karenina, where Anna's complicity in her own moral decline is evident, Tlie OiildreM Age tells a story of a woman robbed of her life of love and happiness. Mariia's near rape by Lebedev, and allusions to her imprisonment by him, relieve her of her guilt in the process. It is not Mariia who succumbs to suicide, but her husband, after he has lost his job, wife, and child. Maureen Turim, who has written on early American cinema, argues that in films that expose high society in great detail "[t]he narrative discourse is outweighed, even caricatured, by visual elegance given such primary importance."'^ While Russian filmmakers and members of society felt obligated to condemn the corruptive influence of fashion in the war years, their disdain for glamour in a narrative sense freed them to display fashions for superficiai enjoyment. And with patterns of display that mimicked those familiar to audiences, women could continue to look to film among their other sources for sartorial and social. Thus, the shortened hemlines of 1916 were potentially as disruptive as the elegant tiaras of 1913. Turim, "Seduction and Elegance," 156, 140 CHAPTER 4: DRESS AS THE MODERN MEDIUM : RUSSIAN ARTISTS AND THE WORLD OF FASHION Although during (he emrly etage of human history dothing design was also the product of a collective, unconscious creativity, nonetheless, at the foundation of this creativity always lay the elements of a certain conformity and expediency. In Ae sphere of clothing, a co M sd o H S and indm idN af W nd (^arf appeared only much later Alexandra Kxler, 1923) Several studies of early-twendeth-century European culture acknowledge dte likely influence of theater, more speciGcally the productions of the Russian Russes, on the dress designs created by prominent Parisian couturiers.2 The exotic Eastern and classical motifs, popularized dirough the Russian troupe's theatrical tours, contributed to fads such as harem pants, tiaras, tunics, and colored wigs, that were all readily disseminated through films, magazines, and other theatrical productions. (Hgwre 4.1) These styles were adopted eagerly by fashionable society women and often by their less affluent peers. While the correspondence between theatrical costume and the popular styles of women's dress before World War I is recognized,^ scholars only ^AlexandraExter, "In Search of New Clothing (1923)" inAmazcMgf^thgAiwMt-garde. Exkr, Gonc/wrozw, Pcpoua, RozawoDa, Stepanooa, Udarkoua, ed. )ohn E. Bowlt and Matthew Drutt (New York: Guggenheim, 2000): 300. Empliasis added. z Charles S. Mayer, "The Impact of the Balkts Russes on Design in the West, 1909-1^14," T I u ? Aount-Gank Fmnfier; Russia Meek Ac lAtsI, 1910-1930. Ed. Gail Harrison Roman and Virginia Hagehtein Marquardt (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992), 15-44. Alexander Schouvaioff, "Leon Bakst, the Indispensable Designer" in Tlicafer of RcAAM yTlw«kr (^Desire; T R c Arf of Akaamdrg Bnwxs mid Lew Batsf, by John Bowlt (Geneva: Skira, 1998), 57-60; diaries Spencer, Leon Bg& sf and die Beliefs Russes (Ixmdon: Academy Editions, Rev. edition, 1995), 90,175-180; Aleksandr Vasil'ev, Chapter 1: "Russkie sezony i moda," Krasofa r izgmuill; fnordiesfw Rw ssklW i ewzgnm W peruoi Wmy; W.ns.Uw i mode (Moscow: Slovo, 1 9 ^ , 9-35; Charles Spencer, Erk (rev. ed.. New York: Crown Publishers, 1981), 21; R. I. Vlasova, Rwsshv kaWmo-dgkonifsioMrKK iskussfno wicW/i XX w iz / R irssiA M TWfncsl Dwig» qf H is Early 20B; Ccnlwiy (Leningrad: "Khudozhnik RSFSR," 1984), 133. Scholars often note the influence of the colors of Bakst's designs for the Ballets Russes, in particular, on fashion: "canary yellow, bright blue, jade, cerise, cclamen, henna, and red." htartin Battersby, Tlic D eawtlw Twcnlies (London: 1969). 3 This relationship ha.s been argued for earlier periods as well. For a Russian example, see R. M. Kirsanova, Slsmichcskii kosllum i Icdtmrnma puWibi v Rosli XIX W a (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Artist. Rezhisser. Teatr," 1997). 141 Figure 4.1 : Russian production, "Harem Secrets/' ca. 1913 142 recently have begun to explore the significant ways in which members of the art and fashion worlds during (his period borrowed from each other in their pursuit of modem forms.4 Limited analysis has appeared on the experimental dress designs of select artists of the Wiener Werkstatte^ in their efforts to create total aesthetic environments. Some proponents of Italian Futurism, in particular Giacomo Balia, also demonstrated an interest in elements of modem dress as early as 1913.^ As wKhin the larger history of fashion, however, in most studies st^'les of dress of (he early twentieth century generally are allied with (he dominant aesthetic of the era, to reveal tendencies in color or decoration that can be detected more concretely when viewed from a comfortable historical vantage point For the Russian context, discussion has centered on the radical dress experiments of the Soviet avant-garde in the 1920s, and little mention is made of (he activities of artists or designers before the war. However, already in the early decades of the century, numerous representatives of the cultural and artistic elite in Russia were beginning to sense (he importance of the correspondence between the two spheres: art and fashion. In one of several articles written to prompt (he public to approach fashion as a '^serious" artistic endeavor, the Russian artist Lev Bakst, for example, proposed that fashion was the physical manifestation of current cultural conceptions of aesthetic beauty. "[T]he elegant woman of today," Bakst claimed "while following ikshion closely and extending * Exceptions to this are Nancy J. 1 toy's recent Cowtwrc C w itM re; /4 m Alo&m Art Fadifoa (Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT Press, 2003), and, to a degree, Richard Martin, CwW sm F m sA iem (New York: The Museum of Modem Art/ Abrams, 1998), both of which will he discussed later in die chapter. )SceCh,20"Seces@ion in Vienna," by Gillian Naylor inArfNo«mw» IX'x) /9M ,ed. PaulGreenhalgh. Victoria and Albert Museum, National Gallery of Art (London \ A \ n'hlu ations, 200), 296-309. *^he 1996 Biennale di Firenze, " Art/Pashion" featured designs for clothing completed by Bella as early as 1914 through the 1930s. Most of Ihe designs were for men's clothing. In Ihe 1920s Balia's student. Fortunate Depero created vests simHar to Balia's colorful dmigns that were also exhibited at the Biennale. An(/ FW uoM , ed. Germano Celant. E n ^ h ed (New York I ilslributed Art Publishen;, c 1997), 46-47; 117-23. 143 it in the lines and colors of her fabrics, hairstyle, jewelry and in her manner of walking and wearing shoes, is the embodiment in plastic form of prevailing contemporary ideas [.. Bakst, and many of his fellow artists, began to portray dress design— like painting, sculpture, and other arts— as an important site for the interpretation and exercise of modem concepts of beauty and formal artistic innovation. While the assertion of period "styles" can hardly be contested, the complex cultural atmosphere of Russia in the early twentieth century, including the activities of diverse artistic groups, merits a more careful consideration of the circulation of artistic and fashionable images at this time, the specific interaction among artists and fashion designers, and the remarkable developments within the larger spheres of modem art and fashion themselves. The pursuit of dress design by many Russian artists contributed to the more critical cultural consideration of die sartorial standard and ultimately assisted in fashion's evolution into an exciting arena for women's creative innovation; this shift in orientation toward dress as a medium more receptive to the aesthetic whims of an individual, it can be argued, would have significant ramifications for women in Russian urban society. While overt social and political reforms regarding the position of women in Russian society often received litde public endorsement^ more subtle challenges regarding the appropriate role of women in culture, such as those enacted through the "unassuming" (in political terms), yet formidable, sphere of dress, were far more effective in fostering an atmosphere within which significant reform was possible. With the emergence of liaufc couture in Europe, many people— creators and spectators alike— began to portray and perceive fashion as a "conscious" and E. Bowlt (Lugano: Ttiywen'Bomemisza Foundation, 199S): 155-156, i Ity publktwd a» "Moda," PekHmrgülmo gaze ta (% , Petersburg) 49 (20 Feb. 1914): 3. 144 "individual" art, to borrow the krms the Russian artist Alexandra Exter would use to describe it in 1923. In what is perhaps the first extensive scholarly analysis of the relationship between fashion and art in early-twentieth-century Europe, Nancy Troy cautions that this perceived transition toward "ardatry" in dress was instead a carefully conceived tactic by French couturiers, the practitioners of "high fashion," to co-opt the rhetoric and devices of "high art" for commercial gain.^ Given the financial threat the ready-made clothing industry posed for couture salons of Europe's fashion centers by the turn of the century, Troy's argument that Parisian couturiers borrowed from the world of art to transform the traditional system of fashion exhibition and display into a more elaborate performance and even to pursue designs that would discourage competition from sources of mass-produced clothing is compeUing. Nonetheless, one major consequence of the couturiers' celebrated orientation toward the fine arts was that to most consumers the fashion world did indnil appear radically transformed into an eye-catching, vibrant arena of culture, regardless of motivation. In addition, the rate at which new styles emerged to push out old styles It d to a pace of fashion that evoked an unprecedented modern impulse toward the future, one consist; nl with theories propounded by members of several artistic groups of the period. Furthermore, one must consider the potential impact of this transition in fashion for societies that honored the sartorial supremacy of Paris, yet were foreign to France and thus remained culturally at a distance from the source of such trends. Within Russia, in particular, men and women arguably were more vulnerable to a literal acceptance of fashion's new "artistry" given their long-established national propensity to bow to the "sophisticated" tastes of western Europe. A modernized media outlet— fashion magazines modeled on western 1 Nancy f Troy, Cnwfure C M itiirc; A m Art fasfiion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). 145 periodicals and filled with photographic reproductions of designs by famous foreign couturiers and an abundance of celebrit}' postcards— helped foster this dep)endence. Russia's peripheral position vis-à-vis Paris might also explain why at this time an unprecedented number of artists in Russia, particularly when compared to artists in other major European centers, took up dress or accessory design as part of their professional activities. The fashion designs created by the Russian Constructivists of the early Soviet period have received considerable scholarly attention, and are often characterized as a novel integration of art and dress. However, already in the pre- Revoluüonary period artists of several different groups and movements in Russia turned to dress to articulate and test their prevailing artistic principles, a gesture that was consistent with the efforts of many of these artists to identify ol^ects of numerous ''non-traditional" media and forms as "art." Such unrelenting experimentation distinguishes the pre-Soviet Russian avant-garde, for example, from many of their peers in Paris or other centers in the West, where, as Troy demonstraks, artists such as Marcel Duchamp were challenging the validity of "original" art by producing "readymades."^ While many western artists during this period, in keeping with their modernist principles, may have sought to weaken the authority of "art," Russian artists, in contrast, aimed to strengthen "art" by exploring and exploding the "artistry" of objects situated outside the academy, such as relics from traditional folk culture, works of decorative art, utihtarian objects, and items of personal adornment, among others, which they argued could be as transformative as works of fine art. Thus, efforts among couturiers in Paris to propagate an art of dress, I would argue, had significant resonance among the foreign Russian audience, consiuners and artists alike. And in Russia, at a later stage in the 9 Ibid., 283-304. 146 evolution of the sartorial sphere in Russia, this transition would lead to the remarkable experiments of the early Soviet period, designs that were based in a more direct application of principles of painting and sculpture to dress. It is also important to note that in contrast to the world of high fashion today, the early couture designs that emerged from Paris, among other centers, had considerable influence on the burgeoning industry of ready-to-wear clothing and more closely resembled the popular styles chosen by more modest purveyors of fashion. The latter was particularly the case in Russia where, despite the increased availability of ready-to- wear clothing, women continued to rely on patterns or images published in magazines to sew dresses for themselves or to have their maids sew them. Within the Russian context, not only is a notable overlap evident in the activities of members of the artistic community and those of designers and dressmakers in Russia, but the dominant forms favored within the two distinct artistic spheres— art and fashion— also appear to have evolved along a similar path. As clothing's socio-economic function began to diminish relative to its visual effect and appeal, in the modem cultural climate of twentieth- century Europe fashion became established as a more serious aesdietic endeavor, even if these changes were fueled by commercial impetus. That is not to say that the innovations in fashion design, exhibition, and rhetoric that were borrowed from western Europe and established in urban Russian were not supported heavily by commercial interests who sought to gain from these reforms. The sale of clothing and fashion accessories constituted a significant portion of the pre-RevoIutionary economy after the turn of ihe century and the rapid expansion of department stores and modernization of the markets in Russia was significant to the proliferation of the new styles. Russian urban culture and its economy undoubtedly were impacted by the fashion craze. My 147 interest, however, is the significance the imported "allure" and "artistry" of the new Western fashions had for Russian visual culture of the period, and the implications the proximiiy to art might have had for the wider population of women who subscribed to these styles. In other words, while social critics may have been alerted to the persuasive marketing strategies of haute cowturg designers and may have detected their pervasive influence on desire and commercial demand within the broader industry, fadrionable Russian women, in contrast, welcomed the new system and fueled the process with their unrelenting patronage. What is perhaps most surprising in this situation, however, is the degree to which artists in Russia also embraced these changes. Within artistic communities in Russia after the turn of the century, as dictates regarding the appropriateness of topic and medium were challenged, an interconnectedness often was sought among several artistic disciplines in the visual, narrative, and performing arts: painting, poetry, drama, ballet, and music, and similarly folk art, popular dance, wallpaper design, ceramics, book illustration, and cinema. Among these media, artists also readily adopted dress as a realm worthy of artistic exploration. The theatrical designs of the Balkts Russes and the influence of the performative element of theatrical costume were prominent agents of this change, but the apparent transformation of fashion to a more visual, vibrant sphere, also reflected an alliance with challenges to traditional representation mounted by representatives of various avant-garde movements. New fashions, albeit in the mollified context of bourgeois society, proved to be subtly subversive, not unlike the new art, and less directly reflective of social standards regarding proper public behavior and traditional gender roles (llence the purported difficulty in distinguishing an elegant prostitute from a member of ehte society.) Fantasy began to play a more operative function in dress 148 design, and experiments in fabric, color, and cut took women's apparel simultaneously in numerous directions, making it an attractive medium for a new generation of "open- minded" artists. The beginnings of the "revolution" in fashion, as it has been termed by some, can be seen to have coincided with the activities of the Mir iskwssfna or World of Art group in Russia, whose dominant aesthetic drew from a mix of historical references and styles and elevated the role of fantasyYet, the new styles eventually also emulated the avant-garde movement, insofar as bold innovations in the cut and color of women's gowns began to rival in importance its references to social conformity. Ihese and other developments in art that penetrated the world of dress facilitated the emergence of the individual, constructed "look" as an important ingredient in fashion, a dimension of fashion that was soon exploited by Russian artists of the period. In other words, the total and immediate impression of the fashionably dressed woman conveyed a powerful visual, artistic message that began to dwarf or confuse (though certainly never eliminate) its soda! one regarding class or profession. And conversely, by articulating artistic notions in ways no other medium could achieve, as far as several Russian artists were coixzerned, dress also indirectly furthered and promoted principles of modem art Fashion design attracted some of the most prominent members of Russian artistic circles, most of whom created dresses or accessories exclusively for women. To a degree, their motivations varied, despite their allied interest in the modernized sphere of dress. Artists of the World of Art group, such as Bakst and Sergei Sudeikin, among others, are recognized for having designed fanciful contemporary women's suits and Mir is&wwir» or the World of Art group first came together before the turn of the century, thm, as the roots of changes in women's fashion were first taking shape, yet before the arrival of the more visible "revoludon" in style. 149 gowns." Sudeikin i , t I ensemble outfits for his first and second wives, for which he often drew upon historical periods for a more costume-like product, Bakst, in contrast, aligned himself closely with the commercial side of the fashion industry, perhaps more so than any other Russian artist of his generation. He designed evening toilettes and fashionable masquerade costumes on commission for high society women and created gowns to be sold under the exclusive labels of French couturière Jeanne Paquin and Moscow couturière Nadezhda T.ainanova. (figures 4.2 and 4.3) Bakst profited from his work in liuwfe cow fw re directly through his commissions, but also indirectly through the notoriety he gained among the public for his designs. Yet, despite these promotional motivations, Bakst also wrote and published more extensively on modem fashion than any of his peers, and he appears to have been keenly aware of the significance that the numerous developments in dress could pose for women in their search for greater creative equality." Furthermore, his futurist costumes for the ballet in 1913 predict the later geometric minimalism of designs by the Russian Constructivists, and provide an indication of the artist's sense for the parallel paths of art and fashion." Additional members of the World of Art group and artists close to them— Boris Anisfel'd, Ivan Bilibin, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Olga Qlebova-Sudeikina, Nikolai Roerich, Anna Somova-Mikhadova, and Mikhail Vrubel'— designed dresses or fashion " See, for example, designs by Bakst that have been reproduced in fohn E, Bowit, et at, Tfwtcr c/Desin'.' T A c .Art Bmow mid Lrm i (Lugano: Thyssen-Bomemisza Foundation, 199B): and Sudeîkin\ di".igns for hi* wife Olga Glebova-Sudeikina. "See, for examplr. |„ B.iW, 'D rw ing the Woman of the Future (A Conversation) (1913)," in Bowlt, et at, TW kr lÿ " RoKOty 1 A cai' r of 1 155-156; orlgmally published as "Kostium zhenshchiny budushchego (Baeda)" in Birzliivy,' (Evening Edition), SL Petersburg 1913,23 March, No. 13463,5. ufohn Bowltand EKz.ibi»lh Durst "Sol,\ tod Writings by Alexandre Benoi* and Léon Bakst;" Tliaikr ReasoM/niaUer of DcMir; Ykc A rt rf W i'ïioidn" Benois end Ucti BaAsf, footnote no, 38, lewx was set in 1925, 150 Figure 4.2: Evening Jacket for Ekaterina Celtsef/ designed by Lev Bakst and made by Nadezhda Lamanova, 1913 9 //ÎÎ 1 A : \ 151 Figure 4.3 Dresses and Hats designed by Lev BaksL made by Jeanne Paquin, 1913. Reproduced in yogwc, vol. 41, no. 12 (June 15,1913), page 29. . » 152 accessories, typically for limited exhibition or personal use rather than for commercial gain. The list may also include others who participated in the planning or design of pre- Revolutionary fashion magazines— Konstantin Somov, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and Viktor Zamirailo— though it is unclear whether or not they designed clothing or accessories. Several members of die avant-garde, though also active in the sartorial sphere, were perhaps better known for their elaborate personal fashions. Among them, Vladimir Mayakovsky, with his trademark yellow blouse, and Mikhail Larionov, with his "primitively" painted face, were the most sensationaLi^ On one liand these "visible" activities of die Russian avant-garde appeared, at least to the general public, to mock the materialist preoccupations of the bourgeoisie; such sardonic intent, however, does not preclude the possibility that several Russian artists, men and women alike, began to recognize the transformative power of a formerly predictable sphere and to appreciate its potential for spectacle. This was certainly the case among the artists Ksenia Boguslavskaia, Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich, Liubov Popova, Ivan Puni, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, and Vladimir Tatlin, among the most prominent, some of whose experiments in fashion and accessory design of the pre-Revoludonary period were exhibited formally in various venues. An awareness of fashion's potential aesdietic and mimetic value on the part of I '* luiia Demidenko, "Nadenu ia zhcltuiu W u% u," AW M gardm oe poWoiig. (^. Petersburg: Print Intemeshnl, 1998), 63-76. Abo a memoir by the daughter of Nikolai Kufbln, Nina Nikolaevna Kul'blna, describes the origin of Mayakovsky's yellow blouse. Kul'bina calls him ''gromoglnsnYi"or loud in hb "zhelWa kofta." "Vospominanjia ob oUw." Russian Museum. Fond 134 (Kulbin, Nikokii l\vtnovkh), e.kh. 95,1.1&19. Abo see Svetbna Boym's dlscuwion of Mayakovsky's yellow blouse in DgaiA (.tH uiolfom M ark s." OdfmW MyfAs Aioderu Pori (Cambridge: Harvard University' Press, 1991), 137-348. Lanonov was joined ty several colleagues including Mikhail Le-Dantiu and Natalia Goncharova in his public exhibition of face-painting, but he seems to have received the most pubik recognition for iL In the popular press, the painted face was often used a symbol for the futurbts. 153 Russian artists prevailed into the 1920s, when several members of the Soviet avant-garde pursued bold programmatic experiments in modem dress, The utopian clothing and textile designs of Hxter, I„amanova, Popova, Rodchenko, Stepanova, and several other young Soviet artists have oAen been portrayed as symptomatic of the post- Revolutionary movement to transform Soviet society to better reflect the goals of a communist state, i! ) While this may be true, to a degree, it is important to recognize that the source of these bold experiments lies in the pre-Revolutionary period, perhaps even as an unforeseen consequence of bourgeois developments in the fashion industry. As early as the 1900s the various Russian artists listed above, including some of those who would later be responsible for the Soviet projects, sought to devise ways in which dress would not merely conform to social standards but would challenge them and also would expand and express the aesthetic forms and principles of modernism. Though often propagated by men, Bakst most outspoken and prominent among them, the adoption of clothing and accessory design as a worthwhile artistic endeavor had perhaps greater relevance for the female members of the artistic community in Russia. In Russian society as a whole, fashion was perceived as "women's domain." With few exceptions, fashion magazines, for example, were clearly targeted toward a female audience, and wardrobes were reputedly a more substantial expense for women than for men.'^ Cartoons and popular satirical stories attest to this general prejudice. At See, for example, T, Strizhenova, Siwiet Costwiw «m ii Tcxfiks, 19J/-1945 (Paria: Flammarion, 1995), :Lîdy» Zaletova, et al., R m W iihO T zary C oatsm i?.' Smwt CbtW M g mid Terfika of tlK 192(k (New York: Rizzoli, 1989), Mary McLeod, "Undrewing Architecture: Fashion, Gender and Modernity," in ArduWwfr; I» FasMon, eds. Deborah Fausch, et a l (New York Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 3^123 (in particular, 76-81), John E . Bowlt, "Constructivism and Early Soviet Fashion Design," ( ew fi'm 'M ce m f/ie Ohgins of SwW Culture (Wilson Center, 1981) Occasional paper / Kennan Institute for Ad\ .iivv U Russian Studies, no, 146, and fohn E. Bowlt, "The Bird) of the New Soviet Woman," in BoMer ik Culhor.' ExprhMenf and CWer iw the RuwiuM RcwluiMM, ed. Abbott Gleason (Bloomington, Indiana; Indiana University PrcM, 1985). 1 5 For more information on the numerous women's fashion magazines published during the period, see Chapter 2. 154 the time (and porhap* still today) a preoccupation with fashion was comi I u I * superficial, frivolous concern, and (vomen were regularly chastised, publicly and privately, for falling victim to this "viceThis association did not prevent men from taking leading roles in the creation of new designs, nor in spending lavish amounts on their own wardrobes, for that matter, but by the early twentieth century the profession, and its wider sphere of influence, was attracting an uncharacteristic number of women to its ranks. Coupled with the more active participation of women in the fashion industry, the revolution in fashion after 1908 witnessed a reorientation of notions of beauty and sexuality, which many have argued went further to reflect a woman's sense of desire and personal beauty. With the exception of a handful of vocal critics who warned of the dangers of modem fashion after die turn of the century, Russian urban society collectively appears to have underestimated the cultural ramifications of experimentation and change in women's dress and the widespread acceptance of fashion in Russia as an invigorated, individualized art form, fashion was simply a woman's preoccupation and therefore granted little serious merit. It is notable, however, tliat within diis context in whidi fashion was dismissed generally as conceptually insignificant, most of the prominent women artists in Russia (of which there were suddenly many), particularly members of the a\ un'-garde, chose to participate in the sphere to one degree or another. In doing so, I would argue, this group of women artists acknowledged and revealed the subversive potential of the changes in modem fashion, both on an aesthetic and on a social level. '7See, forexampk, lulU Lukianovich Eleh. PwarHt»' k' moit) (St. PeteMhurg 1914). Petr Kardlnalovskii, i wW ((Xksw' Rnw-kaw Riih', 1910). Cancalun'k TCfiiilarly appeared in the popular pirhs lhat depiiii\l women freUini^ over the exorhitant sums they owed to then dreesmakcM or receiving a !Kolding from thetr huokmds (oi sartorial extravagances. 155 The situation of women artists in Russia following the turn of the century was complex. Only recently had several of these women, in an unusuai step for the Russian artistic tradition, been readily welcomed into formal artistic circles by their male contemporaries and had been permitted to participate in prestigious exhibitions. Yet despite potential risk to their reputation as "legitimate" artists, particularly among conservative critics, women artists chose to lend their talents to clothing design. If these women were at all insecure about being artists of "high" art, one might assume that an interest in dress and accessory » h si\n would only weaken their claim to such status. Notably, as the art of tlie pre-Revolutionary Russian avant-garde in recent decades has been rediscovered and accepted as part of the great modernist achievements of the early twentieth century, the fashion designs produced during this period (unlike the later Soviet designs) have been largely ignored, and thus the prejudice against work in fashion or accessory design is still somewhat apparent. However, if we approach the artistic production of Russian women artists of the early twentieth century in terms its place within larger cultural developments of the period, in particular the cultural formation of female identity and the effort to widen the reach of artistic principles, then their multiple roles as women, artists, and even designers are essential. Both for their clothing design and for their portraits of women peers, these artists viewed women from a position traditionally occupied by men. This adopted role, in its very existence, represented an important, unyielding shift in perspective, and their designs can be considered the fruit of such an evolved position. Ultimately, though perhaps unwittingly, Russian women artists, like Aeir writer peers, contributed to the establishment of creativity and independence as legitimate dimensions of a modern feminine ideal. Their willingness to pursue dress design openly indicates an acceptance 156 of this more popular function of their art and perhaps the identification with women in the general public who created personal fashions and personal art on a regular basis, a process that was subtly subversive to the prevailing norm, The entry of women into artistic circles in Russia occurred as several bold experiments in artistic form were taking plat i\ Around the time art was freed of traditional academic dictate, women were also held (i, more enlightened standards regarding educational and professional opportunities, though in limited measure. In the transformed urban environments of Russia of the twentieth century, new artistic principles in art were taken to Aeir logical and illogii at ends. Fashion followed a similar path of evolution during these years, and drew directly upon the new urban climate, and women's redefined place within it, for these changes. The early years of the twendelh century witnessed an extensive exploration in color and texture, the integration and study of movement in art, a transformation in the realm of decorative art, and a move away from social realism through depictions of bygone eras and the pursuit of nonrobjecüve art. The transition to abstraction that was followed in painting and drawing led away from traditional representation toward an embrace of the geometric form. An equally dramatic departure from traditional notions of line and form can be detected in women's hishion of the period. An exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, C w W sm Fashiw, attempted to demonstrate such a direct parallel between artistic innovations in painting and drawing and stylistic innovations in dress. For Cw kism A nd F asA zon paintings by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques were paired with gowns by several well-known Parisian designers working in the same period, Paul Poiret, Madeleine Vionnet, and Jeanne Paquin, and the 157 curator, Richard Martin asserted the direct influence of Cubist forms on fashion. In the introduction to the exhibition catalog, he writes: "It was almost inevitable that the planes, cylinders, mutable optics, and dynamic motion of Cubist art would engage fashion." Furthermore, as Martin argues, rather than merely mimicking an established "style," fashion accompanied art as it bounded forward: "fashion aligned itself with Cubism when that new art was stili enterprise, innovation and adventure."^'' Several dressmakers of the period were indeed bold innovators within their field, not unlike their contemporaries in the art world. Though the motivations for the more dramatic changes in silhouette or style may have been characterized by a desire on the part of elite designers to create a demand for their expertise in order to stand out among their more mainstream "affordable" competitors, their new approach undoubtedly had an enduring influence on the fashion world. Madeleine Vionnet, for example, around this time introduced the bias cut, a radical use of fabric that allowed forms to follow more closely the line of the female body. As a recent retrospective study of her work shows, Vioimet divided the female body into discernable geometric shapes, and her dress designs for women similarly grew out of such figures.^^ In essence, Vionnet drew upon a similar understanding of Ae female body that Ukrainian-bom artist Sonia Terk Delaunay used to design her more bohemian, mosaic-like "simultaneous" outfits. Yet, most celebrated among couturiers in the early part of Ae century for his radical break from tradition was Poiret wiA his empire-waisted, "uncorseted" gowns from as early as 1908, which combined sumpAous elegant fabrics wiA a bold cylmdrical form.:^ This u Martin, ilfivvw i «Vm wi, InlmUuriion, 11-12 Bett}' Kirkn, A York: Chronicle Book#, 1998). Examples of chapkm in (his recent monograpli on I'lonnW are Reckingles," "Quadrants," and "Triangles." ^ See, for example, the series of photographs of Poiret's collection from 1911, taken by Edward Slekhen, that were published in /Iri e( DccomfwM (April 1911). 158 reliance on more discernable, simplified geometric forms for the silhouette predicted the more angular designs of the 1920s, which were manifeskd both in the broadly disseminated flapper styles and in the experimental works of artists such as the Russian Constructivists. As dresses appeared more infused with elements of fantasy, whimsy, and personal artistry, the social roles of women as mothers and as traditional objects of male fantasy began to be devalued or simply less apparent in the designs of the period. Women's costume was perceived often as highly erotic, even more so than the gowns of the turn of the century, because the dominant styles exposed more of the body and incorporated supple fabrics Aat hugged the Bgure. Yet, in the idealized designs of couturiers, women's curves were straightened. Such styles reflect a more widespread awareness of the dominant geometric shapes that compose a figure and appeared less reliant on voluminous undergarments. Thus, the dramatically corseted waist disappeared as the female body was interpreted as a vertical line, resulting in a monumental simplification of the silhouette in women's fashion, (figure 4.4) The merging of layers of fine fabrics and numerous tactile and color references, in particular those present in the popular couture styles of 1912-1914, also introduced the notion of dress as a conceptual feat, not unlike the Cubist collages of Braques and Picasso or of the Suprematist sculptures of Russian artists Popova and Malevich. In a history of fashion, the Russian artist and art historian Nikolai Tarabukin summarized this early-twentieth- century period in dress as the absence of "stylistic unity. " His description of these styles concludes with, "As in art, so also in the toilettes of bourgeois society of the beginning of the century a diversity of directions was witnessed, with an effort to distinguish one's 159 Figure 4.4: French postcard, unidentified woman, ca. 1913 160 onginality on one hand, and eclecticism on the other/'zi Thig "originality" and "eclecdcism" translated into a more pronounced orientation toward dress as a vivid visual statement, rather than predominantly as a social statement, though there were certainly numerous social implications of these stylistic choices. However, once the fashionably dressed woman could overwhelm with her immediate visual impression rather than the numerous social circumstances surrounding her appearance, she could direct more attention to her individual artistry and unique presence. One must concede that the changes witnessed by the larger system of fashion during this period should be measured in terms of degree, and in comparison to preceding decades. The social relevance of fashion as an indicator of wealth, status, age, or profession unquestionably remained in force throughout the period, as it does today. Though it may be argued that many styles seemed more fantastic or "artislic," few indeed approximated die formal, abstract experiments in painting and thus exposed the parallel as closely as the early suits created by Sonia Delaunay or the Suprematist works of several Russian artists. First introduced in 1913, Delaunay's simultaneous dress comprised a patchwork of color swatches that fit snugly b o die body, like paint to a canvas, and explored the interaction of color and movement in a radicaDy simplified form.2z (Ffgwrc 4.5) However, though the more mainstream revolution in fashion following the turn of the century did not regularly lead to such extreme experiments in z) N. M, Tarabukin, Ockrbpo «foni Wtiwww ((Moskva: W . Gitiz, 1994), 144, Sonia Terk was raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, but left for Europe in 1898 to pursue her artistic studies. Beginning in 19(B Paris became her permanent home and she visited Russia on only two occasions after this point. She married the artists Robert Delaunay in 1910. In the early 1910» she created a series of simultaneous clothing, includin;. a ".uit and vests. In the 1920s, Delaunay adopted her simultaneous designs to a couture line of clothing and ai ( essories (including cars). Slw also designed costumes for film and theater. For a photograph of Delaunay's 1913 simultaneous dress for the Bal Bulller, see Stanley Baron with Jacques Damase, Sonia bdmnwy.' The L(/e a m ,4rfùf (New York: Abram. I'l^ t3; and Jacques Damasc, Som ia Deiaunay.' F a^ A iom and Fabrics (New York: Abrams, 1991), 8. See also \andra Exte/s epidermic ballet costumes of 1925. 161 Figure 4.5: Sonia Detaunay, "Simultaneous Dress/ at the Bal Bullier, 1913 I 162 color and form, Delaunay's unusual designs can be seen as symptomatic of a more subde trend affecting the styles that emerged from most major cultural centers in Europe, one Ü hat reflected several fundamental changes bo the larger system of clothing design. Outmoded standards, such as the appropriateness of certain types of dress according to age or class, that determined and regulated fashion were significantly replaced by more liberalizing principles, such as seasonal motifs or bold patterns. As before, dress functioned to influence collective female identity; but it began to do so by means of the total visual embodiment or its total "look, ' the embodiment of individual fantasy. For example, the new image of a corset-less toilette translated a message on a social level, insofar as it urged women to be less constrained in Aelr movements. However, die Hgure, absent a corset, also functioned on the level of immediate impression to convey the notion of a non-bifurcated, uninterrupted visual form; it spoke of a new dominant vertical Une, the long lean silhouette. When one considers this bold reform of women's fashion in the early 1900s, a movement toward embracing dress as a personal art, one can easily recognize dress as an agent of change and anticipate the more radical experiments in dress design by artists in subsequent decades. Many Russian artists, it appears, were sympathetic to this process and contributed to the transformation of the sphere of fashion in Russia. Fashion as Art Unveiled By the early twentieth century, the leading fashion houses of Pans, such as Worth, Paquin, Doucet, and Poiret, began to speak of their gowns in terms of their "creations." The effort to portray fashion design as an art in the West and the rise of cew fw m corresponded with the increased standardization in modem industrial 163 societies and the wide-scale introduction of ready-to-wear clothing throughout Europe and the United States. In an effort to re-establish the integrity of an original design^ fashion houses asserted their expertise in a process in which they repeatedly dictated what is "beautiful" or "in." The devices of "high art," as Troy asserts, were a useful means for designers to enhance their status among their clientele, and several prominent couturiers of Paris positioned themselves as collectors of art or "connoisseurs" of beautiful objects, both decorative and fine art.^ Russian women and their native fashion designers were similarly affected by this transformation, and perhaps more willingly conceded to the French designers, in particulaT, a degree of authority in determining trends. On a social level, in a country whose urban culture was growing closer to western Europe's, a larger segment of the urban public in Russia found the means to emulate western standards and many on a broader scale. Simultaneous to this urban cultural transformation, Russia emerged independently as a force in modem artistic innovation, in a manner both connected to (in reaction to) and divorced from developments in the wesL Furthermore, a sincere desire to bring fashion design closer to art, one that was less motivated by commercial motivation, and to merge arts to create a more synthesized aesthetic had particular resonance in Russia. The perceptible changes in the "art" of fashion shared much in common with the principles of new art as advocated both by members of the World of Art and by representatives of the various Russian avant-garde groups in the early decades of the century. Many of the World of Art artists, for example, found their desired synthesis of arts in the theater, with set designs, costumes, dance, and music coming together to form an overwhelming artistic experience, a G csm M fkW N shw rlr. The erotic, elaborate designs of the 1910s were certainly * Troy, Cowh/rf Cutfwrf, 36. 164 in part an owtgrowth of the spectacular appeal of the B aM efs Russes in Paris, a Russian production created by several members of the World of Art group that reflected these artistic principles. Ihe impulse to transform completely a particular space most closely parallels developments in Art Nouveau fashion of the first years of the century, in which elaborate decoration and surface detail united a gown with its surrounding environment. In keeping with these goals, the World of Art artisls also pursued book illustration, ceramic and furniture design, and sought additional media or outlets for (he expression of their ideas on art. In a different, though similar, manner, members of the Russian avant-garde, who traditionally are associated more closely with the 1910s, appear to have been drawn to dress design, not only for its potential for spectacle, but also as a medium for the articulation of modem principles in art: movement, dynamism, and the power of form and color. Fashion was for them a livable art, one that could animate or inhabit their ideas of form and color Their work in fashion and accessory design could potentially carry the motifs and compositions of their canvases out into the wider social sphere: Goncharova's "Neo-Primitivist" gowns, for example, bore the same brightly colored "folk"-inspired motifs of her paintings and set designs of her Russian period, (figurg 4.6) Exter created Suprematist bags whose intricate embroidery gave the colorful geometric compositions depth and bnlliance (Figwrg 4.7); similarly Rozanova's handbags used contrasting fabrics and colors, not unlike wood, paper, and lace in architectonic studies in form and kxture. (Figure 4.6) In contrast to earlier designs by members of the World of Art, however, tlrese creations promoted a more pronounced contrast between the * A pamlW approach to also undeclakcn by several Russian Symbolist poets, including Zinaida Gippius, For more on dils tmnd among the literati, see Chapter 5. 165 Figure 4.6: Natalia Goncharova, ^'Sketch for a Woman's Dress," watercolor and graphite on paper, 1912-1913 - a » " 166 Pigure 4.7: Alexandra Exler^ Suprematist Evening Bag, ca. 1915 167 Figure 4.6: Olga Rozanova, Design for an Evening Bag, watercolor on paper, ca.l915 n 16 K dressed woman and the environment, a principle tliat corresponded with the notion both of modem art and fashion design as disruptive to the visual norm. Popular fashions of the period did not cmulabe the radical designs of U ie Russian avant-garde, nor were the designs of the avant-garde witnessed by a significant portion of the Russian pubhc.^s Regardless, by the 1910s, the element of contrast appears to have taken greater precedence in the dominant styles for women. Several designs grew morefantastic in their incorporation of exotic elements and styles were released at an unprecedented pace. Furthermore such contrast was achieved either through boldly patterned fabrics or dramatic use of color, fostering an indirect association between fashion and the accomplishments of (he world of modem art, (figure 4,9). At die turn of the century. Art Nouveau or stif modem, as it was referred to in Russia, informed various areas of design, most predominantly architecture, furniture, and jewelry.3 ^ In dress design, mod^ne encompassed many different elements of style, but initially in Russia, as in the West, it was characterized by long fluid gowns, generous, blousy sleeves, elongated curves, and elaborate decorative detail. The S-curve or hourglass shape of the ideal tum-of-the-century woman mirrored the decorative curves dominant in the other arts. The predominance of ornament, so important to the Art Nouveau aesthetic, reached unusual proportions in gowns and outer wraps. Elaborate patterns of gems, beads, embroidery and lace were used to reproduce several of the familiar Art Nouveau motifs: irises, lilies, orchids, vines, and elegant borders and geometric patterns. These images appeared on women's dresses and for quite some time 2 5 It could be argued, however, tliat arttita like (Aim Iwrov,». who exiotxtvil (n r du't.s designs within a ma)or solo exhibition that was highly attended, Ihxt wtnio dinvi inlluence W M S p m nl, pariieuldily among wealthier Russian women (pcrformers or socie^ women) who subsis,(uenUy mlluencvd tnmds within Russia's urban 4 « nh n,, » For more infoinwimn on Russian Art Nouveau, see A /o z^rM n l (/Rwsswm 7 (2001), ed. Wendy \dmond. 169 Figure 4.9: Russian postcard^ unidentified woman, ca. 1915 170 in the graphic designs of advertisements for these fashiom.^ Women's magazines provided embroidery patterns for pillows and purses, and articles explicitly instructed women on how to transform their home to achieve the desired effect of die fashionable Art Nouveau decor. In their flowing gowns with long trains that wound around their heels like the base of a statue, women harmonized with their surrounding aesthetic environments, In this period of fashion, which preceded the introduction of pronounced movement and mobility in dress, largely stimulated by the dance craze, the heightened attention to surface detail and ornament in designs of the modcnie encouraged a sense of women as immobile decorative objects, and positioned them as fixed elements in a larger aesthetic whole, (figure 4.10) Despite the latent eroticism of such styles as compared to more encumbered styles of earlier years, it still often appeared that the dress, rather Aan the woman in the dress, drew the admiration of its spectators. Though the environment, either domestic or public, became infused with a greater sense of fantasy and artistry, the fashionable woman remained a relatively passive element within this context. The dominant curves of the period contrast dramatically with the right angles amd geometry of subsequent years, but such lines are consistent witlr the organic elegance of Art Nouveau designs. The superficial details of dress, accomplished through intricate patterns of beadwork, gems, sequins and lace, are a dominant clement in the visual impression of such a costume. The potential of dress for spectacle and dramatic presence grew precipitously in the 1900s, a phenomenon that is most easily witnessetl in ^ jameg L. West and ludi A. Petrov, ed»;., Mffchawf V aM w A rd BowryoMie (Princeton, N}: Princeton University Press, 1998): Plate 20; Muzei istorii goroda Moakvy, mir XfX ' M D ciw ia XX rvta (Moscow: Studio "Kvart-O", 1 ^ ) ; and numerous fashion magazines from the period, particularly Zhsnst* deio, Domstii mir, ZitwrW d iim W iozioek and ZAgasMiina. 171 Figure 4.10: Russian performer Lidia Lipkovskaia, ra. 1908 172 Russia witliin the context of performances by female singers and dancers, The heightened surface detail of a gown invited a tactile relationship to performers and often mesmerized adoring audiences. Female performers in Russia were known to keep lavish, contemporary wardrobes, purchased at their own expense,^ in part because they recognized the draw of an opulent gown in the context of urban culture. One prominent performer,Anastasiia Vial'tseva, a singer of popular romances and Russian ballads, amassed an incredible following among the Russian public and became one of the wealthiest women in Russia in the pre-RevoIutionary period.^ (Figure 4.11) Though of modest background and notably a performer of less "rehned" music, Vial'tseva was known for her supreme elegance. In one account, in which she is remembered fondly by a spectator who recalls a performance at Pavlovsk, her composure is unwavering,: She walked out on stage in a gown with a long train. Then, by means of some undetectable movement, she turned in such a way that the train of the gown wrapped around her feet like the tail of a cat. And in that "statue-hke" pose she sang [...]. Her dress was enlivened by diamonds, which during the performance sparkled in all the colors of the rainbow.^" While Vial'tseva remains fixed in her "statue-like" pose in a dress that defies rather than facilitates movement, she dazzles the audience with the glistening animated surface ornament of her gown. Z » See Catherine Schuler's study of Ihe actress in Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tVomm iM R w ssiaM Thfaire; Tlie Actrgss in the Siincr Age (London and New York Routledge, 1996) and C. Schuler, "Actresses, Audience and Fashion in the Sitver Age: A Crisis of Costume," in Rosalind Marsh, ed., W bm cM and R ussiaM C w hurt." Prc^cciions aud (New York: Berghahn, 1998): 111-117. 2 ! » Louise McReynolds, '"The Incomparable' Anastasiia Vial tseva and the Culture of Personality," in Helena Goscllo and Ikth 1 fnlmgn"n, eds,, R w m m A , lAWwn, i (Blooniington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996): 273-yU: /aw sov ,nid Pyzin also provide infninialiim on llikct prices for Vial tseva's concerts. D. A. Zasosov and V. I. Pyzin, Iz zliizni Fcicrkoge 189d-191(l-x^odnn, udiemdlsrp (Leningrad: LenizdaL 1991), 121. ^ E. A, Levinson, Vospominaniia, unpublished manuscript, Teatral'nyi muze: Sankt-Peteiburga, GIK 13086/W ;inv.870/l-n. 173 Figure 4.11: Russian singer Anastasiia Vial'tseva, ca. 1905 I (74 Fan postcards of Vial tseva and other beloved ardsts^ Rnssian and European, confirm the rooted, hourglass pose of the beautiful ladies of the very early 1900s. (Figure 4.12) Elaborate decoration appears superimposed upon the expansive bodices of these petite women. An account of a performance by the popular singer Tamara reported by two Russian historians of the city of St. Petersburg draws attention to the magnificence of the performer's gown and the public obsession with, or perhaps pride in, her elegance: "Tamara appeared at the concert with a large diamond arrow across the entire bodice (of her dress]. A whisper of enchantment resounded in the audience— it was said the arrow cost almost 100,000 rubles."^ Here the impression of the gown is mediated by its commercial worth, but nonetheless the spectacle is penetrating. A signihcant transition took place in fashion design between the early years of the twentieth century and the early 1910s. While this later period is still commonly termed modemc in Russian histories of fashion, silhouettes characteristic of the respective decades contrast greatly. By 1910, hemlines had been lifted, waistlines loosened, and heavy decorative bodices traded for enhanced décoUetë. Yet, in many ways, the line and designs of the new fashions closely approached the stylized women of the Art Nouveau graphic art that appeared at the fin-de-siècle. The fluid lines, transparent fabrics, and overt eroticism of high fashion of the 1910s facilitated a more organic relationship between woman and gown. A play of exposure was achieved through soft semi transparent layers of tuhe, organza, netting, or lace draped over bare arms and shoulders, and was combined with slim skirts made of supple satin, brocade, or velvet. Long, sinuous shapes were embraced as the new ideal. Emphasis was directed away 3 1 Zasosov and Pyzin, fzzidzr;: 121. 175 Figure 4.1Z Russian performer M. P. Tohuk-Cherkass, ca. 1908 176 &om the waist and bust to the shoulders, neckline, and the limbs, and the latent element of movement, so essential to many Art Nouveau images, was suddenly an integral part of dress design. (R gU M r 4.13) In reality, few women could acquire the look achieved by the fashion icons— in Russia, the ballerinas Tamara Karsavina or Anna Pavlova, for example— who superseded earlier representatives of the feminine ideal to embody fashions as they were envisioned. Yet, collectively women aspired to this "reduced," feminine form and certainly tried to approximate the dominant look on a popular level. In the press, this new "abstract" or radical silhouette was ridiculed, with caricatures that depicted fashionable women resorting to extreme measures to transform their physical shape.)^ Though notably titillating and erotic given the greater exposure of the body, these new styles also dictated a dramatic abstraction of the female form— the reduction of the bust and hips and a loosened waist. It is difficult to know what was more threatening in these designs, the latent sexuality or the radicalism of dieir forms. The notion of the synthesis of arts, the transformative power of artistic production, and a totality of an artistic moment— principles derived from the Art Nouveau aesthetic and most fully achieved in Russia by members of the World of Art group— were also proposed as models for the theater of life.^^ While the transfer of artistic notions to everyday life was primarily a phenomenon of elite society who could afford lavish outfits and creative lifes^les, theatricality and movement became essential elements of the less elaborate designs worn by women of more modest means. ^ One caricature poink directly at the new designs bv Lev Bakst and among other images depicts a woman being stretched to .ichievc (he proper line. Nonyi Mi;; An», SL Petersburg, No. 5 (1913): 9. 3 3 Vsevolod PeUov, t.H '. .W M Nowwa».' 7'/* Diugbd i» * w p lÿ " K w w w M ArWsk (Bomemoulh, UK: Parkstone, 1997): 101, 177 Figure 4.13: Polish postcard (distributed in Russia), "1 an go/ ca. 1913 178 The rapid transformation of fashion in the early twentieth century was the result of an intersection among artists, designers, and consumers as a consequence of die modem impulses in society toward individuality and against tradition. Ihough they seldom wrote or spoke of these activities, unlike artists of the early Soviet period, artists and couturiers in Russia in the pre-Revolutionary period identiSed in ordinary members of society the ability to embody and express new artistic forms. Of the artists, Bakst received the widest attention for his work in fashion design. It is also likely that he reaped substantia] financial and professional reward from the endeavor. Yet, while it is important not to ignore the potential commercial motivations for his interest in the "new art" of fashion, his devotion to dress in the pre-Revolutionary period appears to have surpassed that of any of his Russian colleagues.^^ Bakst first grew interested in fashion already in the early years of the twentieth century, but his reputation as a designer among the Russian public was fueled by his Parisian fame following the success of die Balkts Russes (known only through reports from abroad). After his well-publicized collaboration wiüi the renowned Parisian fashion house of Paquin in late 1912, for which he produced several designs that drew upon the explicit eroticism and sensual beauty of his theatrical costumes for evening govms, Russian newspapers often referred to this area of his career above all else. In addition to his commissions for Paquin, Bakst also designed articles of dress for Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova,^^ a favorite Moscow couturière among Russian artists and bohemian society in general, and for private clients, among the most fashionable women in Russia. Baksf s gowns vary in their use of * See, for example, John E, Itowlt, et at, TWtrr T iK K fer of Desm:.' T Ik' Ar! Alormiire B rn T o i; iZ H « / Leon Bokt (Lugano: Tltysaen-Bomcmiaxa Toundation, 1998) and C. Spencer, ü fO M awd the Ba/kt Bzwmi, rev. ed. (London: Academy Editions, 1995), 164-187. K Vasil'ev, Kmsota u fzyM ü M Ü , 24, 179 color and motif. One deagn, for example, from 1911 calls for bold red, white, and blue stripes along the lengtli of the dress, while another, from 1912 entitled ''Atalanta, " also accomplishes this lengtliening of the silhouette by incorporating a wide panel of brown fabric from the bodice to the end of the skirt. (Hgnres 4.14 and 4.15) Bakst also i\Tote exknsively on fashion, including several articles he published in Russian newspapers in the early 1910s.* His writings generally explored the state of fashion in Europe and in Russia and outlined his theories on the dominant impulses in contemporary fashion design. BaksKs authority on dress was enhanced among the public by his frequent presence in western Europe and by his formal affiliation with Paquin. His articles on dress were often accompanied by drawings for gowns, such as one that was reproduced both in the PekrWrgghzia gazeta, (^fhe Petersburg Newspaper) which had a fairly large circulation and in the more exclusive magazine, SfoHtsa ; Msed'k (Capital and Rural Estate). (Pigfzres 4.16 and 4.17) As a spokesman for artists and designers alike, Bakst propagated an art of fashion that would draw from the same creative resources that an artist used in painting a picture or designing a theatrical production. In one publication he asserts: It follows that a man or woman [...] should be dressed in a maimer consistent with the general tonal harmony of their environment. Should not an artist be obliged to express the ideas of his era in dress? My efforts are devoted precisely to this task.37 By "translating" their notions of art into die medium of dress, artists such as Bakst could send their work deeper into the public sphere. To an extent, Baksf s forays into fashion design might be perceived as a promotional gimmick, or simply an attempt to * Articles I't 1 il si were published in PcfprtTHTysW agdzeia, Ifim and BirzthrfryeWumosh, among other periodicals. ^ "Dressing the Woman of the Future (A Convei-satlon) (1913)," in Bowit, et al., llWfcr Kcawn/ TAcükv of Desire, 155-156; originally putillshed a s "Kostium zhenshchiny budushchego (Beseda)" in Birz/Kuye wdofMosh (Evening edition), SL Petersburg 1913,23 March, No. 13463,5. 180 Figure 4.14: Lev Bakst, '^Fantasy on Modem Costume/' 1911 \\U I # 181 Figure 4.15: ï^ v Bakst, "Fantasy on Modem Costume, Atalanta/' 1912 # 182 Figure 4.16: Lev Bakst, "Orienta! Costume for the Princess Gorchakova," for a ball at M. E. Kleinmikhel's, 1914 Reproduced in Pekr&wrgsWg gazcfa, no. 49 (February 20,1914), page 3. BVi 183 Figure 4.17: Lev BaksL "Oriental Costume for the Princess Gorchakova/' for a ball at M. E . Kleinmikhel'Sr 1914 Reproduced in Sioiifsa i uW b/% / no. 8 (1914), pages 1849. # f , 184 commercialize "high" art. However^ the consequences of these activities and those of his peers were such that fashion not only rose in the esteem of connoisseurs of culture, but it also began slowly to merit serious intellectual discussion. In other words, Bakst and others like him, initiated a more analytical approach to fashion by raising it as an object of modem public discourse, and in doing so strengthened fashion's hold on society, in aesthetic, psychological, and intellectual terms. Among Russian artists, Bakst was most outspoken in his call for the elevation of fashion to an art form, but he was not alone in his d@ $ire to allow dress to enhance the theatricality and artistry of everyday experiences. Several other wed-known artists of the pre-Revolutionary period, such as Anisfel'd, Exter, Goncharova, Malevich, Rozanova, Popova, Puni, and Sudeikin, demonstrated a similar interest in dress, though many had little in common with Bakst's aesthetic leanings. Though most of these artists were primarily painters, when one considers their subsequent work in the theater and their openness to traditionally "lower" artistic media such as the decorative arts, their participation in dress and accessory design seems a logical extension of their interests. In fact, such excursions into paradel forms were consistent with the prevailing ideology or propaganda among artists of various groups at the time. With a move toward fashion design, the public arena easily became for this wide array of artists an extension of their typical workplace. Even if most of them designed primarily for friends and relatives or for exhibitions, they witnessed the limited integration of their creations into visual culture, Though they are difficult to document at this time, there are also indications that 185 some artists even worked directly with dressmakers and seamstresses to realize their artistic goals for fashion.^ Little is known about the activities, either commercial or private, of pre- Revolutionary couturiers in Russia's major cities. It is known that the more exclusive designers maintained close connections to Parisian couturiers, either through training, such as Anna Grigorievna Gindus who studied under Paquin before opening her own atelier in St. Petersburg, or simply through travel. Throughout the Soviet era the fashion world of late Imperial Russian life was largely ignored. Most couturiers left Russia after the Revolution, and the few who remained could not speak openly about such bourgeois activities for fear of persecution. However, according to several recent studies and numerous memoir accounts, Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova is widely perceived as having been the most prominent and talented Russian designer of the period and one who also situated herself closest to artistic circles.^^ She was unusually versatile in her art, dressing the nobility, mercantile ehte, and more bohemian set, in addition to working in the theater and cinema throughout her career. Up untü the revolution she ran one of the largest, most successful sewing enterprises in Moscow, which by 1914 had grown to employ approximately two hundred seamstresses.^ With the sumptuous silks and other fine fabrics that had become widely available in Russia, Lamanova dressed the wealthy women of Moscow's financial elite, prominent ^male musical and theatrical 3 9 Alexandre Vassillev has documented the collaboration twtween Lamanova and Bakat in the 1910s, Vasil'ev, Kmsoia o ùgrw»».' h%n*cstco Rwssfifh emigniMton pcrwi Wny; iskwaslw i m w de (Moscow: Slovo, 1998), 31. 3 9 See Strizhenova, Soi'iff end iKrhks, 1917-794J, 73;Y. Khodasevich, Portrcly slwew» (Moscow: Sovebkii pisatel', 1987): 105; N. G, Zielenskaia, "Nadezhda Petrovna ),amanov8. Vospominaniia," unpublished manuscript, RGALI, f. 3024, op. 1, ed. khr. 21,1.40-41; and V. M. Lobanov, K a M M n y; iz kiwdezAfsiW M M m z /M Z H i Mesfry prcdrenohwfsfmmy: gody (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1968), 137. ^ E. Oliunina, PerfM onsW i pmwiyW p Moskrc i c drrewM iaW i MogkowW i Rwzamskoi gwk Mukhaiy k iskm doMWme: promysiikniiesii r Rossii. (Moscow: A. I. Mamontov, 1914), 16. 186 performers of both major cities, and even members of the imperial court in St. Petersburg.'*: Numerous recollections of l.,amanova by artists, actresses, directors, and dramaturges, many of whom worked with her in the theater and cinema or on her Soviet dresses of the 1920s, emphasize her profound artistry, extensive expertise regarding her materials, and almost intuitive sense for graceful lines and forms.*: Many cite Lamanova's ability to anticipate the drape of a given fabric, what the Russian historian of dress Tatiana Strizhenova referred to as "sculpting in fabric."*^ Lamanova designed costumes for performances at Moscow theaters and collaborated closely with members of the bohemian artistic community. Her creations were often considered tlie most flattering and exciting in Moscow. Like Bakst, Lamanova shared an appreciation for the "total" look of a well- dressed woman. She did not merely design gowns, but, in an unusual move for the Russian industry, created entire outfits for women. She approached a design for a woman as a work of art, one that considered the woman and the outfit. She insisted that all work for a design be done on the premises of her atelier at ten Tverskoi Boulevard in Moscow,** including numerous details of a wardrobe, from original embroidery for * : N. G. Zelenskaia, "Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova. Vospominaniia," unpublished manuscript, RGALI, f. 3024, op. 1, ed. khr. 21,1.40-41; and V. M. Lobanov, K anuM y: W uidoziwkvM M O: ziiizM i Aioskpy r pW reuoZwtsioMMye (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1968), 137. K. S. Stanislavsky. "Spravka vydannaia Lamanovaoi, Nad. Petr., 1933g. fevr. 13. Fond 3676. ed. khr. 1. u See, for example, praise of Lamanova by Konstantin Stanislavsky, director of the Moscow Artistic Theater, in a letter submitted in 1933 in support of Lamanova's employment at the theater. K. S. Stanislavsky. "Spravka vydannaia Lamanovaoi, Nad. Petr,, 1933g. fevr. 13. Fond 3676. ed. khr. 1. In his autobiography, Paul Poiret remarks upon Lamanot a's talents. Paul Poirei, of ri?si7ion. 71^ Autolïiogr^yhy c^'Puw l Poiret, trans. Stephen Haden Guest (Philadt Iphia: Lippincott, W3I) 123-124. In a cultural history of early-twentieth- century Russia, Viktor Ixtbanov dc\( nix's f-omanova's l,tk'nl and csb-emtd position among the artistic Wnmf in Moscow, See V. M. I obanov, K anw M y, 137. * 3 Strizlw'nova, Cosfwmr wid T c^h'/cs, 191A194Ô, 73. * * Sou n O S also list l.amanova'6 address as Bol'shaia Dmitrovka. One might have preceded the odier since in 1911 Lamanova had a new building constructed to house her business. 187 gowns and skirts to corsets and outerwear.^ Lamanova's workshop also differed from most at the time in that her seamstresses specialized in individual elements of dress: collars, skirts, trim,* which eventually would be assembled together, mostly by Lamanova, to create the final outfit, lamanova's approach, as evident in this process, rests on a principle of construction. Ironically, while the new "look" was often portrayed as the embodiment of the whims of a fantastic imagination, it was also as real as the fabric and materials manipulated to create the desired effect. Any woman who could "piece together" that look could share in the notions of feminine identity associated with it, provided that she could envision the look and was willing to work to achieve it. The principle of the "total" look was firmly rooted in a critical approach to form. By explicitly "constructing" new outfits, and exploring new forms, Lamanova helped "construct" the new women and expose the device of fabrication for both dress and identity.^ Several examples of Lamanova's early designs from the late nineteenth century and first years of the twentieth century currently are housed in the Hermitage collection in St. Peterburg. These elegant Art Nouveau gowns, commissioned by members of the Russian aristocracy, arc laden with fine ornament and long trains, indicators of the wealth and status of its bearer. It is unclear when Lamanova first began to travel regularly to Paris to gather information on the latest trends, nor when she hrst formed a friendship with Poiret, but given her success among wealthy Russian patrons, she likely * 5 Oliimina, u Moskw, 16,27. ^ Oliunina, f orinouflm pnmiyik:! n MoAw, 27. Oliunina also menWons that Lamanova's salon produced dresses from their own fabrics but also from material chosen and brought in by customers themselves. This process also gave women a role in the production of the look, even before Aev wore them. Oliunina, Porbionsk»' promysc! u AtosW, 25. 188 initiated her trips abroad early in her career.^ Paris never wavered as the standard for contemporary designs in the early twentieth centnty, and anyone in Russia interested in wooing customers was obliged to follow the French example, Lamanova by all means adhered to this established rule. However, of the Russian couturiers, Lamanova appears to have not only met the foreign standard for design, but, in the opinion of some of her patrons, at dmes even exceeded it.^ Once she had established her reputation, Lamanova built an elaborate salon for her enterprise that included a modem showrcxm for the live exhibition of gowns.^' In her designs from the 1910s performance and movement became essential elements of dress, as she translated the dramatic elegance of the theater to the everyday arena of urban society. She was known for the "tricks'^ she could accomplish with fabric and cut, for example, a gown that changed color as its model moved, or as the viewer moved around the model.^i According to a report printed in a popular fashion magazine such a dress was spotted on a debutante attending a society ball. It was the perfect "coming out" dress, the article asserts, for a young girl desiring attention, yet one can argue that it also comprised a htting statement of multi facetedness for the women of the era.s2 By most accounts, Lamanova could not draw her own designs and thus always worked with others to carry out her conceptions. Her reputed collaboration with artists. 4: Zelenskaia, "Nadezhda Petrovna I.ainanova. Vospominaniia" 1.41. Trips to Europe are also mentioned by Oliunina as a general rule for the more elite dressmakers in Moscow. Oliunina, PortM m wka promysei n Mostw, 25. In addition to memoirs listed above, see Kn, Sergei Shcherbatov, Kbwdoz/iM it w usW sW Rossi: (Moskva: Soglasie, 2000), 200. "Our most talented Russian Moscovite Ardst-Couturier Lamanova who was in no way inferior to the famous couturières of Paris, in sewing all the clothes for our models, often and greatly felt the individual character of a dre.ss and its significance for the client-what for whom was necessary." * The artist Igor Grabar di-w i ii«!s this pavilion in his report on the Poiret exhibition in 1911. The pavilion is also featured in an architix tur.d study, 5 1 In the article in Damskii mir in which tins gown is described, no mention is made as to how the "changing colors" were achieved. Dsmsbi wr, 3, (March 1908): 6. The article also notes that Lamanova "can hold her own against Ae famous fashion houses of Paris." 189 from Bakst and perhaps even Goncharova, Davydova, and Udal'tsova in the pre- Revolutionary period, to Exter and Vera Mukhina in the Soviet era, naturally follows her appreciation of art, involvement in the theater, and understanding of the artistry of dress.53 Her name appears in select documents that also put her dose to women artists of the period, including one of the most talented artists of the period, Goncharova. In 1913, at a celebrated solo show in Moscow, the largest for an avant-garde artist of the period, Goncharova included among her works numerous contemporary dress designs and at least fifty-four original dresses.:^ In the exhibition catalog, Lamanova is listed as the owner of seventeen dress designs and three embroidery patterns. Whether or not the two women ever directly work together to produce dresses is unclear, but mutual interest is certainly evident. While little documentary material exists that references Lamanova's pre-Revolutionary career (perhaps due to the confiscation of her estate by the Soviets after the war) numerous extant materials document her later career and prove her collaboration with several women of the post-Revolutionary avant-garde. They include photographs of the designs she created with several artists, among them Exter, for international exhibitions, and designs modeled by Ulia Brik and Aleksandra Kokhlova, two prominent women of early Soviet artistic circles. (Figwrr 4.15) 5 3 Lamanova's collaboration with Exter, Mukhina, Pribyskaia, and Nadezhda Makarova is documented by their designs for the 1925 Internationa] Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, for which they received a gold medal, Sec Strizhenova, Sorwt Cnshow and Textiles, 1917-1945,97. In an autobiographical statement written on May 16,1937, Lamanova reported that she worked at the Moscow Artistic Theater beginning in 1901, and after die Revolution beginning in 1918, and also at the Vakhtangov Theater afkr 1921. She joined the Artistic-Industrial Section of Narkompros in 1919 as the director of the Dress Studio and as an instructor of fashion design. She was responsible k r several foreign exhibitions of Russian contemporary clothing and lines of Soviet dress for export. (Mkh AT, Archive N, P, Lamanova. d. 5085,1.1- 6.), * V ystfm k M Karim Nutoli: Sergreimy Com/wrmn, 1900-1913. Khodozhestevennyi salon, B. Dmitrovka, dom 11 (Moscow: B. Rikhter, 1913). Note that Goncharova's solo show was held in an exhibition space that was located a few buildings away from Lamanova's atelier. In the catalog) among the paintings listed, is one entitled "Portnikha" (Dressmaker). 190 Figure 4.18: Aleksandra Kokhlova in a dress by Nadezhda Lamanova, 1923. 191 Lamanova was also a patron of liie arts, and she amassed a private collection, which included, among others, paintings by Goncharova and Sudeikin.* In early 1918, despite die deteriorating economic situation of the country, and before her arrest by the new government, Lamanova still maintained her business and added to her coDection. According to the artist Nadezhda Udal'tsova, Lamanova purchased one thousand rubles' worth of "things" — most likely dress and accessory designs— from Udal'tsova and her fellow artist Natalia Davydova and promised to hold two exhibitions of the artists' decorative work in her salon.* While Lamanova's general orientation toward the artistic community was, in some ways, "fashionable" for a woman of means in Moscow at the time, its importance lies more in die degree to which such collaboration may have informed her "bourgeois " designs. For example, the bold advances in color and texture in painting of the avant-garde can be seen to have carried over into Lamanova's experiments with fabric.:^ In addition, her experience with the stage and appreciation of costume as a component of perfonnance also appears to have alerted her to the importance of mobility and dynamic presence in everyday dress, as evident in the debutante's dress referenced earlier that changed colors or "transformed itself" upon movement. * The exhibition catalog from Goncharova's 1913 solo show in Moscow lists Lamanova (Lamanova- Kaiutova) as the owner of the painting "Oreokarii" Çeagleyed"), In the archive of Sergei Sudeikin, Lamanova is listed as the owner of a painting entitled "Modnaia masterskaia" (fashion atelier) and "Kolombina." (RGALI, Arkhiv S. Sudeikin. fond 947, op. 1, ed. khr ''00 I 432. Lamanova's collection was seized in 1919 when she was arrested. Lamanova remained in prison lot at least two and a half months; Strizhenova implies she was imprisoned in Butyrskaia for longer. $<','« I < n'fwme and Textks, 73. % Nadezhda Udal'tsova, diary entry for 6 February 1918, N. Udgfisang. /k u n ' R;(sskoi kwhsikf (Moscow: Literatumo-khudozhestvennoe agenstvo RA, 1994), 42. See, for example, the richly colored green satin dress designed by Lamanova for the ballerina V. V, Karakhan. in 1913. The dress is now in the collection at the Hermitage (Inv. E/ rt-18063, a, b). 192 As a Moscow-based couturier Lamanova remained somewhat at a distance from the Imperial world, despite her ofAcial status as a court dressmaker.^ This independence appears likely given the patronage she received from the wealthy wives of Moscow merchants and of a wide range of performers in both major cities. Lamanova's talent and skill engendered devotion among many of her clients, even after the elimination of her business and the confiscation of her assets by the Soviet government in 1918. Unlike most of her fellow dressmakers and many members of the merchant class and the aristocracy, Lamanova did not flee Russia. Instead, after the Revolution, she made costumes for numerous theatrical productions and even for film^ and participated in several state-sponsored activities organized to develop forms of dress that would better serve the new Soviet citizens.'*) As part of her role within the new system she also designed lines of dresses specifically for export. She wrote several theoretical essays on the art of dress and drew from Russian folk sources for many of her more progressive innovations in modem women's dress. Her designs were included in the Soviet exhibition at the 1925 Paris International Exposition of Decorative and Industrial Arts and received considerable praise. However, until her death in 1941 Lamanova also continued her practice of sewing dresses privately for close friends. In a letter from 1936, the actress Olga Knipper-Chekhova thanks Lamanova, then already in 5: Lamanova's status as a dressmaker of the imperial court is documented in Strizhenova. Soviet Costume mid Teztiks, 70. Tamara Timofeevna Korshunova of the Hermitage Museum also conhrms this status. However, such status did not prevent Lamanova from conducting seasonal "pasprodazby" (sales), which she advertised in local papers. * Among the films Lamanova worked on were Yakov Protozanov's Adite and Sergei Eisenstein's Neiisky.MkhAT, Arkhiv N P I amanova. d. 5085,1,1-h. * For example, in 1921 W.wwh Kandinsky invited Lamanova to join a committee devoted to the theoiy of art as pure art and as inilush \ Letter from V. Kandinsky to N.P. Lamanova, July 27,1%1, Teatral'nyi muzei im. Bakrushina, fond 111, Iclivi 6. 193 her seventies, for a suit she had recently made for her.^' In the 1920s Lilia Brik and her sister Elza Triolet modeled several l.amanova dresses, and diary accounts reveal that the fashionable Brik was a regular "customer" of the designer In addition to the pre- Revolutionary gowns, the costume collection of the Hermitage also houses several works by Lamanova from, the 1920s, though they have never been publicly exhibited. These dresses do not resemble Ihe folk-inspired designs she made for the government committees; instead, they are perhaps best described as NEP-era dresses: flapper styles veiy similar to those that appeared in western Europe and the United States. It seems that even as a professional stripped of her private trade, and as a designer in Ae forefront of one type of Soviet experiment in dress, Lamanova continued to adhere to the dominant European trends while adding her own innovative touches. Fashion for her had evolved to embody multiple sources of influence. Though biographical and documentary material on speciBc pre-Revolutionary dressmakers is limited, numerous general sources— magazines, memoir accounts, commercial activities— indicate that Lamanova is just one example of a wider phenomenon in Russia. From diese materials it appears that the culture of fashion in the immediate pre-Revolutionary period in Russia also approximated art in a noted emphasis on ritualized public exhibition and display. These fashioned "works of art" were best viewed in motion, and soon powerful society women began to perfect their In a letter dated 8 June 1936, Olga Knipper -Chekhova, Ihen in Kiev writes to Lamanova, 'Spasibo za chudnyi, chudnyi kostium [ . . Muzei teatra im. Bakrushina, fond. 141. pis'mo 5, In 1921, Lilia Brik wroW to Mayakovsky and to her husband Osip, and asked if the "debt to Lamanova has been paid." Bengt langfel'dt, Lmber rtn I/. K Mmakocsb; i L iw . Bnk Perepiska 1915-1930 (Moscow: Kniga, 1991), 75,78,211 Svi' also the photographs of Ulia Brik modeling Lamanova's dresses and accessories In Strizhenova, Sooicf ( nsh/mc and T«rh1f .i, plates 83,86,91,96; and In Vasilii Katanian, P nkosM tt'C M K k i(W y(M (Moscow: Zakharov, 1997), after 128 In the latter she and her sister Triolet are wearing dresses by Lamanova that were exhibited at the 1925 exhibition in Paris The actress Aleksandrs (Botskinskaia) Khokhlova also modeled dresses for Wmanova. See Strizhenova, Castwme and Textiles, plates 84-85, ioO.Kantanian mémoire, photograph 194 public presentations. As venues for public interaction grew in the first decades of the twentieth century in Russia, "spottings" of fashionable ladies became commonplace and newsworthy. Undl the twentieth century women throughout Europe typically relied on engravings for their sense of new styles, but by the 1910s a picture or a photograph of a dress, or even the dress itself, could not provide an adequate representation of the stylistic essence of (he new gowns. With movement as a defining element of the styles, pictures failed to communicate the symbiotic relationship between (he cut of (he dress or the fabrics and the body of the woman who inhabited it. The self-standing sfyk modame gowns of the 1900s and (heir elaborate superficial detail, relied less on the physical presence of a woman than these later fashions. In a period when dance became a cultural obsession, and in such a way that it challenged all former ideas of propriety and decency, many women certainly found it convenient to observe the interplay of various fabrics in motion, before settling on a purchase. Bakst claimed that his designs were "inseparably linked to (he modern woman's aspiration towards uninhibited movement,"^ and Üie lines, the length and (he cut of the popular govms of the 1910s appear to reinforce this goal. Indeed, one of the most frequent refrains in fashion magazines of the period is the excited detection of some "zhiuye m aM ekcM y," (live maimequins) whether professional (women employed by a fashion house) or amateur (stunning women) spotted crossing the street or jumping on a tram. If tire essential ingredient of movement was removed bom the gowns, they were incomplete, and the colors and fabrics failed to convey the intended "look." "Dressing the Woman of the Future (A Conversation) (1913)" in TWhrefReiKOM/TiKoter (ÿDgsire, BowlL e ta l, 156. 195 Lamanova, for one, saw her work ropresentoU at the most fashionable public gatherings of the two major cities, which were often artistic or theatrical events. Ihe women of Moscow's and St. Petersburg's elite often went to great lengths to flaunt their sartorial accomplishments. Countess Orlova, a prominent member of the St. Petersburg aristocracy, was reputed to spend close to one hundred thousand rubles a year on her wardrobe, an unprecedented sum even for wealthy Russian performers of the period whose gowns were an essential element of their concerts.'^ Well-dressed women began to rival works of art in the public arena, as the following account of an art exhibition in Moscow in 1915, provided by the Russian artist Vedentina Khodasevich, who was also a designer of dresses during this period, playfully attests: And then it began [...] with great solemnity, releasing the trains of their dresses, the well-known patronesses slowly climbed the staircase (for the exhibitions women had special luxurious gowns made as they vied to outdo one another): Nosova, Loseva, Girshman, Vysotskaia and others. [...] Nosova entered the hall first, in a divine gown (made by the well-known dressmaker Lamanova).^ The eyes of the public quickly turned toward the wealthy Russian women as they approached the exhibition haUs and entered the exhibit, as if part of a formal theatrical ^ D. A. Zososov and V. L Pyzin, fz z /M Z M i 1890-Ï 970-% godjo; zap@ ki ockmAspr (Leningrad: I,enlzdat, 1991): 121. V. Khodasevich, Porfrely s/onam» (Moscow: Sovetskn plsatel', 1987): 105. The women referred to here are members of Moscow's mercantile elite. It is perhaps no surprise that Khodasevich would appreciate the splendor of the wealthy patrons' gowns and specifically Lamanova's artistry, Although primarily a portrait painter in the early years of her career, Khodasevich also drew fashion designs and made Illustrations for women's magazines. See the list for a 1915 exhibition In Moscow in die archive of Kandaurov at RGALI, (f. 769, op. 1, e.kh,262,1.29). and the review In ApoZW that lists "mody " as part of her exhibition. In addition, in 1918 she designed the uniforms for the waitresses who worked at N.D. Filippov's Kafe PIttonmk. Poirsfy sWaml, 118. In die 1920s Khodasevich designed several covers for the Soviet fashion magazine Isbtsshx) odcwrt'sM Oie continued to work in fashion illustration in the 1920s, but she ultimately made her career in the theater. Khodasevich was a young woman in the 1910s and part of a younger generation than the members of the World of Art But her career, like many of her contemporaries, reflects the sympathies of many of her older peers, primarily the fusion of art and dress. Khodasevich, i :ral members of the World of ArL looked to fashion and its surrounding urban environment as an xU n Ion of the theater, the theater of daily life. 196 entrance.^ Such dramatic presentations of new fashions became an essential ingredient of numerous public gatherings. A newspaper account of another art exhibition from circa 1 9 0 9 ^ ? ^ provides an indication of the public's growing fascination with fashion and the increased proximity of the two spheres: The opening of the Golden Fleece exhibit drew so much of the "artistic" public, that it wasn't simply too crowded to view the show, it turned out to be impossible to move among the rooms. Ihe exhibition was very lively. Among the public was: Madame Girshman (sumptuous gown), Madame Khristoforova, nee Shchukina (elegant light gown of pale blue fabric, grey ostrich feathers), O. N. Mazurina (elegant gown of the color "brune" — brown, trimmed in Stroganov embroidery), E. P. Nosova, née Riabushinskaia (sumptuous gown), the Verhn sisters (elegant grey gowns, "turban" hats, trimmed in gold), Madame Rybakova (elegant gown in the style of a Greek tunic), and others.^ In this situation Ihe exhibition of dress trumps the exhibition of paintings as no one is able to move among the rooms to view the art but are instead forced to stare at the elegantly dressed women. In a memoir of the Russian avant-garde, cultural historian Viktor Lobanov also dwells upon the influence of dress as he describes a similar atmosphere at an exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists, Not far away, surrounded by a young, happy, animated pleiad of female acquaintances [...] who secretly dreamed of being painted by V. A . Serov, was the energetic art collector, hostess of a fashionable salon, a woman who had attracted the most prominent painters and writers, E.P. Riabushinskaya-Nosova. Her look said that she was unspeakably happy and conknt to no end to be at the center of attention, that she was awure of being looked at, and that most of the public knew her. Tlie attention and stares of the surrounding public centered around this group. They were in love not so much with Ihem as with their dresses, sewed according to the latest models by Parisian designers. The costumes of these female Khodamevich, Portrcty 105. Though Tarabukin doe@ nut "xln ,iir whkh Zokfoe rw m o exhibit the ankle refers to, from the description of the gowns and the tuitan hals it is likely the exhibition is the third Zoiohxf mno In 1910. * Qtd. in N. M. Tarabukin, Dihrrti /v fwiMima (Moscow: Izd. "Gitix", 1994): 141,144. 197 Moscovites were attended to wiüi great attention, precision, and artistic taste by the most inventive and fashionable Moscow dressmaker, N. P. Lamanova, no stranger to a fascination with painting and a possessor of great taste. With her competed the brilliant, sophisticated masters of Gorod I,yons— Liamin, Anais, and other sorcerers of women's attire."^ Lamanova is treated here not only as a connoisseur of dress, but more importantly as a woman of taste, both in art and fashion. Lobanov equates her talent with "magic" and implies that her "artworks," the ensemble of dressed women who have become the center of attention, rival the paintings exhibited on the walls. Lamanova shared in the artistic developments of the period, particularly as her own work evolved, and she became a member of the artistic community as much as any painter or sculptor of the time. She also diverted attention to the newly prominent women, who basked in the attention of the onlookers and seem to flaunt the competing artistry of their personal wardrobes. Public venues were a convenient arena for the display of fashionable styles. With the introduction of fashion shows this principle of live exhibition was also used in the sale of dresses themselves. Fashion demonstrations by real models began in England in the late nineteenth century, but were integrated into Russian salons and stores probably only in the early twentieth century. Several recent studies of American department stores document the lavish investment in fashion shows following the turn of the century. Live demonstrations, it appears, exhorted considerable influence on their audiences.TD Integral to this appeal was the important role of fantasy and otherworldliness, as fashion shows were made to resemble foreign environments. * Lobanov, K a M w rn y , 137. ^ For inFormation on (he introducWon of live Faahion demonstrationg into the American department store, see chapter 4 of William Leach's tinW Desirr.' /ViercWik, Pmvr, end (he Rise (if a Aim AmencoM Cidfwre (New York: Vintage, 1993), 198 Fashion was depicted in these contexts as transformative, a quality Russian artists continued to associate with their art of the modem period. A study of the dressmaking industry in Russia published in 1914 notes that the ateliers of Lamanova and "Gorod Lyons" on Kuznetskii most, among others, had separate rooms for the live demonstrations of new designs.^ In 1911, when her new palazzo was built, Lamanova installed special rooms for fashion shows, although no detailed description of the rooms survive. Russia's department stores may have matured late compared to those of western Europe, but it is clear they eventually followed their lead in promotion and advertising. SmaU, private fashion demonstrations became a regular feature of the Russian fashion industry, but early in their introduction the most sensational fashion show to hit Russia took place in October 1911 when Poiret arrived from Paris with an entourage of models and new dress designs, as part of a larger promotional tour. (Figwre 4.19) Poiret's visits, first to SL Petersburg and then to Moscow, drew the attention of many prominent artists. A few years earlier, in 1908, Poiret had rallied women to trade in their corsets for more flexible, forgiving undergarments. His radical designs reflected contemporary preoccupations with antiquity and the Orient and subsequent gowns appeared inspired, in part, by the designs of die BaZkts Rwsscs. With his mannequins as live illustrations Poiret preached the importance of the art of dress, and movement appeared an essential ingredient of his modem designs. In an article on PoireKs tour in Russia, Elena Bespalova has demonstrated that many conservative art critics at the time spoke out against the fashion show, and mocked Poiret's claims at having revolutionized the "art" of fashion. Several artists, in contrast, were intrigued by Poiret and welcomed the 7 1 OUunina, f o r tM O D g liV pmwyse/Mostve, 25. 199 Figure 4.19: Paul Poiiefs traveling mannequins. Reproduced in dc/o (1911). 200 novelty of his contribution. As Bespalova has shown, Alexandre Benois, perhaps the most well-respected, erudite member of the World of Art group, wrote an editorial in defense of Poiret and scolded the press for holding him and society to outmoded standards of "high" and "low" art/^ Reactions, like Benois's, indicate that for Russian artists Poiret's commercial experiment was also perceived as a sincere artistic innovation. In addition, it appears clear that Poiret's visit and claim to having transformed fashion stimulated critical discourse on the "art" of fashdon within Russia. During the Moscow portion of the tour, Poiret was hosted by Lamanova at her atelier on Tverskoi Boulevard. According to memoir literature, among the participants who attended Poiref s lecture and three-day demonstration of models were the artists Valentin Serov and Igor' Grabar'. Serov, who painted portrait of many of Russia's leading ladies, sensed the importance of fashion as a creative impulse and noted the drama of the exhibition. As he observed the fashion show, he made numerous sketches, and later made the following remarks in his diary: "they walk like French tragic actresses with enormous gestures."73 According to Serov, himself already an ardent fan, Poiret was lauded by everyone: "Mr. Poiret is now the hero of the day; he's all they talk about in Moscow." His friend and fellow artist, Grabar', also marveled at Poiret's talents. He wrote the following to Benois in Petersburg not long after seeing the show: The third day Serov and I were here [in Moscow] we received enormous enjoyment for a change [...]. Paul Poiret arrived here and brought with him a dozen sample-mademoiselles and hundreds of gowns. And all of this took place at Lamanova's in a suite of rooms in her new palazzo [atelier]. The devil knows it doesn't get better than this.'^ ^ E. Bespalova, "Benois and Puare (Poiret)," PiWiokilra (r-7,3-4 (1998): 56-60. ^ Qtd. in V. P. lapshin, VaWdn Sfrop. god zfuzn: (M oNCO w: Galart, 1995): 276.1 am grateful lo Irina Men'shova for this reference. 7 4 Qtd. in Ijipshin, Valent in Scron, 276. 2 0) Around this time numerous Russian artists, severai of them Serov and Grabar's peers and others from more avant-garde circles, began to design dresses for their wives, friends, or prominent women acquaintances. Sudeikin, for example, created several outfits for his hrst wife Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, including one celebrated red gown that was held together by a safety pin.^ One contemporary writes that Glebova-Sudeikina was transformed by Sudeikin's designs: "He made a work of art out of her, drawing on her own originality."^* An event that most succinctly illustrates the growing collapse of art and fashion in Russia in the pre-Revolutionary years and perhaps represents the culmination of this process leading up to the revolution is the well-publicized "Vecher mody" or "Evening of Fashion" held in St. Petersburg in 1916. The impetus for the competition was World War 1 and an interest among some members of society in establishing fashions that would be less derivative of styles coming out of the West. Artists from several disparate groups, including members of the avant-garde, were prompted to create gowns that reflected native Russian culture. Following the exhibition several photographs of models were published in the popular magazine S olM fse R tK S Ü . The coverage of the event reveals a range of submissions for the competition, both by major and minor artists of the period. One photograph depicts Glebova-Sudeikina in an imaginative ensemble costume designed by Sudeikin.^? (Figure 4.20) In cut and line Sudeikin's creation is consistent with typical 1916 fashions: the skirt is full and pleated and falls above the ankle; 7 5 V. Vergina "Vospominaniia o khudozhnike S. (u, Sudeikine," published in D, Kogan, Iw r'm zcA SwdezW », 7584-7946 (Moscow: tskusstvo, 1974): 202, 7 » Vergina, "Vospominaniia o khudozhnike S. lu. Sudeikiw,* Glebova-Sudeikina, a decomtive artist, was known within Peteraburg circles on her own merit for her beauty and personal fashions. 7 7 Photographs of Glebova-Sudeikina at the Vecher mody can also be found in John Bowib ed. and trans. Tlie SaloM /llhwm of Very Su^icikiM -Sfnminsky (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), ills. lOOa, 100b, 100c. 203 Figure 4.20: Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, in an outfit designed by Sergei Sudeikin, 1916 203 Üie waist is still somewhat free The delicately plumed dark oval hat and dark high- heeled shoes are also standard for the period. The distinguishing characteristics of the outfit/ however, lie in the decorative elements applied to the dress: the scalloped trim along the vest, the tassels decorating the skirt, and the geometric motifs on the elbows of the blouse and the sash. While the extant reproduction of the dress is in black and white, the contrast between the base color of the dress and the superficial decoration and trim is evident. This contrast makes the decoration come across more vividly than if the colors were closer in tone. Most unusual in the outfit, however, is the outer garment, a large loose cape. The decorative motifs on the suit and die cape are reminiscent of Sudeikin's painterly references to the Italian comedic tradition, such as his Panno on the TWw V enghaM T T zeafg r (1915). For the fashion show, Sudeikin also designed a dress for his future wife, the performer Vera Shilling (listed as V. A. Bumina).^» (figure 4.21) Unlike the outfit for Glebova-Sudeikiiia, Sudeikin's design for Shilling generally disregards contemporary standards of line and cut. The full-length empire gown is worn over a fine transparent blouse that delicately shades the arms and bust of the model. Again the artist focuses on the decorative pattern of the dress, by contrasting the pale bodice and skirt of the gown with a large dark lower border. Dark interlocking zig-zags begin at the bodice and run down the center of the skirt to end at the border. The empire waist had resurfaced in fashion as recently as 1908, but Sudeikin's dress seems less a reference to contemporary urban fashions than to Russian folk costume. Given that the motivation for the fashion show was the development of modem forms of national dress, this reference seems likely. In addition, Sudeikin's for Shilling is similar to 7 * Vem Shilling was soon to become Sudeikin's second wife (Vera Sudeikin*) and later tt* long-time wife of Igor Stravinky (Vera Sudeikin-Stravinsky), 1 ( is unclear why she is referred to here as Bumina. "Modoborchestvo," So/mfse Rossii, 329-23 (May 1916): 12-13. 204 Figure 4.21: Vera Shilling, in a dress by Sergei Sudeikin, 1916 205 those worn by the women depicted in his "Russians in Paris/' a painting from 1912 created for % e Stray Dog, a bohemian café in St. Petersburg.^ At the same "Evening of Fashion" the ballerina Tamara Karsavina was dressed in a red suit designed by the artist Boris Anisfeld.*" (Hgwre 4.22) The cut of the skirt approximates contemporary fashions, but the artist combines this line with a fitted, belted blazer, reminiscent of a military jacket, and a veiled cylindrical hat, similar to one style of a Wos/iMtk (folk headdress) worn by women in some traditional, rural communities of Russia.^i A casual, simple light dress modeled by the celebrated opera singer Lidia Lipkovskaia and designed by the lesser-known artist V . O. Barzhanskii features patterns of folk embroidery along the sleeves and pockets that predict the folk- inspired designs Lamanova would create in the early Soviet period. (Figure 4.23) Several other artists were listed as contributing to the exlubition, including Ivan Puni, whose wife, the artist Ksenia Boguslavskaia, is featured modeling his Suprematist design in a photograph for Solntsc Rossu. (Figure 4.24) The purse carried by Boguslavskaia and the trim along the base of her suit-jacket are embroidered in a Suprematist pattern of contrasting colors and shapes, yet the dominant silhouette of the dress is largely consistent with prevailing fashions of the period. The Suprematist details of the costume are reminiscent of several accessories designed by Puni and by Boguslavskaia herself that were presented at an exhibition of decorative arts held the same year, ^ Reproduced in Kogan, fwr'ei'ick SudeikH, 99 (lit. 59) and 89 (ill. 51), K Russkii parizhanin, "Po povodu vechera mody" SWiba i wWka, 60-61 (May 1916): 14-15 8 1 For examples of a folk and an imperial W rwAmik, see Jacqueline Onasais, ed.. In flK Rwaslm i Siyk (New York: Viking Penguin, 1976), 151,133, 206 Figure 4.22 Tamara Karsavina, in a sui t and hat by Boris Anis^ld, 1916 207 Figure4.23: Lidi.; ï iVkm-.k.ii.i, ir. ,i hv V a . n.u-.it.m-.Lu. I'M-» M. A . jlKMwoKotaa wa «aw ept iWAtN a t KOMWwt ao put « n o m H N K a 8. 0. S a m a iw M & M ^ 208 Figure 4.24: Ksenia Boguslavkaia^ in a Suprematist suit, hat, and handbag by Ivan Puni, 1916 209 By bringing together artists of different styles and sensibilities and by asserting fashion's potential as a collective artistic "event" and social "spectacle/' the "Evening of Fashion" demonstrated the extent to which Russian society had accepted the expressive potential of dress design in (he immediate pre-Revolutionar}' period. Despite (he nationalist undertones of the competition, in many ways the exhibition can be seen as the culmination of several years of fashion's emergence as the new art in Russia and as evidence of artists' sincere devotion to the medium. Avant-Garde Fashion In the nineteenth century the spheres of fashion and art were carefully separated in Russia, with each locked into its own regimens of acceptable production. By the twentieth century, both can be seen to have emerged as subversive elements within traditional culture. While fashion design shared with early twendeth-century artistic movements such as the World of Art and Art Nouveau an orientation toward decoration, movement, and performance, elements that Bakst and others pursued in both spheres, these principles were also evident, albeit manifested somewhat differently, in avant-garde developments of the period. Movement, in particular— a defining characteristic of modernity— was at the center of French Cubist and Italian Futurist depictions of urban life. Russian Cubo-Futurists and other members of the avant-garde painted in similar genres, and their paintings convey the energy of a reality moving forward, as locked in a series of crystallized moments. Painterly interpretations by the avant-garde capture the hum of modem machines, the incessant whirr of (he city. The bkycle, the loom, and the sewing machine, are just a few images (hat form this larger body of work. 210 In fashion, movement can be seen as articulatoii not only in the raised hemlines and split skirts diat obviously facilitated freer mobility, but in the transparent fabrics that exposed the movement of the body and celebrated the body's construction. In addition, the bold colors imported from the modernist palette contributed to tlie growing contrast created between the dressed woman and her surrounding context, a relief effect in the 1910s that made movement more readily apparent Hence the ubiquitous "sightings" of fashionable women throughout the urban environment. From neo-Primitivism and Expressionism to Cubism and Suprematism, vibrant hues often rivaled more muted tones in the art of these movements. The Russian artist Olga Rozanova, for example, advocated an understanding of color as a force of nature. In the article "Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism," she writes "fust as a variance in the atmosphere can create a strong or weak zdr current in nature, one that can upset and destroy things, so dynamism in (he world of colors is created by the properties of their values, by their weight or lightness, by their intensity or duration. This dynamism is, essentially, very real. It is imperious. It engenders style and justifies construction."*^ Bold blocks of saturated colors— reds, oranges, blacks, greens, yellows, and blues— were a common element of Russian avant-garde painting, particularly in the Cubist, Cubo- futurist and Supremabst works of the 1910s. The transfer of artistic principles of color and form to dress has been identified in the experimental designs of avant-garde artists in the early 1920s, by which point abstract art had become an established part of the tradition, and stark geometric forms were an essential element of most modem design. Yet even before the 1920s, the application of principles of non-representational art to ^ Qtd. in Nina Gurianova, Co/or; A ozaH CM and (A r Early trans. Charles Rnugle (Austrialia: C+B Arts International, 2000) in Gurianova, 200. 211 fashion was already taking place, Several members of the Russian avant- garde— Boguslavskaia, Exter, Goncharova, Malevich, Popova, Puni, Rozanova, and Udai'tsova, among oihers— pursued experiments in fashion that drew upon their modem notions of color, form, and line. The continued involvement of artists directly in fashion design, particularly those who often shunned bourgeois society and commercial motivations for art, is a clear indication of the noted aesthetic potential of the medium. More importantly, however, die avant-garde's interest in fashion further conveyed Ihe message of fashion's newfound artistry to the wider public. A look at the figure of one of Russia's most fashionable woman and friend to many members of artistic circles, the ballerina Tamara Karsavina, reveals the extent of the fluctuations in Ihe silhouette through these years: from the straight, vertical cylindrical form of the early 1910s, the triangular "minaret" tunic of 1913 and later, and the severely angular blouses, skirts and jackets from 1914-1917, all of which comprise a dramatic departure from the tiny-waisted curvy silhouettes of 1905 and earlier. Early photographs of Karsavina from the Imperial ballet around the turn of the century depict a young woman with large round accentuated hips and a petite waist. (Figure 4.25) Yet approximately a decade later, in 1913, Karsavina appeared on the cover of the popular women's magazine D aM zskii mir (Women's World) with a completely altered figure.»^ In the photograph for Damskii mir Karsavina is wearing a slim brocaded gown by the Parisian designer DrecoU. (F ig W M z 4.26) The dominant vertical line and cylindrical character of the look is evident in the photograph. Three years later in another cover photograph, this time for the magazine S olM fse Rossu (Russia's Sun), Karsavina's costume is markedly even more cylindrical; that is, the full triangular skirt and fitted O m M s& n wir 4 (1913), cover. 212 Figure 4.25: Tamara Karsavina in 5% % » 1905 « a m 213 Figure 4.26: Tamara Karsavina in a dress by DrecoU, 1913. Reproduced on the cover of D fm fg & û " no. 4 (1913). " " J l . I i. A p n t k r I . » \ ,L I i - p y i m w 214 jacket provide a greater sense of three-dimensionality and volume to the figureJ^ (Hgwre 4.22) Though changes in the fashionable form seem to borrow from developments in modem painting, more relevant to fashion's evolution is the sudden cultural shift that can be identified in the overall challenge to the status quo posed by the avant-garde and the revolutionary transformation of society's orientation toward a work of art. As one proponent asserted, "we propose to liberate painting from its sul^ervience to the ready-made forms of reality and to make it first and foremost a creative, not a reproductive art . | I hi Cubists asserted that the creative consciousness is just as real as what it responds to, m d than an individual's sul^ective assertion is more valuable than the code of current opinioiL")*: Such "ready-made forms," that were liberated in the new art of ihe avant-garde could easily include dress, whose social or commercial function was soon rivaled by its status as an artistic statement. This period can be characterized in general as a reordering of dress as aesthetic expression. The break with tradition fostered in the world of the avant-garde which was covered extensively in the popular newspapers and magazines of the period Arough reports of animated public displays, Uvely lectures, and exhibitions of radical paintings resonated with women, one could argue, because it added complexity and depth to their relationships widi their own Individual images, a development which ultimately brought about challenges to women's social identity. Not only did fashion's new aesthetic supremacy, and potential to disrupt norms that dictated a woman's presence in the public sphere, imply greater creative power on the part of women, it also initiated more widespread critical focus on M S oÜ M b g RoM » 329-23 (May 1916): cover. ^ Olga Rozaroi-a, "KuWzm, futurism, supmmatizm.^ "Cubism, Puturwm, Suprematism," translated by john E. Bowit, in Gunanova, Color, 194-195. 215 women in society. Subjective artistry in dress made women more visual and visible, both individually and collectively, and the discourse of fashion became a discourse of women in a modern society. Russian artists contributed to this discourse by approaching dress and accessory design more analytically and creatively to help release the medium from traditional parameters of taste. Yet, women artists contributed further to this process by creating representations of women in their paintings that also parted with tradition and provided an alternate view to that of the privileged male perspective that had endured until the twentieth century. 216 Russian Women Artists and Fashion [...] perhaps, of greatest interest is a woman, not in a man's rendering, but in those intimate words of truth, in which only her fellow woman (podruga) can see her— when a woman describes herself. At the exhibit there were a few examples of this "feminine" understanding of a woman. Georgii Lukomskii, 1910^ How can you creak with your head turned toward die old times? [...] Art must be an expression of its own time and its values. Typical of our age is a hunger for freedom, a longing for freedom, a hunger to see the world transformed. Olga Rozanova, 1 9 1 8 * * ^ In March 1913 a review of the Union of Youth exhibition in St. Petersburg (December 1912— January 1913) appeared in the Moscow journal Ogowk. The article reproduced several paintings from the show, among them Porfnuf Lady in PWr (no. 68) by the artist Olga Rozanova.^» (figurg 4.27) The painting, a portrait of the ardsYs older sister Anna Rozanova (completed in 1911), depicts a young woman dressed in a contemporary pink gown lying informally on a blue divan.^"^ While die look is far from seductive, the model provocatively reveals her ankles and a pair of fashionable black heels with large black bows. As dictated by the latest styles, her neck is exposed, an element which just five years earlier was reserved for evening gowns, and a hand Georgii Lukomskii, "Vystavka sovremcnnykh russkUdi zhenakikh portretov/ Apoümi (lanuary 1910): 8. P Rozanova, "Only in Independence and Unlimited Freedom is there Art," trans. Charles Rougle, Gurianova, Co/er, 203, Originally published *s "Iskusstvo - tollco v nczavisimosti i bezgranichnoi svobode," in AMiotwo 91 (1918). * "Vystavka 'Soiuza molodezhi' ('Kubistov) v Peterburge," Ogomet (6 Jan. 1913): 5. * * Some scholan; have falsely identified Hie painting as a portrait of Rozanova's sister Alevtina (also A.V. Rozanova), liut a letter from Rozanova to her sister Anna, recently published in A w M zoM S (/da: Ammf-Garde, confirms the model's Identity as Anna, Letter to Anna Rozanova (December 9,1912), John E, Bowltand Matthew Drutt, eds., A m M Z O M S offl* Atwd-Gonfc, Ezfcr, Gmtcktw/a, Popow, R ozaM O oa, SkpSM ora, Udgrtsow (New York: Guggenheim, 2000), 325, The painting was also referred to as "Lady in Conversation," which emphasizes dw dialogue between the two sisters, 217 Figure 4.27: Olga Rozanova, PorWf (ÿ'« W y i» Pû* (Portrait of A.V. Rozanova), oil on canvas, 1911 218 gesture toward her bust emphasizes her modest décolleté, The model's hat^ though smaller than the ridiculed styles of previous years, is notably bold, generously plumed and supported with a large wide ribbon. A vase of jflamingo lilies positioned behind the divan and a large green backdrop, while serving as a significant contrast of color, remain in the background rather than detract from the central image of the painting, the dressed woman. According to Rozanova's own account, die portrait received considerable attention at the exhibition (one of her early attendances at a major artistic event) and helped earn her the respect of her avant-garde peers.^o In his book on the Union of Youth group, Jeremy Howard describes the portrait as "fauvist," and claims it "serve[d] to elucidate her approach and study of fadttura."^ The bold segments of color indicate a move toward abstraction and, as fellow artist Varvara Stepanova would later argue, represented the foundation of Rozanova's aesthedc: "Malevich [...] constructs his works on the basis of squares," Stepanova asserts, "Rozanova uses color instead."*z Nina Gurianova, author of the first scholarly monograph on Rozanova, calls the painting "Neo-Primitivist"K' and argues that much of Rozanova's work reveals a "conscious reliance upon color correlations as being the fundamental element in composition/'* In this portrait Rozanova takes a very traditional genre in painting and infuses it wiüi an "exploration of color." * Letter to Anna Rozanova (December 9,1912), Bowlt and Drutt, eds., A M W zcw w Avmrt-GWc, 325. !" Jeremy Howard, The U nrom ofyowfA.' An Artiük' Soofty offAeArwMt-Günk (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 19%), 143. ''3 Varst [pseudonym of Varvara Stepanova], "Vystavka Ol'gi Rozanovoi," ktwsNkw.' Veshdk ofdek fzohrozifd'mykk isAnssA) N m rodM ogo imnsMhata pe pm sersiicA L 'M K H /, 4 (22 Feb. 1919): 3. English translation U r Gurianova, Erpfon»^ Color, 181. ^ Gurianova, kxplonng Color, 213. * Gurianova, Eïplonng Color, 213. 219 It is noteworthy that Rozanova's arrival on the avant-garde art scene was marked by this paintings the depiction of a woman dressed in current fashions as envisioned by a female artist. Gurianova has described it as a "parody of a femme fatale/' and claims that it barkens back to portraits of prostitutes such as Eduard Manef s Olympia.^ Here, however, one should note that the model is not a prostitute, but a middle-class woman, who is fashionably dressed rather than undressed. Yet it is precisely this adherence to new fashion trends that implicitly poses a threat to the old order. Like the woman of ill repute in die nineteenth-century works, the "new" or "modem" here woman interferes with traditional standards of propriety. As both viewer (or voyeur) and artist Rozanova usurps what is traditionally a masculine role as she controls the exposure of the female body, here quite literally and symbolically her "sister." The model lacks the provocative sexuality of many of her liberated peers - her degree of décolleté and raised hemline are measured — but her aggressive confrontation of the viewer heightens the aura of independence that surrounds her. Unlike the prostitute the "new woman" is not the implied sexual servant of the dominant male audience. She is sexual, it appears, if and when she chooses to be. With her figure cloaked in color by a female artist, the model in the pink dress is partly shielded from the voyeuristic stares granted the typical Olympia. The vulnerable female body is absent, and has been replaced by the phallic audiority of the autkwnum in the background, a flower also commonly referred to as the artist's palette. As a member of the avant-garde, Rozanova broke with traditional methods of representation and created art tliat centered on the energy, rhythm, and depth of color and line. This orientation is already apparent in the portrait from 1911, a prelude to Gurianova, ExpWMg CoW, 20. 220 Rozanova's more radical experiments of 1913-1918. In her comments on Rozanova's portrait of Anna, Stepanova notes the emotional depth of the painting: "Throngh color Rozanova perceives not only the visible but also the spiritual side of life. Recall her Portrait in Pint Drgss, that unusual portrait of a power almost unique in all the new Russian painting, in which bo& ihe profound psychology of the portrait and her approach to portrait painting is refracted through ihe prism of color."* The essence of the portrait's "psychology" and of Rozanova's approach, Stepanova implies, might be described as "antiTtradition" and "individualism." The revolutionary challenges to artistic representation witnessed in the early twentieth century are mirrored in formal changes to women's fashion that were based on a radically altered understanding of the physical foundation for dress and the role of fashion in society. The social relevance of fashion was not completely diminished by aesthetic fantasy, but its relevance was no longer found merely in prescriptive notions of class, wealth, and gender, but in the disruptive potential of the innovative designs. In other words, modem women's kshion had transformative power, and collective notions of feminine identity were altered as a conséquence of these fashions. It is no surprise, then, that fashion attracted avant-garde artists, both men and women, to its pursuit. Any challenge to staid notions of propriety was generally appreciated by the avant-garde. However, judging by their widespread activity in dress, accessory, and textile design, women artists, in particular, sensed the parallel developments between the two spheres and also appreciated the resonance of those changes in society. ' Varsi, "Vystavka Ol'gi Rozanovol." English translation in Gurianova, Cofor, 180. 221 Scholars of Rozanova's work have argued the existence of a partner painting to Portrait o/"a fWy in PiM k,^ a lithograph created hy Rozanova in 1912 (1913?) and reproduced in the third issue of Soiuz wotodozhi (Union of Youth, 1913), the anthology that also featured Rozanova's theoretical tract "The Basis of the New Art and Why It is Misunderstood." (Pigwre 4,2^) The lithograph appears to be a reductive sketch of Portrait o/a Lady iM Pm A ; a step toward abstract figures and minimal lines, similar to Rozanova's book illustrations. The similarities between the two works by Rozanova are numerous, and the connection is compelling; the first is a colorful modernist rendering of a young model the second an abstract interpretation of the same pose. The background has been changed, but the model's hal face, arms and dress can be distinctly traced in the liüiographic version. Though Rozanova wrote that she believed there was no relation between objective art and non-objective art— "they are even farther from the similarity between the craft of a shoemaker and a tailor," she said— the line of development in her evolution as an artist is evident in this pair of works as she moves out from reality toward abstraction.^ Through the careful placement of several simple brushstrokes, Rozanova isolated the energy and dynamism of the original painting, and of the model's pose, in particular. Movement was an important principle of Rozanova's aesthetic, and perhaps one she borrowed from the Italian Futurists. It was also a principle she directly applied to the construction of dress and accessories. This second ^ V. K. Terekhina and )eremy Howard, independently, argue this connection; '[l]n the lithograph the figurative components are reduced to hold strokes of broken black line. There is no attempt at modeling or description'' Howard, Tk? U nioM of youth, 144. * In a letter to Ak ksei Knu henykh in the summer of 1915, Roxanova wrote; 'Presently I can only paint things that are etiher iviifnVy nsillstic or ektmcf, 1 can't allow anything in between, since I think that there are no links conius ting these two ,uts, no comparisons and nothing in common, they are even farther from the similarity hc( ween tlw 1 1 jl I of a shoemaker and a tailor, etc." I.etter reproduced in the Russian in A RnsswM Odfwm 5 (1999): 72 English translation from Gurianova, EayimiMg Color, 156, 222 Figure 4.28: Olga Rozanova, untitled lithograph, ca. 1913 y.Xjii __ 223 portrait, one could argue, acts as a bridge to Rozanova's non-objective works and to the establishment of her individual artistic method. Rozanova embotlied this new art in paintings and book illustrations, but also in functional decorative objects: dresses, hats, handbags, and appliqué motifs.^ Wlule only very few of these designs can stiU be seen today, those that have survived reveal the artisf s commitment to the Suprematist motifs that also appeared in her paintings. At the retrospective exhibition of Rozanova's work in 1918, following the artisf s untimely death from diphtheria, of the 250 works shown, over 60 were designs for dresses, purses, belts and textiles. Fellow artist Liubov Popova, herself an avid designer of women's dress, wrote, in response to Rozanova's death, that she valued Rozanova's decorative art above all.^oo Rozanova wrote only briefly of her ideas regarding costume. In a letter to Aleksei Kruchenykh in the fall of 1915, she describes dress in practical terms: The object of costume is 1) to hide imperfections of the body through the cleverness of the cut; 2) to bring out typical features of build; 3) to exaggerate these. Costume is a mask, costume is a mirror, costume is a crooked mirror? Women who dress badly are those whose costume serves only to cover their nakedness and nothing more, and those who have no idea of themselves naked.ioi Rozanova's definition embraces the contradictory qualities of dress— both to hide and expose the body, and to accurately and inaccurately reflect reality. Costume acts as a mask insofar as it represents a constructed image and protects individual identity, while also simultaneously liberating it. To a degree this image might reflect a "crooked" * Several reproductions of Rozanova's designs (or handbags and textile designs have l*en published in the exhibition catalog Dig,? (97,4. plalm 111, 112; and in Gurianova, ExpWing Coior, plates 32-37, including some of (he earli«% t known lexiilo designs io use motifs of the Bolshevik Révolution. In addition, the holdings of the drpartments of graphk ai t .« I ilw Iivtiakov Gallery and at the Russian Museum include several yet unpublished dress and accessoiy designs by Rozanova, ™ From a letter to Nadezhda Udal'bmva, November 1918. Published and translated in Gurianova, Explmng Color, 178. Letter from Rozanova to A. Kruchenykh, fall 1915, as reproduced in Gurianova, Exploring Color, 157, 224 undei^nding of reality, perhaps even the embrace of fantasy and engagement in the theater of daily life. Or, it might manifest a "reality" that is not immediately apparent, for example, those dimensions of feminine identity that are often suppressed or ignored in culture. However, according to Rozanova, one must know oneself undressed, the physical self, before attempting to cover it effectively, and thus an hones^ or creative sinceri^ lies at the heart of her definition. A number of Rozanova's dress designs have been preserved, mostly in the major collections of Moscow and SL Petersburg, and those that remain seem to embody the principles articulated above.^oi They subscribe to prevailing notions of the ideal feminine form, while remaining rooted in the artist's personal aesthetic, her Suprematist art. The loose-waisted, full-skirted dresses cover the body, yet, through the placement of embroidered design and most certainly a pointed use of color they simultaneously expose die artistry at the basis of her identit)'. Of the four drawings from 1916-1917 in the collection of the Russian Museum, each dress appears to combine elements of contemporary fashion (with certain unusual innovations, for example in her collar or hat designs) and extensive Suprematist motifs. Rozanova's inventiveness is perhaps most apparent in her beautiful designs for handbags, aU of which are of unusual geometric shapes. In these watercolor sketches, several of which have survived, the identity and function of the object is clear despite their radical forms. Rozanova and several other artists such as Boguslavskaia, Exter, and Malevich, designed dresses and accessories that were then made by the Verbovka sewing collective outside Kiev and exhibited in 1917. Some of Rozanova's sketches for this event provide specific instructions for the See, for example, drawings of dresses from the Russian Museum's department of graphic art, and a similar drawing in the drawing section of the Tretiakov Gallery, in addition, several designs for handbags and decorative motifs have survived and are housed in ihew collections. 225 seamstresses regarding materials that otherwise woWd not be apparent from the design itself. For example, one Suprematist bag resembling a large black "X" superimposed with an embroidered Suprematist < ompDsition of a white circle and red, pink and brown rectangular shapes, calls for the use of crimson under cloth, tassels of silk or glass beads, and a black beaded handle.™ (Pigwrc 4.29) ihe role of the handbag is not diminished by the inclusion of the avant-garde forms and motifs, nor the bold use of color. Rather the perception of independence typically associated with the handbag in early-twentieth- century women's fashion is strengthened by the innovative design. Rozanova's abstract lithograph of a reclining woman, which first appeared in Soiw z M foW ozlw in 1913, reappeared on the first page of Rozanova's obituary in 1919. The article, entitled "In Memory of Those Who Have Departed," was written by the art critic Abram Efros and published in the magazine M osAna (Moscow).™ The lithograph appears in die obituary in lieu of a portrait of the artist herself. While there is no evidence that the sketch was ever intended as a self-portrait (on the contrary, it was more likely an additional portrait of her sister) Efros uses it, 1 would argue, as if it were representative of the artist, as much as any photograph might be. Here, quite signihcandy, the portrait is an indication of Rozanova's artistic maturity and a clear marker of her feminine identity. In addition, Efros reaffirms the tendency to associate women artists with fashion, and to read critically their personal fashions as a reflection of the creative self. Efros's characterization of Rozanova is peculiar. He calls her "mouselike" and a futurist of the "domestic interior," not a "militant amazon" like her colleague Goncharova. In her art Rozanova "whispers"; Goncharova "roars." Efros Gurianova. Ezpfonmg Color, plate 34. tw Abram Efros, "Vo skd ukhodiashchim," Moskio 3 (1919): 4-6. 226 Figure 4.29: Olga Rozanova, Suprematist bag, 1917 227 asserts Üiat Rozanova's mouse-like nature was also reinforced by her outer appearance, her petite stature and tendency to wear "dull colors." In a review of the Jack of Diamonds exhibit for A poZlo», in January 1916 the art critic Yakov Tugendkhol'd also touches upon Rozanova's femininity. He praises her talent for design and her "gentle feminine elegance." While many of Rozanova's paintings unarguably are of a lyrical nature (the late non-objective paintings perhaps most of all) Ehos's characterization does not seem a valid portrayal of Rozanova's oeuvre, rather an attempt to limit the artist's contribution to Futurism and Suprematism. Rozanova's book illustrations alone bear an expressive violence and passion equal to the art of her avant-garde peers. She worked in several genres, published prominent Üieoretical articles on the new art and made significant advances in Suprematist painting. Even the lithograph of the redining woman, while a depiction of a "domestic" scene, is far from timid in its bold strokes and abstract austerity. But her decorative work is perhaps most underestimated in such an assessment of her career. In Tugendkhol'd's review "decorativeness" seems a clear indication of "feminine.'' As such one might understand that her work is appropriate, or safe, for a woman, but limited in theoretical or intellectual depth, an attitude that one would also find among critics, not artists, toward fashion in general at the time. Yet Rozanova's dress and accessory designs seem very much a part of her total aesthetic. They represent a very radical move to embody in new forms, living forms, a complex understanding of color dynamics. More than mere decoration, they imply an understanding of dress as an effective medium for the integration of artistic principles into daily life. Though only designs for dresses and accessories by Rozanova have been preserved, the artist's participation at the Verbovka exhibitions makes it likely that " K la. Tugendjkhol'd - "I zhizn', i uzomosf, i nezhno zhenstvemioe izlashchestvo," Apcl/m, (1916): 117. 228 several of her designs were realized. These experiments were not mere propaganda, however, but an extension or further development of Rozanova's art. And they are also evidence of Rozanova's own recognition of fashion as a medium worthy of such attention, a likely consequence of fashion's unyielding, yet subtle, influence on culture in the early twentieth century. In addition to Rozanova, nearly all the women members of the avant-garde worked in fashion and accessory design at some point in their careers. With the exception of the designs of the Soviet Constructivists, that work, however, is often overlooked, or more likely to be acknowledged as part of an artist's reputation and history if she is ranked among the more ' feminine'' or second-tier artists. The well- respected artist Goncharova, for example, whose drawings of dress designs and actual handmade dresses number as many if not more than those of her female peers, until recently has received little attention for her work in fashion.^* Her involvement in fashion design after her emigration and her afhhation with the Parisian salons of Myrbor Robes and Coco Chanel are justified often in terms of financial hardship, rather than treated as a conscious artistic endeavor. However, in 1913, before her emigration to Paris, during what is considered the peak of her painterly career, Goncharova exhibited numerous dress and decorative designs at her monumental one-man show in Moscow and SL Petersburg.i()7 At the time, her exhibited works generally were well received.In 1 0 ^ A notable exception to this trend is the chapter on Goncharova and fashion in the catalog for a recent exhibition of Goncharova's Russian period. E, A. Iliukhina, "Goncharova 1 mods," NaWhi: GoM dwropd. Gody 0 Ross» (St. Petersburg: Palace Editions/State Russian Museum, 2002), 246-51. Listed in the catalog, VysWkt ktrh» Gomdtampoi 1900-7913 (Moscow: Tip. V. Rikhter, 1913), were forty tivo examples of contemporary women's costume, 54 designs for embroidery, two embroidery designs and 12 drawings of women's i out, niporary costume owned by N. P. Kaiutova- Lamanova, and three masquerade costumes. An addendum to the catalog states that four lulib and an unspecihed number of conbonptuary women's costumes went not featured in the catalog list, but evidently were part of the exhibition. 1 % liwps Goncharova has these contemporary dress designs in mind when in the introduction of her catalog stu' a s f rk her "deep interest in what is now called bourgeois vulgarity [...] by 229 one review of &e exhibit published in the newspaper Rerh' (Speech), for example, Benoim praised Goncharova for applying her artistic talents to the renewal of women's dress. Although there seem to be no known photographs or detailed descriptions of the exhibited dresses, numerous colored drawings of dresses, from approximately die same period, survived in Ihe artist's personal archive in Paris and are housed now in museums in Russia. Many of the drawings are undated, but in line, cut, and placement of decorative motifs at least twenty of Ihem likely originated in the early to mid-1910s. Ihey also betray the possible influence of Poiret and the gowns of his traveling fashion show.i^o Goncharova's dresses, however, differ in that they incorporate the artisf s expressive Primitivist and Cubo-futurist motifs and colors characteristic of her paintings of die period: cobalt blue, canary yellow, crimson, brown, and black. In Rozanova's obituary, Efros describes Goncharova and Rozanova as the two extremes of Russian futurism. While Rozanova's art was quiet, intimate, and domestic— in other words, feminine— Goncharova's art was loud and confrontational, "of the streets, " and not of the safe private sphere. Efros uses the term "boi-baba" to describe Goncharova"^ and implies that the art produced by Goncharova is more characteristic of a male artist than a female artist, yet the part of her oeuvre referenced for this comparison is not specified. It seems that Goncharova was often identified as which modernity is characterized [ . . Abo of interest in the catalog was a painting with the title "Portnikha" (Seamstress).Perhaps Lamanova? The well-known painting Dams r sWiape (Woman in a hat) was noted as on exhibition at Der Sturm in Berlin. I" * In an undated letter to the artist Borb Anrep, Goncharova reports of the flurry of interest surrounding her Moscow exhibition and its "huge succes@."In addition to numerous critical reviews, lectures on her art, and commissions for future work, Goncharova mentions that she has received letters (fanmail) from some "young noblewomen." N. S. Goncharova, Pis'mo k B.V. Anrepu (1914) ExpehMent'tkspmWiif 5 (1999), 36. Benob, "Dnevnik khudozhnika," Red?' (17 October 1913). "0 While there is no documented proof that Goncharova witnessed Poiret's exhibition of dresses at Lanianova's Moscow salon In 1911, it does seem that Lamanova and Goncharova were acquainted ly then (given Lamanova'a patrorwgv of Goncharova's art), and k'r .lUondance at the event b certainly a possibility. Abram Efros, "Vo sled ukhodushchim," 5. Boi-iw(w' implies tliat Goncharova is located in the center of activity, but (he word b notably a < umposite of the words "Iwltlv" and a peasant term for "woman." 230 nom-feminine because she defied tradidonal notions of gender, both socially and artistically. In the public press, for example, her behavior was characterized as bohemian and at times scandalous. At one public lecture she was reputed to have challenged a man to a duel for referring to her as Madame Larionova.^» Perhaps more radical, and relevant to the discussion of fashion, is Goncharova's provocative revelation in one interview for a Moscow newspaper that she preferred to dress in men's clothing when she paintedJi^ Such an admission reinforced the notion of Goncharova as a male artist, an identity notably conveyed through dress, but it also revealed Goncharova's awareness of such assumptions on the part of the public and their Wndency to address critically a woman artist's notion of fashion.)^^ In his evaluation of Goncharova's work, Efros elaborates on a thesis first posited by Tugendkhol'd in a review of Goncharova's solo show in 1913. In the end Goncharova does indeed have an artistic identity [...] That identity, strangely enough, is more masculine than feininine The fundamental element of her talent is her sharp, energetic, masculine expressiveness [. ..]. In these individualistic times, when through strict selection only a few female talents stand out, women-artists are men-hke. This is particularly true of Russian female artisb: the pathos of Polenova's or Golubkina's work is not decoration, but the search for truth. Naturally, N. Goncharova is talented in decoration [.. .][her works have] a rhythmic flair and omamental-ness to them. But that is not what is most important Rather, Goncharova's most important natural attribute [...] is her sharp, satirical expressiveness.^^s Tugendkhol'd and Efros both cite the artisTs energy and strength of expression, and seem primarily focused on her role as a painter and illustrator of books. The artist's dress designs do not figure into this characterization, and were conveniently ignored by uz Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov began o life-long relationship in 1900 but did not marry ofOcially until 1955 in Paris. m "V masterskoi GoncharovoL" MrwWsbrm 306 (26 March 1914): 5. "4 In public Goncharova appears to have gcnci.tliy dressed in women's clothing. "5 la, Tugendkhol'd, "Vystavka kartin NaWlii (amcharovoi (Pis'mo iz Moskvy), " /tpoIloM 8 (October 1913) 73. ' 231 most critics at die time, with the exception of Benois, who as an artist of the theater was perhaps more appreciative of the art of dress and costume. While Goncharova was often treated as an exception to the standard rules of gender and creativity, her identily as a woman, however, was not overlooked. Rather, on occasion Goncharova's identity as a woman was used to leverage the acceptance or rejection of her art. fane Sharp looks at one incident in particular to demonstrate the degree to which gender factored into the accusations made against the artist."^ She closely examines Goncharova's trial for pornography in 1910 that resulted after the artist exhibited several paintings of nude women. Sharp argues that Goncharova's nudes were characteristic of her expressive, Neo-Primitivist period and were not particularly erotic. Yet, during this period, Sharp asserts, though it was rare for charges to be brought against a male artist for painting female nudes, for a woman artist, even the well-known Goncharova, the genre still remained taboo. In this situation, Goncharova's appropriation of a position traditionally held by a male artist was exposed, and her "cross-dressing" as someone able to observe and interpret the female nude was rejected by conservative members of the public. Neither Goncharova nor Rozanova was reported to have exhibited a marked sense of fashion in their personal dress, although extant photographs are so few it seems difficult to judge conclusively. It is interesting nonetheless that while the artists received limited critical attention for their fashion designs, accounts often mention their personal appearance. Goncharova is often described as dressing simply and modestly, yet she sewed numerous dresses from her designs, and some photographs hint at the possibility of an original design. In one picture from 1913, for example, Goncharova appears lane ^arp, 'Redrawing the Margin* of Ruaaian Vanguard Art Natalia Goncharuva'a Trial for Pornography in 19T0," in Sexualiiy mid (A c Body im Rwwimi Cwliwre, eds. Jane T. Costlow, Stephanie Sandler, and judhlh Vowles (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993) 97-123. 232 dressed m a loosely fitted glittermg (sequined) blouse \vith an unusual necklme. A close- Htting cap hugs her face more closely than the fashionable styles of the times, and anticipaties the cloche styles of the 1920s. A photograph of the same year published in Hatfr n jhmikthmtfA (Theater in Caricatures) shows Goncharova wearing a distinctly plumed, petite hat, in complete accord with the latest standards. It is difficult to discern in the newsprint, but Goncharova's polka-dotted blouse and the dual-colored suit jacket collar also seem creatively stylish. In the same publication, a Cubo-futurist portrait by Goncharova is positioned next to a photographic portrait of the artist, and a rekrential relationship is implied by their proximity. The painting. D a * # / « /i/z (1 idy in a Hat) is dominated by several large curled hat feathers in pink, yellow, brown, and black. (Figwrg 4.30) One can also detect a section of lace, and several numbers and letters including a large yellow number "5," the Russian letters "r" and "o ', perhaps from "pcro," (feather), and two Russian "sh's," perhaps connoting "skliapg" (hat). Among the facial features of the woman, depicted in profile, most striking is the large, narrowed almond-shaped eye, tucked just below the brim of the hat. This eye is confronted by a pair of smaller, similar eyes diat also seem part of Ae larger face. While perhaps not an overt attempt to depict herself, f,g(^ in a Hat does seem to contain an element of self reflection on the part of Goncharova. If it is not Goncharova, then it is perhaps someone with whom she could identify. She is both the lady in the hat zmd the artist, zlzeM skcA /M a-l*w dozA uitsa (woman-artist). She is a woman, but one with an extra pair of eyes that allow her to perceive herself, the 'diU M A ," from a perspective traditionally alien to women, and to establish an identity based on that usurped position. 233 Figure 4.30: Natalia Goncharova^ Dama t? (Lady in a Hat), oil on canvas, ca. 1913 0 # 234 In a diary enby from 1917, Udal'tsova considers the commitment of her avant- garde peers,^ women in particular, to living a life completely absorbed in their art. Goncharova, she claims, is her model of a true artist, "To people she is not a woman, and if she is a woman, then only a woman-artist."]^^ Yet even at the peak of her Russian career, following the success of her retrospective exhibitions in 1913 and 1914, Goncharova could not escape the negative prejudice typically directed at women-artists. Despite his praise of Goncharova's "masculine" creativity, in his review of her retrospective exhibition Tugendkhol'd also lists what he perceives are Goncharova's limitations as an artist, qualities ihat are ultimately linked to her identity as a woman. He describes her as impressionable, in the sense that "she reacts weekly to every fashionable trend of our time, moving from one "ism" to the next," thereby implying a lack of intellectual or artistic depth. Hris comment falls back on the stereotypical assumption that all women are whimsical, a critique perhaps most often leveled at women for their approach to their wardrobes, but in their "tastes" in general. In contrast to this evaluation, many scholars today would assert that Goncharova did indeed live wholly within her art Sharp, for example, reminds us that two of Goncharova's three genuine self-portraits reinforce her identity as an artist.^^8 Though Goncharova may have seen lier identities as woman and artist as complimentary, critics, and perhaps the wider public, appear to have often assumed that feminine characteristics only detracted from one's artistry and artistic talents. Yet, as Goncharova and several of her female N, l\W ts(:va, "Dnevmk 1416-1918 godov," ZliizT:' mssim kuWsfh (Moscow: LMpralumo- khudodM^kcnnoe agenstvo kA," 1994), 31-32 It should be noted that Udal'taova credits Larionov for putting Goncharova in what would be considered a privileged position for women at the time. Slwrp, "Redrawing the Margins of Russian Vanguard A it Natalia Goncharova's Trial for Pornography in 1910." 235 peers demonstrated, traditional notions of "femininity" and women's "taste ' could be used to furtlier modem ideas of art and design. Goncharova wrote that she sought to create an art that was free to draw hrom native culture, and that would disregard staid notions of "high" and "low." Dress fit easily among the media employed in her search, and her activities in this sphere only strengthen our sense of her commitment to forging a new ait"^ Among various projects, while still in Russia, Goncharova was also recruited to participate in the creation of a women's fashion magazinc.^^o "phat Nadezhda Dobychina, die art coUector who hosted Goncharova's 1 9 ^1 4 exhibition in St. Petersburg, would solicit Goncharova's contribution to such an endeavor, indicates the openness and seriousness with which Goncharova approached her designs for dress. The advent of World War 1 led to the abandonment of this project by Dobychina, but a newspaper advertisement for the magazine suggests that it came very dose to fruition. Many of Goncharova's female peers approached dress and accessory design with similar professional earnestness. Alexandra Exter, for example, was equally versatile as an artist. Throughout her career, apart from painting, drawing, and set and costume design for the theater and cinema, she designed women's costume and accessories and saw many of her models realized. After the Revolution, Exter participated in important, state-sponsored projects devoted to dress design, including the Soviet entry for the 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. Her work in this N. S. Gonchamva, Pis'mo k B.V. Anrepu (1914), 5 (1999), 35. See ako Goncharova's deftnitiona of Futuriam and "VgcchesWo," "E ver^ lhmgism" in 'Ob izmakh'" (1914), 5 (1999): 37»39. ""Ihe ewence of futurism in genera) terms:. . . The most important task is to bring about renewal and a new perspective in ever)' area of human activity." "Everythingism is the consideration and * re,Uion of artistic objects without relation to time or space," Letter from Anna Somova-Mlkhailova (the sister of Konstantin Somov, and editor of the proposed magazine) to N, S. GonJi.irovm, 7 April 1914. Otdcl rukopisi. Gos. Russkii Muzei, fond. 180, 236 sphere, however, began as early as 1913, when she first helped facilitate the collaboration between Ukrainian kwsfor (handicraft) workshops and members of the Russian avant-garde. Ihe artists and professional artisans together produced embroidered articles of clothing that combined elements of folk and modem art. Exter made several Cubo-futurist embroideries— purses, umbrellas, scarves, belts— that were exhibited at two important exhibitions of decorative art in 1915 and 1917, and some of which were photographed in a popular women's magazine. (Figure 4.31) These shows also featured embroidered objects designed by several leading artists of the Russian avant-garde: Boguslavskaia, Malevich, Puni, Udal'tsova, and Georgii Yakulov among others. Exter was a primary force behind the exhibitions, and her theoretical writings reveal the importance she placed on looking to multiple traditions of form and color, such as those of the kwsfur industry, for the development of her own art. Exter's Cubo-futurist paintings and theatrical designs are generally better known than her extensive work in dress. Perhaps in part due to her personal wealth, she was a leading figure in the avant-garde community, particularly in Kiev where she regularly drew artists together at her apartment. While her strength of character and innovativeness soon became evident, critics appear to have been initially suspicious of her artistic abilities. An early review of 1913 in A p o Z /o M by A. Grishchenko accuses Exter of a superficial approach to her art. He gives it the following appraisal: Almost every year the female artist hastily and easily changes her painterly physiognomy [...] not out of inner convictions, in line with an inner voice or instinct, but to please a fashion, a novelty under any circumstance. True, she is a lady— and that intensives her desire to stroll along in the costume of t h e de siéde. Like ladies who change their hats with every season, in the same manner Ms. Exter has created from Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism a new hat for eveiy scis"r of painting [.. 1 2 ) A. Grisk ht uko, "O gruppe khudozhniktïv "BubnovyI valet,"Apo/W 6 (August 1913): 37. 237 Figure 4.31: Alexandra Exter, Umbrella, 1916. Reproduced in Zlfenskoe (kfo (1916) 238 Grishchenko's article was written before Exter embarked on her career as a set and costume designer and earned the profound respect of many critics, such as Tugendkhol'd. In reviews of later years, including his 1922 monograph of the artist, Tugendkhol'd grants Exter considerable praise. Exter designed several spectacular productions such as TliamiM kAyflraredcs and S idofW f for Alexander lairov's Chamber Theater in Moscow, and for the 1924 Him Aelita.^^ In his monograph on Exter, Tugendkhol'd concedes the arbsKs many talents and proposes a characterization that is rooted in her identity as a woman: he refers to her eternal- femininity, as a fundamental quality of her art. Perhaps this was indeed what was at work in Exter's successful experiments in costume and dress of the 1910s and early 1920s, but it is only in the latter period, after the artistic accomplishments of women of the 1910s had been established, that Tugendkhol'd and others could recognize and praise this ''femininity'' for its merits. Apart from her Suprematist handbags and other accessories for the Verbovka exhibitions, little is known of Exte/s work in fashion in the pre-RevoIutionary period. Her privileged status and tendency to dress in the latest styles, leads one to conclude that her interest was peaked well before her more active and public participation in the sphere in the 1920s.^z3 ghe likely made the acquaintance of Lamanova in Moscow in AÆk, dir. Yakov Protozanov, porf. lulia Solnheva, Based on the 1922 novel of the same name by Alexei Tolstoi Exit 1 lla" « osinmcs («r the iilm wiih the W p of Nadezhda Lamanova. According; io I hmli i ( ,iitha( hcv, I'xii r ik \ painted self-portraits and there are few photographic images of iliv arü&u. I hokv photogi.^phs dcpk t a fashionably dressed woman, and Ae only extant artistic rendering of Exter is a 1910 caricature by a Kievan artist, which depicts Exter in an "enormous, fashionable hat" Dmilrii Gorbachev, "Exter in Kiev — Kiev in Exter," A /ewmai of Russian CwflHre 1(1995): 303. 239 these years, and also Sonia Delaunay in Paris.'^ While Rxter contributed to programs to develop revolutionary dress in the 1920s, her styles, while visually innovative and clearly an effort to explore artistic principles of form and color in dress, more closely resemble the dominant European styles than those of many of her peers, such as the Constructivists. And her discovery and use of "bright rainbow colors," which Dmitrii Gorbachev argues she borrowed from Ukrainian folk art, certainly preceded her post- Revolutionary work. 12: Beginning in 1921 Exter joined Atel'e mod (Atelier of fashions), a Moscow program that brought several artists together to produce a line of modem, innovative suits, dresses, and outer-garments. The designs were exhibited in a salon on Kuznetskii most and were reproduced in a 1923 companion periodical, AkZ'e (Atelier) and in a newsreel.i36 (figure 4.32) The activities of AteTe mod, while daring in their integration of modem shapes and forms, have been overshadowed by the revolutionary clothing for Soviet workers, or prozodezMa, the Constructivists created during the same period. For the latter, the artists Popova, Stepanova, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Exter designed overalls, dresses, coats, and textile patterns, which they believed more fully satisfied the needs of the new Soviet citizen. Both projects have much in common— a reliance upon simplified geometric forms and primary colors as the foundation for costume. Constructivist motifs in textile patterns, and an emphasis on movement and comfort in dress— and a few artists took part in both projects. Exter, for example, contributed to both, but her dress designs best reflect the dominant style of Atel'e mod: in line and cut A letter from Rxter to Nikolai Kulbin in 1913 from Paris demonstrak^ that Exter frequented the same circles in Peris as the Delaunays. Letter to Kulbin, Undated (ca. 1913). Russian Museum, Otdel rukopisi, fond 134, e.kh. 62, ™ Gortwchev, "Exter in Kiev— Kiev in Exter,"' 304. Only one issue of Akl'e (No. 1,1923) was ever released. Photographs of the salon itself are featured in the A We issue. 240 Figure 4.32: Alexandra Exter^ Design for a Woman's Ooak, ca. 1922 Reproduced in AM'c, no. 1 (1923), cover. a ; 241 Exter's dresses are consistent with prevailing feminine tastes, as represented in the NEP styles that were popular in those years. The minimaEst, utopian designs of Popova, Stepanova, and Rodchenko, in contrast, comprise a more radical break from the European standard and w ere likely less popular among the general public.i^ Russian historian of early Soviet costume Tamara Strizhenova writes of Exter's designs for Atel'e mod, "In her sketches, with pose and movement Exter attempts to underline the individuality of the outfit, the ability to wear it properly, to move in it, to merge it with the image of the person/'^^w 'phe challenge that faced all these artists in designing clothes for women was the need to resolve the disparity between experiment and reality. As a fashionable dresser herself, more so than some of her Constructivist peers, Exter appears to have easily solved that riddle. While her dress designs for Atel'e mod represent a radical departure from earEer styles, they are at the same time readily perceived as the logical outcome of the early-twentieth-century reduction of dress to more simplified geometric forms. And, as the photographs of models for Atel'e mod indicate, they remain fully wearable dresses. Their construction presupposes the element of movement, which when combined with the physical presence of the model allows for the emergence of an individual look. Exter would eventually take this principle of merging dress with body even further when in 1925 she designed epidermic costumes, for which designs were tattooed directly onto the body of ballet performers in Eeu of material costumes. Exter's ideas of dress and design, therefore, are rooted in an appreciation of the individual physical embodiment of dress. There is no m'idence to date that the was adopted by ordinary Russian citizens. 1 3 * As qtd. in T. Strizhenova, iz wfoni koshnnm (Moskva: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1972), 71. 242 In Exter's costumes lor the post-RevoIutionary film A tV /fa, the futuristic dresses of the female Martians, including those for the royal queen Aelita, expose the internal architecture of dress, as traditional forms of dress are replaced by abstracted geometric and linear reductions of those forms. For example, Aelita's tiara is not made of feathers but of long, Ain, hard spindles, Ae more simplified inner constructive element of a feaAer, and Aelita's servant wears a skirt Aat bears only Ae skeletal vertical lines of a skirL For Ae production of Aelita, Exter's close colleague, Wmanova, wiA whom she also collaborated at the Moskvoshvei fashion atelier, assisted m making Ae costumes.^^ Lamanova's own experimental designs from this period, smock dresses made from traditional Russian shawls wiA embroidered folk motifs, also preserve simplihed dominant geometric forms such as Ac square and Ae rectangle. (Figwre 4.33) Among Ae artists whom she felt were able to give Aemselves fully A Aeir art, Udal'tsova also listed Exter, whom she pomtedly identifies as a "kkw dczA M ifsg" (woman artist).i3o Like Goncharova and Rozanova, Exter Aew from multiple traditions and genres to develop her artistic ideas, and Ae application of Aose ideas A fashion is a significant Amension of her artistic identity. Exter, like Goncharova and Rozanova, early on received considerable criticism that was based certainly m part on her identity as a woman. Yet, amidst this Andency A pigeonhole women artists for stereotypically feminine weaknesses, ExAr and her peers Amed A "feminine" mterests as sources of inspiration. In fashion, for example, Exter found a fresh, dynamic meAum wiA w ^hich A transform everyday life mto mAvidual experiences of artistic discovery. Many women artists were collectively atAned A Ae importance of dress, and as relative newcomers A For gddiWona) infomnation on Rxter and Lamanova's partktpaHon in the Moskovshvei project, see Gorbachev, "Exter in Kiev—Kiev in Exter," 312-13, u* Udal'tsova. "Dnevnik IM 6-1918 godov," 32 243 the artistic communily they were able to see around traditional approaches to art and artistic production. Their bold experiments in color and form, pursued in fashion and textile design in addition to painting and drawing, were part of a revolutionary transformation of visual culture. This process was also of value to the "new women" of Russian society, who could detect in these changes to fashion a general move toward the primacy of an individual work of art, regardless of media. Such an inspiring approach to dress drew ordinary women into the artistic process, as creativity and individuality became essential characteristics of the modem feminine ideal. The women artists of the early twentieth century were able to adopt the traditional position of the male artist by becoming active observers of the modem world, including the complex dynamics of color, rhythm, and form, and by participating in the creation of bold new art. Yet, while cities at times sought to deny or demean their gender, or associate it with "non-creativity" many women artists were able to assert their feminine identities within their system of art, whether by actively working within the sphere considered most prototypically feminine and incorporating "lower" arts into their oeuvre, or by demonstrating a sensitivity to "feminine" subjects. In addition to dress design, the depiction of elements of fashion and fashionable women in art was also common among women artists of the early twentieth century, as in the paintings by Rozanova and Goncharova's paintings mentioned earlier. One of several similar works, Liubov Popova's Cubo-Futurist painting Tratvlcr (1915), now in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, portrays an easily discernable well-dressed woman. (Figi^rc 4.34) The seated woman wears a black jacket and a blue skirt and carries a green umbrella in her hand. Several Russian letturs and word fragments appear in the painting, including the first four letters of the Russian word for 244 Figure 4.33: Woman modeling a dress desigfi by Nadezhda Lamanova, 1923 245 Figure4.34: Liubov Popova, Trmwkr, oil o n , in)5 1 } t i 246 hat "sh-l-ia-p" near the bottom of the painting. Most distinctive in Popova's pictnre of the traveler, however, are the model's fashionable hat and beaded necklace. The necklace is reminiscent of an earlier painting by Popova, her 1913 CM M pmfion w iW i Figwres. In the earlier painting, a Cubo-futurist rendering of two nude women, one model wears a similar set of beads and holds a blue fan. The gender of the nude is most readily coded through the feminine accessories. The inclusion of the beads and fan might seem unorthodox for painting of a nude, but again diey reveal a reinterpretation of a traditionally male-dominated geiire. In paintings such as Manet's Olympia, an ornate necklace heightens the model's physical exposure. In Popova's rendering the nude is less vulnerable, for several reasons. The Cubist curves and angles give the models a near brawny physique, though they are clearly female given the evident breasts and feminine hairstyles. In addition, the nude is not alone, but joined by a fellow female nude, and one whose creativity is signaled by the guitar that supports her as she stands. Finally the first nude is armed with a fan, an accessory with an established tradition of semiotic power that might allow the model to shield herself from the male viewer. In this case, however, the traditional viewer has been usurped by Popova, a woman artist; thus the model's face is exposed. One could argue that this portrait depicts the two faces of women, not unlike Goncharova's k V b fM A » a Hat. The nude on the left, dressed in beads and carrying a fan, represents the feminine, surrounded by what appears to be elements of a domestic interior: a pitcher and a bowl of fruit The nude on the right though also clearly a woman given the feminine bust and parallel physique, represents artistry and creativity. In the background of the painting one can discern the outline of buildings and hills, an expanse beyond the domestic space, 247 Many paintings by female members of the avant-garde depict subjects that were in some way connected to dress: seamstresses, weavers, gloves, hats, feathers, r i b b o n , The inclusion of such personal elements might indicate an attempt to establish a distinctly female perspective or new genre. For even as several of these artists moved into abstract painting they found ways to articulate femininity in their art, through the creation of Suprematist handbags and Cubo-futurist dresses, or the inclusion of traditionally "feminine" elements in their work such as fashionable accessories. That these women did not part wiA prototypically "feminine" clothing or accessories, such as the "bourgeois beads" Varvara Stepanova is depicted wearing in several photographs by her husband Aleksandr R o d c h e n k o ,or continued work in "women's" arts, even in the revolutionary period of the early Soviet state, did not detract from their search for new principles of art These elements function more as indicators of self-reflection and identity in the oeuvre of these artists and to a degree inform their truly innovative approach to line, color, and form. As a novel medium for the expression of artistic principles, one accepted and propagated in Russia boA by male and female artists alike, fashion offered women in the wider general public a chance to emulate women artists who were gaming prominence in Russia in the early twentieth century for their artistic production. By participating in current trends women became creators of a look that in form and content challenged traditional rules of public presence. Additionally, as a medium of, or ingredient in, the art of prominent women artists, fashion became a vehicle for an H I Nicoletta Misler, "Dmwing Up and Dreaming Down: Ihe Body of the Avant-Garde," in AnmoMa Ac Arwii-Gmk; Eikr, Pcyona, Rozmwir, Skpamwa, Udarher'a, ed*. John E. Bowltand Matthew Drutt. New York: Guggenheim, 2000.95-97, Mialer, "Dressing Up and Dressing Down: The Body of the Avant-Garde," Amazons ef Ac An<mt-G«rdc, 95- 97. 248 elaborate, conscious discourse on contemporary feminine identity. As the subsequent chapter will argue, this discourse was perhaps most explicitly developed in the held of literature, where women also gained prominence and claimed "feminine" topics, such as fashion, for their own. But the collaboration of artists and couturiers to revitalize fashion design and to contribute to a larger transformation of Russian visual culture helped estabUsli the cultural atmosphere necessary for Ihe proliferation of the new discourse on women and creative identity. 249 CHAPTER 5: MODERN BY DESIGN: THE "NEW WOMAN" AND IHE EVOLUTION OP THE TROPE OF FASHION " Ahl You wi$h us to be only objects of sensuality? AU d ÿh t by ihe aid of sensuality we w(U bend you beneath our yoke," say Ae women Lev Tolstoi, Kreutzer Sonata Within the wider cultural context of early-twentieth-century Russia, the "new woman" appeared as a ubiquitous object of fascination; yet she was greeted by many in society with trepidation. While in large measure a product of social forces, the mythology of the "new woman" was also determined by its development in numerous hteraiy and artistic works of the period. The characteristics— independence, creativity, heightened sexuality— of the emerging modem feminine identity, which dûs new type embodied, were articulated most tangibly and vividly in women's dress fashions. FoUowing the "revolution" in women's dress in the early twentieth century, the complex workings of fashion allowed for a more subtle, less confrontational challenge to conventions regarding the position of women in the public and private spheres, while at the same time contributing to the proliferation of images of a new feminine ideal that spoke to an increased awareness of explicit feminine agency and desire. References to elements of women's contemporary fashions in numerous works of literature of the period served as shorthand for this transforming identity, prompting readers to identi^, if only momentarily, with the "new woman." For many, I would argue, this process likely remained on the level of the subconscious or in the realm of fantasy, drawing in the female reader while not explicitly committing her to openly undermining the status quo. Yet, as with the comparable images conveyed through film and women's magazines of the period, the more enduring consequences of dûs 250 association was a broader acceptance among women of a uisw aZ female ideal that connoted modern principles of independence and creative innovation. When viewed in terms of the trajectory of women's writing of the period, the integration of details of a woman's toilette Into poetic or narrative systems— in other words, the triggering of a type of collective discourse of fashion— reveals a tendency among some women writers to embrace what traditionally had been perceived as "feminine" topics, if only to work within these categories to more decisively assert their authorship and authority. By exploring the degree to which a "feminine" trope such as dress fashions operated in the works of women writers, a transition becomes apparent toward greater gender self- consciousness on the part of several writers. Whereas in the nineteenth century several women poets and prose writers, particularly those who sought recognition and acceptance among the literati, chose b o hide their feminine gender by assuming a male pseudonym or a masculine or indeterminate lyrical personae, in the early twentielh century the poetic voice of "serious" women writers was at times unambiguously and unabashedly feminine. Correspondingly, in these same years numerous purveyors of women's dress observed an elevated sense of sexuality in women's fashions, a sexuality that, many have argued, appeared to express a distinctly female understanding of beauty and desire and also one that would deeply infonn the behavior and perception of women in Russian society after the turn of the century. However, whereas in earlier decades an interest in fashion would likely have been disregarded as a trivial feminine concern, in the twentieth century an emphasis on details of a woman's dress could comprise a potent expression of independence, sexual desire, and creative will. A discussion of the role of fashion provides an important avenue for exploring die ways in which women 251 writers moved from censoring or avoiding any femininity in their writing to drawing upon what were readily perceived as "feminine" themes in an effort to establish a more distinct feminine voice in the literary tradition. Fashion was able to function as a viable vehicle for such empowered expression only because it had been liberated in the popular mythology (particularly among women) from narrow associations of superficiality and docile conformity. A look at the evolution of the trope of fashion in select works of women writers between the late nineteenth and early twentie* centuries — in other words, in the periods immediately preceding and during the dramatic renewal of women's dress— reveals die emergence of the collective, "ferriinine" preoccupation with fashion as a powerful tool for the expression of newly found sul^ectivity. Several scholars have noted the importance of memoir literature on the development of women's writing in Russia, and in the 1900s influential works such as Princess Dashkova's Memoirs, Nadezhda Durova's Orpalry A im dcM , and Marie Bashkirtseff s Dien/ were aU in print and available to a general readership.^ In several works of poetry and prose that appeared after the turn of the century the trope of fashion often provides quasi-autobiographical glimpses of contemporary urban life. While the first-person perspective, the lyrical "I," is more common in works of poetry of this type, several works of prose convey an analogous sense of immediacy of experience, even when told from a third-person narrative perspective. In addition, as Charlotb Rosenthal has demonstrated, several fictional diaries, such as Anastasiia Tsvetaeva's 1 Sec, for example, Charlotte Rosenthal, "Achievement and Obscority: Women's Prose In the Silver Age" In fW krs « M Lfkmlzinr, eds. Toby W, Clyman and Diana Greene (Westport, CN: Greenwood, 1994), 151-5% Catriona Kelly, A Histery of Rwm oM WnhHg (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 155-56. Interest in these women is ako evident from the feature articles on them in women's magazines of the times, 252 S m o ilce, SfHokf antf S m oA g (Dym, dym i dym) or even embellished memoirs, such as Anastaglia Verblkkaia's To My Reader (Moemu chitateliu), appeared to divulge the ''true" thoughts of a modem woman.^ In a period when considerable public attention was aimed at clarifying the "innate" differences between men and women, prompted by the appearance of sociological or philosophical works such as Otto Weininge/s popular Ser aud Oiarackr (1903, in Russian 1909), several women writers worked within these applied categories to threaten their very foundation. In so doing these writers exposed the limitations of certain arbitrary gender conventions, while simultaneously asserting a distinct literary identity. To insist that women were non-creative, non-inteliectual, and non- independent, as some sociologists and theoreticians claimed, was to deny the possibility that women writers could merit notoriety equivalent to that of the legendary male writers of Russian literature. Yet the accomplishments of many women writers, several of whom have found a place in the twentiedi-century canon, has proved these claims hollow. In addition, the popularity of writers such as the prolific Verbitskaia and Elena Nagrodskaia, among several others, whose works of pulp fiction eiqoyed a vast readership among the middle classes and newly literate members of the lower classes, has prompted a reconsideration of die very notion of literary "success." As Helena Goscilo has argued in regard to the work of post-Soviet women writers, the frequent inclusion of elements of f)yi, or everyday life, in the prose and poetry of these writers has posed a challenge to traditional assumptions regarding genre hierarchies— the question of high versus low art that was confronted by representatives of several spheres of art at 1 Rosenthal "Achievement and Obscurity," 151-52. 253 the tîine.3 Much of the literature by women in the twentieth century ako has demonstrated compellingly that the themes and formal innovations of literature are not necessarily gender specific. Yet, a discussion of the trope of fashion, a "feminine" device, will reveal the degree to which various movements in women's writing in the early twentieth century were part of a larger cultural transition toward the acceptance of women as independent creative beings, which perhaps can be seen as a necessary step in the transition toward greater gender "neutrality" in the artistic professions. To demonstrate this correspondence, I have chosen for my analysis works by authors whose influence was more widely felt in the public, in that their poetry and prose was read in considerable quantity in the years surrounding the turn of die century. I have strayed from this general principle on occasion to discuss works that I have found particularly relevant to an analysis of the trope of fashion, but overall I have tried to focus my study on several of the most popular women writers, "high" and "low". The detailed reference to women's dress in the Russian literary tradition was not a twentieth-century invention, nor was it isolated to literature written by women. Particularly among the works of the nineteenth-century Naturalists and Realists, details both of men's and of women's dress appear frequently and their mention often enriches the dynamics of the narrative. In the novels and short stories of Lev Tolstoi, for example, the trope of fashion at times works to expose materialistic values, which, according to Tolstoi, threatened the preservation of an "unadulterated" Russian ideal in nineteenth- century Russian society. Drawing from Rousseau and from a profound respect for Russian peasant culture, Tolstoi explores the moral implications of vanity among ) Helena Go$cilo, 'Penxtmika and Poat-Soviet Proae: Prom I to Diapcmal" in Hia/on/ lÿ K W tfM g in R w agw , eda. Adek Marie Barker and jehanne M. i Hli (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeraity Presa, 2002), 297-312. 254 members of the upper classes in Russia and the looming danger of dieir Idolization of "artificial" or "foreign" models of beauty. Ibiis theme appears most often, diough not exclusively, in references to women, and Is developed most famously and directly by Tolstoi in his novella, Krewzer Sonata (1889), a work that, following its release, polarized discussions of women's sexuality and their impending social and legal emancipation. In the story, die protagonist Basil Pozdnyshev lectures an anonymous fellow traveler on what he perceives to be the superhclal, base concerns at the heart of most conventional marriages. He claims that women of the upper classes are merely glorified prostitutes; if one assumes that the inner life of a women is reflected in her outer life, he argues, then there is no apparent distinction between a wealthy baroness and a fallen woman, botli of whom wear the same dresses, carry die same accessories, and walk in the same shoes. He criticizes the accepted, yet shameful, code of behavior among the upper classes to force girls from an early age into the business of procuring a wealthy husband for themselves. To do so, young women ascribe to the latest fashions and flaunt their feininine allure in a manner similar to that of a debauched mistress, which, he asserts, leaves men powerless to resist them: "We will forgive her of every sort of baseness, but will not forgive her a costume of an ugly shade, without taste or fit," Pozdnyshev concludes.^ Though much of his diatribe appears to blame women for their manipulative ways, ultimately Pozdnyshev sees women as victims of a greater social force. Pozdnyshev's wife, herself a product of the aristocratic culture that the protagonist finds morally reprehensible, is made to pay for her impeccable, fashionable beauty. Persistent jealousy drives Pozdnyshev mad, and he becomes certain of his wife's infidelity. As he 4 Lev Toktoi, Somfb; (18891. 255 retells the story of his ;i\Tfe's murder, Pozdnyshev recalls in great detail the final moments of his fatal act of rage: he notes that as he stabbed his wife in the side, he distinctly felt the resistance of her corset, before finally hitting upon her soft vulnerable flesh. While Xrcwfzcr S o M A ta is Tolstoi's most explicit critique of society's preoccupations with Western models of beauty and dress, Tolstoi also makes numerous references to fashion, which tie in closely with this theme, in his novel A M ua Several scholarly works debate the extent to which Anna bears the blame for her hill from social grace and ultimate suicide.^ It seems clear, however, that at least in certain moments in the novel, Anna, like Pozdnyshev's wife, is portrayed as a victim of upper- class society's vices, particularly its materialistic passions and infectious cult of beauty. Early in the novel, for example, during a ball scene, Anna's serene elegance in a sumptuous black velvet gown makes her the unanticipated target of the advances of men; the attention, particuiarly lhat from Count Vronsky, feeds her sublimated vanity, despite her best efforts to resist it. She is a married woman and initially characterized as a doting mother who appears loyal to her family, yet she is also presented as vulnerable to such "superhcial" passions, once she is exposed to them. Hidden away she is safe; but once she enters the Petersburg social scene her fidelity to her former ideals quickly wavers. ^ Lev Toktoi, K aivM iiM (1877), eU. Ijeonard f Kent and Nina Berberova, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: Modem Llbmry, 1965). * Amy Mandclker, / Anma Tokfoy, Z h c iW fk V icZ onoM Nood (Columbua, OH: Ohio State Universily Prew, 1993); Gary Adclman, Amm Tize Bifkmew Ecstoey (Boston: Twayne, 1990); David I iolbrook, Toktcy, l/V om m z, rm d OsaBi; A Sfwdy of kV ar aztd and AzoM K anm iM a (Madkon, N): Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997); Mary Evans, Rz^ciing O H A m m a karcM Ô iir (New York: Routledge, 1989): judith Armstrong, lire Unsaid Anna K arcM im a (New York: St. Martms, 1988). 256 Perhaps the most striking parallel in the novel to reinforce an understanding of Anna aa the victim of a greater social force occurs in the scenes surrounding Vronsky's ill-fated horse race. Following the race, Vronsky bemoans the loss of hia horse Frou- Frou. In his reckless and vain pursuit of victory Vronsky has broken Frou-Frou's back, and his anguish at the realization of Ids guht is palpable. The race scene is immediately preceded by Vronsky's visit to Anna, during which time she confesses to Vronsky that she is carrying his child, a revelation that forces them both to consider their relationship in deeper terms and promises to lead eventually to dire consequences for Anna. The identification of Vronsky's horse Frou-Frou with Anna, both of whom are "ruined" by Vronsky, is apparent. When one considers Tolstoi's use of the trope of fashion, the parallel identification of Anna and Frou-Frou as victims of Vronsky's selfish ambitions is made more explicitly on the level of a physical transgression, one rooted in sensual desire. "Frou-frou," derived from the French, is the word for the rustle of a woman's skirt. In his ride Vronsky destroys Frou-Frou, just as he eliminates Anna's future in society with his insemination of her— in his "rustling" of her skirts. Though Anna is obviously fully compUcit in her aHair with Vronsky, the parallel appears to place greater blame on Vronsky for their collective fall from grace. He appears to have held the reigns in their relationship, so while this "fah" includes Vronsky, both off his horse and off his track for social success, the primary victim of such pretense and "false" beauty is unmistakably Anna, whose public life ends with her separation from her husband and child. Ultimately, Anna chooses to end her life entirely by throwing herself at a train, thus dissecting and destroying her beauty. In Tolstoi's works, fashion frequently acts as an agent of deceit, a force that preys upon women's weaknesses and leads to their moral ruin. By the early twentieth century, 2$7 the association of women with superficial concerns, and periiaps most closely with sartorial artifice, was a clichéd notion and served as the basis for numerous cartoons and satires in the popular press. In the works of several women poets and prose writers of the early twentielh century, however, the treatment of this theme, particularly as it applies to the "new woman," undergoes significant revision. No longer the "victim" of fashion's dictates, the "new woman," or closely related types, is granted a position of creative agency and authority in the process. This fashionableness, regardless of a heroine's ultimate fate, in several works functions as an indicator of independence and did much to motivate the creation of alternative literary models for emulation. Whereas in Tolstoi's Kreutzer Sonata, the "new woman" in the story is represented by the lawye/s rather unsympathetic traveling companion— a coarse, smoking, liberal-minded intellectual who wears "almost-masculine" clothing— in several works of the early twentieth century the modem "new woman" more closely resembles Pozdnyshev's wife— a sharply dressed, "enchantingly" beautiful woman. One cannot deny the enduring appearance of the victimized woman throughout the literature of the early twentieth century, even in works by women writers, but this new ''feininme" type at least begins to compete with the earlier model. Moreover, a "weakness" for fashion no longer functions as a recipe for certain moral or financial ruin. Indeed, on some occasions women who survive failed relationships or unrequited love manage to hold onto a newfound agency, an ability to claim authorship, at least over one's own image. This emerging discourse appears as a consequence of the substantial increase in writing by women in the twentieth century. lhat is not to say that this "feminine" discourse is not constructed as feminine, nor that alternative functions of the discourse are not equally valid, but within the cultural context of early-twentieth-century Russia, such 258 references were perceived as distinctiy feininine and as stemming from a feminine sense of sexuality. Popular accounts and evidence of consumer habits indicate Aat women were engaged deeply with the expansive system of fashion during this time. For upper- class women, such preoccupations had been a perpetual source of criticism for centuries. In contrast, while still much derided in the public arena as "trite" or "superficial," Ihe styles to which women now subscribed were silently subversive. Insofar as it reflected a "feminine" preoccupation— fashion— the stylish "new woman" could reach more effectively a wider range of women within the traditional culture of Russia than the open diatribes against the victimization of women accomplished at the time. The widespread use of the device of fashion in fiction and poetry not only demonstrates an attempt to claim a "feminine" voice in literature but also the enduring quality of fashion as a subversive element of women's cultural hves. Most scholars of women's writing in Russia agree that there was no cohesive "tradition" of women's literature before the twentieth century, which is not to say that there were not women writers in Russia before this time.^ In recent years several studies including the anthologies by Christine Tomei and Catriona Kelley have unearthed the legacies of numerous women writers of the nineteenth century.8 However, as several scholars have demonstrated, the reputation and publication of the writers whose works only recently have resurfaced were often short-lived and therefore did little to inspire emulation among their peers. Scholars do, however, point to a consistent number of ^ .Adele Marie l , ^ r nd Jehanne M, Gheith, Introduction, History c/WomoM'f IVntimg m Rwiew, 1-15; Rosalind Marsh, Introduction; Now Porspoctives on Women and Gender in Russian Literature" in Ccnder and Russiiu; Utmftnm; Pers/s'c in" ' t\i Rosalind Marsh (Cambridge: Cambridge Universi^ Press, 1996), 1-37; Charlotte Rosenthal, "Car\ ing Ihh a ( areer: women prose writers, 1885-1917, the biographical background," Cordarand I th ndnrc 129-140; Catriona Kelly, "Introduction: Not Written by a Lady,"' Histmy IVoMwi 1 1 Vobtty, 1-16. * Christine Tomel, ed., RwAùui iVomg» Wntcrs, vols, 1-2 (New York: Garland, 1999); Catriona Kelly, ed., Au A»Ibo(%y of Russian LVbm en's W rifiM g, 1777-1992 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 259 themes in poetry written by women that may ha\ « t i ibUshed a foundation for a future "tradition." In the nineteenth century, for example, many works by women centered around the themes of love, nature, or elements of an isolated domestic sphere. In what may be seen as a significant shift in the tradition, in the works of several women writers in the early twentieth century this sphere is widened to include the public urban context, which is repeatedly referenced in both prose and poetry. In the introduction to the recent volume, /I History lA /bm eM 's WhiiMg in Rf^ssia, Adele Marie Bzuker and fehanne M. Gheith, assert that the "act of claiming & yt [the details of everyday life] as the material of poetry becomes a social act, one that expands traditional notions of what constitutes social engagement in literature and leads to a re-evaluation of Russian women writers as being socially and politically unengaged."^ They make this comment in reference to the works of several Soviet women writers, but the point appears equally applicable to the early twentieth century when the newly transformed urban "6yt" had tremendous influence on writers and modernist movements in literature in general The mention of elements of a woman's toilette, the comings and goings of a fashionable "new woman," might not translate readily as social commentary (and such innuendos were certain to be missed as such by many readers). However, such references to contemporary female types also implied a critique of traditional culture and a yearning toward the new of the future, an impulse that was embodied in the dynamism of the urban environment Though references to fashion appeared in Russian literature at various points in the tradition, they reached unusual proportions in the early twentieth century, ^ Barker and Gheith, eds., Hifkry ofkVonien'i; IVnhmÿ i» Rnsnia, 13. 260 particularly when one considers both poetry and popular literature.^" (n the Silver Age, when fm unprecedented number of women joined the ranks of writers in Russia, some of whom earned critical acclaim and yet others a large readership,texts written by women that also depicted women, particularly the "new woman," provided a more complex distillation of an evolving modem feminine identity. I will argue that (he discourse of dress that emerged during this period had particular resonance for women writers and readers not only because it was regarded as a safe "f^inine" sul^ect and because its impact was so widely felt, but particularly because it signaled a transition in women's understanding of self as the agent of creative production, in other words as one's own muse. Although no study of the Silver Age has yet to systematically treat the importance of fashion in literature, several recent articles have initiated an analysis of dress in relation to women writers of the period. Beth Holmgren has demonstrated that women authors in the early twentieth century were often portrayed as icons of emulation, much like other female celebrities in parallel spheres, and their photographs were often used to promote their works.^^ Others, such as Jenifer Presto, have demonstrated the influence of the personal mythologies of women, including their public presence, on the reception of their work, and the efforts by some women writers to alternately manipulate gender expectations both in life and in art. My concern. 1 0 A prominent role of fashion in popular literature is to be expected, given t (% e tendency toward realistic detail, particularly among the melodramatic novels of the early twentieth centmy. Such works are often more tainted hy commercial motivations; thus the showcasing of dress in popular fiction serves to elevate the commercial function of the larger work, 1 1 Sec Charlotte Rosenthal, "The Silver .Ago, I lighpoint for Women?" In I \ w W Society in Rnssia end ttic Swicf UnioM , ed. Idnda Edmondson (Camhr idge: Cambridge Universit} IT i 1992), 3247. See also the anAologies edited by Kelly and Tomei, listed above. 1 : 1 Beth Holmgren, "Gendering the Icon: Marketing Women Writers in Fin de-Siecle Russia" In Russia. I/Vowoi. Cuhwtv, eds, Helena Goscilo and Beth Holmgren, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 32146. 261 however^ is to examine how the discouTse of fashion informs Ihe literary incarnation of this gender consciousness, and how it ties into the development of what might be termed by some as women's literature. It would be misleading to argue that depictions of women's fashion and elements of dress appeared only in literature by women of the period. Perhaps the most famous female figures of the poetry of the Silver Age were Aleksandr Blok's "beautiful lady" (prekrasnaia dama) and "unknown woman" (neznakomka), both of whom were painted in vivid contemporary terms by the poet. Given his status as a poet and his role within the literary communit)^ Blok's use of the symbolic imagery of dress was certainly significant. Blok's women are particularly noteworthy, however, as a reflection of male desires and fears. As Presto has argued recently in an article on women's writing of die Silver Age, women were confronted with an often burdensome role as an idealized (or demonized) poetic muse.^^ Despite their shared position as the object of male desire, Blok's "dfU M y" also further give witness to the central importance of dress in fashioning feminine identity during the period, particularly the "neznakomka" or unknown woman whose "funereal plumes " and figure "swathed in sük" informed her likely (though slightly ambiguous) characterization as a prostitute. Igor Severianin's verses appear to do the same in that they are the product of a keen observer of women's recent infatuations, particularly the ambiguous distinction between women of "high" and "low" social and moral standing. In response to the publication of Pallada Bodganova- Belskaia's book of poetry, Amwlck (Amulety), which traces the life of a fashionable "new woman," one critic described the heroine of the collection as a female equivalent to the o Jenifer Presto, "Women in Russian Symbolism: Beyond the .Algebra of Love," /A Hisiofy W riiimg ;M Russia, eds, Barker and Gheith, 134-52. 262 lyrical hero in the work of the better known SeverianinJ* Throughout Severianin's poetry of the pre-Revoluhonary period, he makes frequent references to the velvet gowns and silk wraps of his objects of infatuation— courtesans, dancers, actresses, and other urban female 't}'pes/' However, the existence of these elements led some of Severianin's contemporaries to identify his poetry as "feminine" and aligned him with tire women writers of the period, such as Mirra Lokhvitskaia, to whom Severianin himself claimed to be most indebted.^s Furthermore Severianin is frequently referred to almost derisively as a "fashionable" poet, whose popular readings drew the attention of large adoring crowds. If not always exercised by women, an eye for fashion was nonetheless more frequently associated with women than with men, Dandies, men most meticulous in their dress and cultivated image, were universally considered effeminate. This standard— fashion as feminine— was applied in popular culture, with magazines and even newspapers devoting far more attention to women's fashion than men's fashion, and with the number of women's magazines surpassing those aimed at a male audience. But it was also the case within poetry and prose, both high and low. In popular literature in particular, such as the late melodramatic novels of Verbitskaia, women were the divas of fashion, and often prompted readers to adopt a heroine's manner of dress.^^ Attention to details of dress and to elements of the immediate surroundings contrasted sharply with the "presumed" themes of male writers— abstract, intangible subjects and " "Bogdanova-Belskaia/' P. A. Nikolaev, ed., 7800-7917. {imw' (Moscow: Izd, Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1%9), 299. A. E. Pamis and R. D. Timenchik, "Programmy 'Brodiachei sobaki,"' PgMMhidd 253. "Igor' Severianin (1887-1947)," in Pwzii r w s s k o g o e d . A, C. Kushner (St Pekrsburg: Akademichekii proekt. 7999) 337. See Severianin's "Poezokontseri," Paezii nmkagoywfwrizawi, 341; and "Lira Lokhvitskoi," fgo/ Swenanm. Sodmimiw o pioti Wwkk. vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: Logos, 1995), 560. '^Moia ieklsiia o zhenshchine," L O ro Rossi: (17 Feb. 7974): 5. 263 more complex philosophical mwsmgs on the nature of life and death. The themes of love and feminine beauty may have been treated regularly in literature by men, but references to specific material details of a women's toilette, ones intended to trigger emotions or evoke a particular association or response, though certainly present in works by some male writers, were more readily accepted as a part of literature written by women.^^ At the turn of the century in Russia, remarkable efforts were made by several writers in the literary community to challenge the boundaries designated for women writers. Svetlana Boym has examined the twentieth-century poet Meuina Tsvetaeva in relation to her engagement with the mythology of the "poetess, " particularly in her works and life of the post-Revolutionary period.^s women writers who preceded Tsvetaeva more directly confronted the issue of gender in literature in the prc- Revolutionary years. Given these implicit rules of reception, women could either write within the gender lines or write beyond thenc While the latter might seem a more productive means to challenge existing norms, I would argue that the former, surprisingly, can, and did, operate equally subversively. Both methods, essentially, were needed to expand the arena of women's wniting, particuiarly when one considers that these standards were based more on reception than on production. As the cultural Mikhail Kuzmin's novel based heavily on the various figures end acüvities of the Petersburg literati contains numerous detailed references to fashion and fashionable "types," including Polina, a character that closely resembled Pallada. Kuzmin was himself a dandy and obviously attentive to the expressive potential of dn^ss It is no surprise then that he reflects this modem feminine preoccupation in his novel of contempo arv society. Kuzmin was joined by a handful of mak- wrilers, who wrote similar "society" tales, but the genn' lemaincd more closely associattfd with women, llw ir collective recognition of the importance of fashion provides a further indication of the transition of dress to a more nuanced social and literary tool. Svetlana Boym, Dcadi oi Qwofahon M urks.' Cwllwml Myde; of flic Modem Poef (Cambridge: Harvard Univensitv Press, 1991), 192-240. 264 climate ripened for such change, women writers emerged both from within and from outside the presumed "tradihon/' Before what may have seemed as the sudden emergence of numerous women writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, female representatives of the literary tradition in Russia were largely invisible. Few were published, and fewer received critical attention. Charlotte Rosenberg has argued that in the Silver Age several women writers created a more palpable heritage of women's writing, and that the existence of these predecessors (or contemporaries, in some cases) and their body of literature contributed substantially to the continued success of women's writing." Rosenberg sees poets such as Mirra Lokhvitskaia and Zinaida Gippius as inspiring their female peers with their critical achievements and literary accomplishments.zo Rosenthal, like Holmgren, argues that women writers served as icons for inspiration, in their physical presence as feminine figures and in their commercial or critical success. While 1 would agree with Rosenthal's assessment of the period and her isolation of Lokhvitskaia and Gippius as attractive models for emulation, their mere existence as women, 1 believe, contributed far less than their specific engagement with gender dictates in literature. After ah, several women had appeared as writers before the turn of the century and their reputations were generally fleeting. Instead, an active confrontation with the conventions of writing and reception, a relationship at issue in studies by Sibelan Forrester and Presto, for example, acted as substantial leverage in the stimulation of women's writing in Russia.:^ 1 9 Rosenthal "The Silver Age: Highpoint for Women?" 33. ^ Rosenthal "The Silver Age: Highpoint for Women?" 33. Sibelan Forrester, "Wooing the Other Woman: Gender in Women's Love Poetry in the Silver Age" in Engonknmg Slimic Llterah^n:, eds. Pamela Cheater and Sibelan Forrester, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana 265 In the late ninekenth century Zinaida Gippius^ the author of works of poetr)', prose, and drama as well as essays and critical reviews, gained prominence wilhin the literary community. Many contemporary scholars have pointed to the overwhelmingly masculine pose Gippius consistently adopted in her poetry and criticism, perhaps to avoid the "markedness" of feminine writing.22 What is evident in the entire literary career of Gippius is her consistent manipulation of the material of fiction, her ability to "defamiliarize" by testing the bounds of expectation. One friend of Gippius, A. L . Volynskü, writes that with Gippius "one could never distinguish between real life and a game of fantasy," and he reports that she often dressed him up in costumes to act as a model (maneken) for her.2 ) He also demonstrates how easily she could forge the signature of others, "writing numerous letters to numerous people in a stranger's handwriting," fooling even her husband the writer Dmitri Merezhkovskii into regarding such letters as "audientic." Gippius whose "keen powers of observation" were noted by fellow poet Valeryi Bruisov, was a diligent student of the life of texts, bodi literary and sartorial, and her opposition to "women's" literature should also be considered in light of her sensitivity to the elements of authorial and literary reception. Gippius was perhaps the most established woman writer in the late nineteenth century to veil her gender identity in her writing, but she was joined some of her peers such as the poet Poliksena Solov'eva (pseudonym Allegro) and was certainly preceded by numerous celebrated Western women writers. In interviews and personal writings. Univefsity Press, 1996), 107-134; Jenifer Presto, "The Fashioning of Zinaida Gippius," SEE/ 42:1 (1998): 58-75; Jenifer Presto, "Reading Zinaida Gippius: Over t ier Dead Body," 5EEJ 43:4 (1999): 621-35. zz Presto, "The Fashioning of Zbiaida Gippius"; Antonina Filonov Gove, "Gender as a Poetic Feature in the Verse of Zinaida Gippius, " in Amenom C oM fnbw hO M S to flK CoM gtgss of51«T»is(s, ed. Henrik Bimbaum, vol. 1 (Columbus, OH: Slavic», 1978), 379-407. 2 3 A. L, Volynskii, "Sil'fida," inZnwide Gypius; Sobrank sediiMoiii. Nooye itudi. Remmiy. Rasstazy (Moscow: Russkaia kniga, 2001), 530, 266 Gippius argued m slrong terms against the relevance of gender to artistic production. To a degree^ Gippius's assertions predict the claims of later critics who would deny the relevance of authorial biography to literature, but her work within these boundaries reveals a pointed effort to negate femininity in her writing rather than negate gender completely. At approximately die same time as Gippius was achieving notable critical success in Russia, debates circulated regarding the essence of masculine and feminine natures. As articulated in her literary work and in personal statements, Gippius is believed to have generally agreed with the theories of Otto Weininger, who argued that individuals embody within themselves both masculine and ferninine characteristics, and that the feminine is characterized by passivity and absence.^^ In other words, men and women share characteristics of both genders, but only men's creative and intellectual energy can "give life" to women; women exist as a reflection of men. Gippius reinforces this notion of masculine creativity and feminine passivity in her poem "Feminine (Nothing)" (Zhenskoe [Nety]), where the female figure asserts her "nothingness." This poem and Gippius's critical remarks on women in literature (made under the transparent pseudonym of Anton Krainyi) are cited in a 1913 article in kVbwan's Oiwse written by the feminist journalist Sofiia Zarechnaia.^s The author begins the article, a review of a collection of poetry published by Gippius that same year, by asserting that it is not her task to resolve whether or not women's literature is necessary in Russia, and that she instead will discuss the ways in which the poetry end prose of Gippius is ^ Otlo Weininger. CpsrAknhl Owrutfer (1903). The jounwiwt Mariia Koltonovgkain popularized Weininger'k 4k tlwy appliL-J W ivomen in a pamphlet (ihwiy (1912). Also, Zarechnaia's review of Gippius includes reference to her adoption of Weininger"« , views. The Russian translation of Weininger's book appeared in 1909. ^ Sofiia. Zarechnaia, "Zhenskoe o ne zhenskom. (neskoTko slov o Gippius), ZfK M skoe ifek 10 (1913): 14-18, 267 unequivocally M o f féminine. Zarechnaia desoribes Gippius as a woman-hater and, like a man, as being blind to a woman's "dwsiia," her soul or spirit, which several feminist critics at the time asserted was a necessary ingredient of true women's literature. Zarechnaia's agenda soon becomes apparent as she cites Western examples of women's literature that celebrate feminine qualities such as "optimism." The critic describes her profound respect for Gippius's talents and remarks on tire "unusual strength and depth" of her poetry, but ultimately concludes that the absence of the feminine is not "natural" in diese works, but reflects a deliberate move by Gippius to dispose of the fernmine "like an unnecessary weakness."^ She cites a passage from a poem in ihe collection which describes a domestic interior, including material details of that environment that create an intimacy unfamiliar to most other poems in the collection. Zarechnaia regards this poem as somehow more genuine, but draws attention to Gippius's recognition of the poem's feminine quality and simultaneously her desire to create critical distance between herself and the poem by titUng it "A Sentimental Poem." But perhaps, consistent with Gippius's claims, the feminine is not absent in her poetic world as one might imagine from her poem "'Feminine," but is absent by design in what she presented to the public as her poetic oeuvre. In a newspaper interview in 1908 Gippius is asked for her assessment of the more recent women writers (fwsakZ'7iiky) in Petersburg and if she feels there are any talented ones among them. Gippius responds that "Well, it would be better if they completely stopped writing. It would be better both for them and for readers."^? If, as Gippius implies, gendered behavior in writing derives from what others expect of men and women rather than from what one expects of Zarechnaia, "Zhenskoe, " 15. A. Potemkin, "Krasota ili pornograliia. K vystupleniiu Ol'gi Desmond. Beseda s L S. Bakst. Beseda s Z. N. Gippius," PcterkfTÿsWa gazeia 320 (20 Nov. 1W8): 3. 268 oneself, then there couW be no inherently or naturally feminine literature, For Gippius, a written text, having no basis in the physical presence of an author, could and should be genderless, which is not to imply that a text could not be told from a masculine or feminine perspective, but that such telling had no basis in the gender of the author. In this sense it would be better for women lo stop writing as women writers, so that they could write merely as authors. Women's literature was marked and therefore h)o vulnerable to treatment as a substandard form of art. In the early stages of women's presence in the literary tradition in Russia, Gippius could not assume a general consensus on her ideas about artistic production. Thus her deliberate use of masculine personas to achieve her goal of neutrality (in essence an attempt at a cancellation of gender in the text), while conceding authoriiy to a masculine perspective, as a device at least forced readers to grapple wilh the issue itself. She was, as Presto demonstrales, manipulating and perhaps parodying the expectations of others.^B Presto has noted a consistent disdain for sewing, weaving, and other "ladies' handiwork" in several poems by Gippius.* This theme is taken up by several of Gippius's contemporaries, writers and painters alike, who reject the monotony of such activities while noting its traditional collective feminine association. But sewing also operates as a means for Gippius to redefine her life, to make the dresses and suits that allow Ae cross-dressing and "gendered" dressing she was known for, including her, at times, exaggerated "frilly" femininity.:^ Despite her public rejection of women's literature Gippius wrote some poems that the critical literature would have likely ^ Presto, "The Fashioning or/in,inlM Gippius," 7Ü . Presto, "The Fashioning of /irumia Gippis," 70. See, for example. Presto, "1 he Fashioning of Zinaida Gippius"; Sergei Makovskii, "Zinaida Gippius (1869- 1945)," Na Parrw A ! wka (Moscow: Izd. dom XXl Vek - Hogiasie, 2000), 133,160 Nina Berberova, T A e fWhs an: Volynskii, "Sii'Ada," 528; Oiga MaÜch, 7 7 ;* ' Rehgiaws Fociry qfZimWa Gypfw* (Munich: Wilhelm Pink, 1972), 16, 269 termed ^'féminine " However, she seldom published them. Not long after the turn of the century, for example, she wrote a poem entitled "A Iheme for a Poem." In 1933 the critic P. Pertsov published the poem as part of his memoirs. He notes the "very feminine' character of the themes and execution" of the poem, and states that it appears to reproduce Gippius's own domestic environment^^: I'm in a long, long black dress, I sit low to the floor, with my face toward the fire. There are blackened logs in one comer of the fireplace, and between them ramWes a fading flame. Behind it, outside the window is a springish, snowy, pink-blue sunset. From the comer of the sky a large moon rises. Its first glance chills my hair. The bell rings - shallow, weak, occasional. A dispute goes on imperceptibly in my heart: Silence spars with doubt. Love - with ambivalence.^ The poem remained unpublished by the author throughout her lifetime. As with the "Sentimental Poem" cited by Zarechnaia in her review for PVbmm's Cause, the generic title of this poem, "Theme for a Poem," indicates a deliberate gesture on the part of Gippius to distance herself from the poem's content. The poem contains elements that closely resemble those of the accepted "women's canon" of the period: references to material details of an enclosed environment, such as the dress and fireplace; mention of the beauty of nature, as in the picturesque description of the sunset; and a dominant preoccupation with the theme of love. Given most women's limited social or public life experiences, as permitted them, the personal, domestic interior was one of the more fertile sources of literary inspiration for them. This factor is perhaps what led many P. Pertsov, Utemtwmoe 7890-!902 gg. (Moscow, 1933), qtd. in Zinaida Gtppius, Sokrim tp socA fM cnH , vot. 2 (Moscow. Ku.Uuu kntga, 200), 553. "Despite the unfinished snd very 'feminine' quality of the theme and execution, this poetic embryo is not devoid of interes—the more so drat it reohstically depicts the domestic environment of Zinaida Nikolaevny." "Tema dlia stikhotvorenüa," Gippius, Sokvnie soc/nlK M H , 522 270 readers to readily identify women authors with tl ' « It ments, events, or emotions Ihey depicted in their work. Yet, by drawing attention in the title to the poem's composed or constructed nature, Gippius indicates that she not only recognizes the impulse to read poetry onto the woman writer, but that she must remind her readers that it is a work of art not life. To publish the poem would be to satisfy the expectations of her reading public, to invite identification with the lyrical heroine, which seems counter to Gippius's intentions, given her expressed ideas on non-femininity in writing. An unpublished poem from 1902 (approximately the same period) reflects a similar tendency. The poem recounts a young page's infatuation with a beautiful lady. In the manuscript redactions, the poem appeared under several tides: "The Unhappy One" (Neschastnaia), "The Beautiful I jidy" (Prekrasnaia dama), and finally "Love for an Unworthy One" (Liubov' k nedostoinnoi).^ In the poem, the image of the woman is reminiscent of the heroine in "Theme for a Poem"; she is a "beautiful lady" (prekrasnaia dama) and she also wears a "long, long, garment" (dliniuiia, dlinnaia odezhda). She is served by a page who has fallen in love with her, and who waits desperately to be spoken to by her. He seeks to leam the source of her sadness and suffering. When he Anally musters enough courage to speak, he tells her "I thirst to know your thoughts," to which the beautiful lady responds "why," or more precisely "from what motivation" and chastises him for interrupting her in her efforts to resolve (through logic) philosophical questions concerning die existence of god. In the end, the page concludes the poem with a warning to young men to avoid "philosophical Madonnas." In the transition of titles the focus of the poem moves from die heroine's inner state, to her external features, as perceived by the page, and finally to the page's inner state. The beautiful lady of this poem is an ^ Gippiw, "Liubov" k nedostoinnol, " Spbrmug 524-26; 553. 271 uncharacterktk type for more traditional literature in her capacity for abstract philosophical notions, but her qualities do reflect those of the emerging new woman who in some incarnations appeared intimidating in both sexuality and intellect. The alternate title of the poem, if devised later, may be a reference to Blok's own "prekrasknaia dama," yet Gippius frustrates Blok's idealization by granting the "dama" greater agency. These characteristics also closely reflect the "contradictions" ascribed to Gippius's own female identity; to publish such a poem would risk allowing the reader to read the characteristics of the beautiful lady onto Gippius's own biography. The emphasis in Ae title away from the heroine's emotional state toward the hero's, also indicates a gesture of forced alienation. A title such as "The Unhappy One" commands more empathy for the heroine, while "Love for an Unworthy One" is clearly more chastising. Thus, while Gippius systematically and consciously upheld what she may have perceived as a gender-neutral position in her art, it might be better to argue that she maintained that pose in her publications, in the public display of her authored works, and not necessarily in her writing. Furthermore, at the turn of the century when these poems were written, the trope of women's dress had not yet acquired the considerable meta-discursive potential it would gain later in the 1910s, and thus explicit mention of elements of fashion would only compromise Gippius's position as a writer by making it transparently "feininine.'' Gippius's response to the issue of gender in literature contrasts greatly with that of her contemporary, die poet Mirra Wkhvitskaia. In 1889, soon after Gippius, lx)khvitskaia embarked on a highly productive, though relatively short-lived, literary 272 career.^ Were it not for her premature death in 1905 at the age of thirty-four, Lokhvitskaia might have achieved the canonical status of Anna Akhmatova or Marina Tsvetaeva, but instead her legacy barely reached into the Soviet period, and until quite recently her poetry was generally forgotten. Yet, by the time of her death Lokhvitskaia had published five volumes of poetry, an unprecedented showing for a woman of the time, and had been awarded the prestigious Pushkin Prize for her second volume. Lokhvitskaia's poetry was extremely popular with the broader public and she received notable critical acclaim, particularly for her elegant, technically proficient poetic style, which met approval from prominent members of the literary com m unityA n additional volume of poems, her final work, was published posthumously, for which she was awarded a second Pushkin Prize in 1908. Lokhvitskaia's poetry was deemed by contemporary critics as overtly feminine, and this characterization has been echoed by more recent scholars including Christine Tomei who describes the poefs "unmistakably feminine sensibility, insisting on the right to display in public both feminine passion and appreciation for male body parts [.. ] "3 6 The natural beauty, abundance of flowers, and other tangible elements of a domestic sphere and the interlocking themes of love and fantasy that inhabit her poetry aU lie safely within the bounds of women's sanctioned preoccupations of the period. In the following poem, "Beckoning," the beauty of the enveloping night sky transports the lyric heroine to a state of rapturous anticipation: With a semi-transparent light shadow Ihe blue dusk sets Glv T..akhutl, "Vremia i poezila Miny IxikliWtskoi," Mimi Ix»khvjkkaia, Tam yAi: iztnvmye gfiW zok'orM H M (Moscow; Gumanitamyi fond, 1994), 9-24. ^ Christine D. Tomei, "Mirra Lokhvitskaia," k V orw M k V n'b;rg, vol. 1,417-29. w Tomei, "Mirra l.okhviUikaia," 420, 273 I want to meet you In the garden^ beneath the white Hlac bush. Pining for love!.. .so strongly When 1 don't hear Ihe voice of my darling in the dismal quiet of the night It squeezes my heart The trees slumber.. the sky is clear Come! - I'm waiting for you alone. O, look at what a lovely night it is, How intoxicating is the spring! - Everything is full of sensuality Inexplicable beauty... And the quiet sigh of overabundant happiness Opens the spring flowers. Poluprozrachnoi legkoi ten'iu Wzhitsia sumrak goluboi,- V sadu, pod beloiu siren'iu, Khochu ia vstretit'sia s toboi. Toska hubvil... s kakoiu siloi Ona szhimaet serdtse mne, Kogda ne slyshu golos milyi V nochnoi unyloi tishine! Derev' ia dremhut.. .nebo iasno... Pridi! - ia zhdu tebia odna. O, posmotri, kak noch' prekrasna, Kak upoitel'na vesnal - Vse polno negi sladostrcist'ia, Neiy iasnimoi krasoty... I tikhii vzdokh izbyt^ schastia Raskryl vesennie svety.^? In an article on the development of the female lyric voice in Russia, Tomei has shown that while Lokhvitskaia was heavily influenced by the Symbolist imagery dominant toward the end of the nineteenth century, her "optimism " and "devotion to ecstasy. vThc poem i$ dated 30 April 1889. Mirra JxtkA W igW M . Pes»' (Moscow: Letopis', 1999),23. 274 always in love and often through death, motivates a clear ego-centered romanticism in the majority of her poems/'^w Ix)khvitskaia exceeds the parameters of women's writing of her time by dwelling on explicit expressions of feminine desire. The more tactile imagery of her poems— soft sunsets, fragrant flowers, a woman's touch — often act as metaphors for sensual pleasure. Some critics reacted to this strain in Lokhvitskaia's poetry by calling it 'pornographic" or inappropriate for a woman. Yet, as Tomei and Kelly both argue, Lokhvitskaia presented a distinctiy feminine voice and female lyric persona based on her own feminine ideals, and tlms greatly inspired the wider emergence of women's writing in Russia. The intimate world of surrounding natural beauty that abounds in Lokhvitskaia's poetry is, however, distinct from the more immediate, tactile domestic sphere that is also the setting of several of her poems. Lokhvitskaia draws upon the latter, however, with occasional disdain. In the poem, ''Things'' (yeskcki), which significantly remained unpublished in Lokhvitskaia's lifetime, various details of the domestic sphere, specifically what might be termed "women's work," are belittled and rejected by the narrator. In the spirit of Gippius's poem "The Seamstress" (Shueia), the lyric persona defiantly rejects the monotony and tedium of her senseless chores, which, she laments, deprive her of creative energy. She then seeks a hero who will ignore the worthless trappings of a beautiful woman (the obvious motivation for her daily occupation), who will "throw them all away" and free her from her tedium: A diumal nightmare of unbearable boredom. That every day eats up my life. That weighs heavily on the days and dres the hand. ChrlsUw Tomei, "Mina Loxvickaja end Anna Axmatova: Influence in the Evolution of Ac Modem Female Lyric Voice" in CnhW E & M ys on the end Pwny of Modem Slon/c W ofM c» (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998,135^), 147. 275 That I in vain will bum and give out; Oh you, boxes, feathers, needles, folders. Pieces of lace, ribbon, scraps of cloth Hooks, bottles, irons, beads, rags, A diumal nightmare of despondency and ennui Where did you come from? Why are you here? What are you for? Will that unknown hero come. One who doesn't notice whether you're old or new. But throws all of this nonsense away! Dnevnoi koshmar neistoshchmoi skuki, Chto kazhdyi den' s'edaet zhizn' moiu, Chto davit um i utomliaet ruki, Chto ia naprasno zhgu i razdaiu; O vy, kartonki, peKia, nitki, papki, Obrezki kruzhev, lenty, loskutW, Kriuchki, Oakony, priazhki, busy, triapkl Dnevnoi koshmar unyn'ia i toskil Otkuda vy? K chemu vy" Dha chego vy? Pridet li tot nevedomyi geroi, Kto ne posmotrit, stary vy il' novy, A vybrosit ves' etot khlam doloif^ What is rejected in this poem is the presumed object of male desire: a woman who is properly attired in the latest fashions and, perhaps more importantly, made compliant by the tedious nature of her activities. In another poem by Lokhvitskaia, however, dress and distinct elements of a woman's toilette operate as metaphors for creation, feminine creation in particular, an approach that predicted the more extensive use of the trope in the coming decades. The poem, one of Ihe most frequently cited in recent discussions of Lokhvitskaia's work, evokes the transformative power of artistic creation, and defends the explicit representation of feminine desire— for beautiful things and love— in what the poem calls her "ferninine verse." Written at the turn of the century, the poem M rrrA Lot/wikWo. Pern' fiwW, 395. 276 celebrates the emergence of a "tsarina/" a woman writer/ who bears a cloak of authorit)' in the creation of poetry: I do not know why they reproach me For having too much fire in my poems. For striving to meet the lively sunbeam and refusing to heed the accusations of gloom. For shining like a tsarina in my elegant verses With a diadem on my opulent hair/ For weaving myself a necklace of rhymes. For singing of love, for singing of beauty. I will not buy immortality with my death. And as for songs I love melodious ones. And the insanity of my petty dreams will be voiced in my passionate, my feminine verse.^o Nadezhda L'vova, a little-known poet of the early twentieth century, in 1913 wrote an article that called for the establishment of "true women's writing." While conceding the increased prominence of women writers in Russia, she expresses a dissatisfaction with the current trends in literature produced by women: "Yet for these, their own, 'feminine' experiences," she argues "women have not yet managed to find 'their own' language, a language adequate to the task, they have not managed to clothe their experiences in a form of their own."*i One can argue, however, that this form was indeed beginning to take shape at the turn of the century, for example, in the depictions of the feminine self lhat emerged in the poetry of Lokhvitskaia. Samuel Cioran describes Lokhvitskaia's tendency to "write herself into her poetry," and relates her readers' surprise by this seemingly public exposure of the private self: "Many readers were * Translation from Ternira Pachmuw, Womm Wnkrs in M m icrM im m : Aa (Urbana, IL : University of Illinois Press. 1978), 90, N. L'vova, "The Cold of Morning: A Few Words about Women's Writing," (1914) in Uk/;ias. 1905-1940, ed. Catriona Kelly (I.ondon: Penguin, 1999), 162. Trans. Catriona Kelly. IronicaUy, however, as Tomei reports, Lokhvitskaia claimed to have influenced L'vova. 277 struck by the fact that Lokhvitskaya did not hesitate to offer a portrait (and a seductive one, at that) of herself."*^ In Wkhvitskaia's poetry, erotic pleasure is suggested in the imagery of the woman's toilette, as in tlie following stanza: "I hasten to tear away my bracelet, / to unclasp my necklace... / My trembling breast athirst / For ecstasies unknown, As the speaker of the poem here undresses herself for die reader, she also removes a mask of literary and social convention to celebrate an unabashed feminine desire for sensual beauty and elegance. Tomei has argued that the dominant source of creative inspiration conveyed in Lokhvitskaia's poetry— that which allows her to achieve the enlightened position of "god-womanhood"— is romantic love.** In such terms, Tomei notes, Lokhvitskaia does not depart from the male convention, rather she amends it by "preserving her attitudes toward her poetic material and the representation of the Female in verse."^ In other words, Tomei finds that in Lokhvitskaia's reliance upon romantic love as the central vehicle for exceeding boundaries and satisfying her desires she has failed to propose an alternative feniinine model of inspiration to that which was typically ascribed to women. I would argue, however, that for Lokhvitskaia, and for those who followed her example, the feminine self, the female body, clothed or unclothed, and endlessly transformable, acts as a great source of feminine creativity. It transports, allowing for a concrete embodiment of fantasy and momentary transcendence of accepted beliefs. Had Lokhvitskaia experienced the 1910s, she would have seen the articulation of these and similar principles in the evolving styles of dress for women. The convergence of u Samuel Cioran, '" T T ie Russian Sappho: Mirra Lokhvitskaya/' RussM» UkrgfHrf: Tn<;warkrly 9 (1974): 321. * * Translated by Saniurl ( loran, "ITie Russian Sappho: Mirra I.okhvltskaya, " 320, * * Tomei, "Mirra i( Li). and Anna Axmatova, 149. ^ Tomei, "Mirra Low « kaja and Anna Axmatova," 149. 278 elements of fantasy— exotic tiaras and tunics, harem pants, luxurious furs— and other expressions of feminine desire— mobility, sensuous colors, exposure and spectacle— are subsumed within the styles of the period. Even the mosi bi ici mention of fashion in works of the 1910s evoke immediate associations of modem feminine ideals, whereas in Lokln itskaia's poems of the 1890s they have not yet earned that persuasive appeal. Women poets who appeared following the turn of Ihe century benefited from Lokhvitskaia's poetic innovations, if not directly, than indirectly through an increased acceptance of a broader range of possible depictions by women. Her poetry received considerable public and critical attention, and thus the compelling aura of her "attractive" (privlekaternye) poetry was certain to have inspired many young writers.*^ By taking the bold step of introducing an element of active feminine desire in her poetry, yet remaining under the larger umbrella of "feminine" interests, she expanded the possibilities for women's creative expression in a manner more insidious than a blatant rejection of male-dominated conventions. She also revealed, as Gippius did in her personal mythology, the extent to which dress can facilitate personal transformation, and mined the expressive potential of sartorial utterances for die articulation of feminine identities. In the 1910s, the eroticism of Lokhvitskaia's poetry would be replaced by a fascination with the modem public sphere, including the various exciting objects and types diat inhabit it. Perhaps the most noted poet to further this line within the tradition was Anna Akhmatova, who in 1912 published her hrst volume of poetry, Eucming (Vecher). The poems in this collection dwell on themes of love and desire, anticipation and disappointment. The images of several poems are derived from fantasy and legends, but ^ qtd. in Tomei "Mirra Loxvkkaja and Anna Axmatova," 144. 279 those of others increasingly are drawn from the immediate urban context and contain loaded gestures that point toward the presence of a "new woman." Tomei has demonstrated Akhmatova's early indebtedness to Wkhvitskaia, particularly in the inclusion of bodily imagery in her early work. In addition, she describes both poets' reliance upon devices of folk literature for their feminine l)T ic@ , The conventions of the bridal lament, as Tomei argues, coincide with Akhmatova's overarching ethos of pain and disappointment in love. Her imagery, however, also coincides with this genre, as evident in the lament cited by lomei in her article: I was not waling in die garden, I was not looking at the cherry trees, 1 , fair maiden, was looking at my dear friends, I, fair maiden, was looking at my dear ones, 1 was regarding what you were wearing. My dear friends, my dear ones! You are sitting, aU happy. In your places, all delightful, Ycm are dressed up in beautiful clothing, Your flowered dresses are all new. And you dear ones have your hair done up. In your braids little ribbons are woven! But I, here I am, the fair maiden, I sit in my place, my sad place. My dress is rumpled. My hair is disheveled. Tousled and uncombed. My braid with no ribbon. Is set on the table with the "red beauty;" You are sitting and you sing. But I bitterly woebegone, weep.^^ Tomei points out the prevalence of such concrete images in the lament as the "wrinkled dress" and "uncombed hair, " all symbolic of the bride's lost virginity. In Akhmatova's work these concrete imagery of her poem reflect a similar gesture to allude and convey broader issues regardim* minine identity tfirough the association of a collectively ^ Tomei, "Mirra Loxvickaja and Anna Axmatova," I5&59. 280 recognized motif, elements familiar to the modem fashionable woman. After the publication of her second collection of poems. The Rosary (Chetki), in 1914, one of the more domirvmt images in Akhmatova's poem was that of a fashionable woman, whom many may have taken to be Akhmatova herself. In one oft-cited poem from the collection, the author reveals a self-consciousness of this inclusion of the feminine self in her poetry. The poem was written to commemorate the Stray Dog cabaret, which Akhmatova frequented, and was composed on the first day of the new year, 1913. The first two stanzas illustrate Akhmatova's "poses" as a "loose woman" and, notably, "svelte": We are all carousers and loose women here; How unhappy we are together! The flowers and birds on the wall Yeam for the clouds. You are smoking a black pipe. The puff of smoke has a funny shape. Tve put on my tight skirt To make myself look still more svelte (streiM ce).^ An important element in this second stanza is the verb "to seem" (kazat'sia) which exposes a process of manipulation, or even transformation, at issue in the poem. The narrator's deliberate effort to appear more svelte "stroinee" to the patrons of the cabaret indicates a desire to look more fashionable, to reflect the prevailing "stroinoi" ideal, and thus to gain influence through the use of her desirable image. Though the cabaret itself functioned as a place to which one could escape from decent society to pursue one's whimsical, independent desires, the women who attended the Stray Dog were certainly ^ "Vse my brazhniki zdcs', Wudnitsy," Dated 1 januaiy 1913. A M M o sWW toffw W k ShW ipA w cM M C I904-WT, vol. I (Moscow: EUis Lak, 1998), 113. Translatton from Roberta Reeder, ed., The Comipkk Poems o/AwM trans. ludilh Hemschemeyer (Boston Zephyr Press, 1997), 135-36, 281 not all "loose women" as the narrator implies. Yet, in relative terms and in visual terms, the female patrons of the cabaret could have easily adopted the aura of loose women, given the desired styles of dress. For example, the narrato/s seductively tight skirt is a provocative gesture that speaks to her identification with the previously mentioned "loose women," yet Ae trend for tight skirts was equally represented among upper-class women. The ambiguity of these new fashions, which allows for this play on identity, is brought to light in Akhmatova's poem, and provides an indication of the power of the prevailing contemporary styles in influencing larger cultural assumptions. Contemporary reviews of % kesary in the magazine lA bzM fm 's Caw se reveal an effort by some to embrace Akhmatova as Ae modem female voice. Bronislava Runt, for example, writes in her article "The Mournful Smile" that Ae love of Akhmatova's heroines is not Ae love of old stock romances but that of Ae modem world: "m Ae best, most successful poems we fmd restaurants illuminated by electricity, automobiles, and Ae frequent mention of one or anoAer piece of Ae elegant Ailette of a female urbaniA."^^ Runt writes that m Aese poetic descriptions Acre is no trace of exaggeration, raAer often subtle hints of a modem feminine identity. In Ae following first and last stanzas of Ae poem "Outing" (ProguZka), quoted m its enAety in Ae review by Runt, Ae Auch of a feather signals an array of unspoken associations: My feaAer touched Ae Ap of Ae carriage. I glanced inA his eyes. My heart ached, not really Knowing why. The evening was wmdless and fettered by sadness Under Ae firmament's vault of clouds. w B. Runt, "Skoibnaki ulybka (O sbkhakh Anny Akhmatovy)," Jgfo 9 (1914); 11. Bronislava Runt (later Pogorelova) was the sister-in-law of Valeryl Bruisov. She was the sister of his wife Ioanna Matveevna Briusova (née Runt). 282 And the Bois de Boulogne looked as if it were drawn In India ink in some old album. There's an odor of petrol and lilacs, Quiet listens expectantly... With a hand almost trembling Once again he touched my knees.su The simple inclusion of a vertical feather, one so tall it meets the top of the carriage as the narrator enters it provides a much more complete picture of the depicted woman than is explicitly stated in the poem. The prominent feather, with its sutmequent phallic associations, connotes a larger image of a daring hat, and likely of a fashionable "new woman." Given the ready associations of fashion with independence and sensuality, the lyric voice betra^rg an erotic desire reflected in the lover's nervous touch. Although her heart aches with some unknown sadness, the lyric voice assumes a dominance in the situation, as she chooses to enter the carriage, evidently for a second rendezvous. Runt concludes her article by promoting Akhmatova's poetry as an illustration of a larger social phenomenon: "Anna Akhmatova's book, in addition to its purely artistic merits, is interesting also as illustrative material of the psychological crisis [...] die contemporary woman endures on her path to gain inner freedom, without which all outer strengthening of women appears as simply ficdorL 's: Runt implies that by outer measure, that is the recent images conveyed of women and the apparent changes to their lives, an inner change may not have yet been achieved. In a later review by Ol'ga Oginskaia for W oM wn's Couse, the author also adopts Akhmatova as the modem voice of women, but in this case as an expression of the female soul (dusha). Oginskaia welcomes her contribution to the establishment of women's writing, which she feels resides in the so Dated May 1913. The Cofnpkk Pwrna A m nA Akkwa/mw, ed. Roberta Reader, trans. Judilh Demschemeyer, 134. Runt, "Skorhnaia ulvbka, 11, 283 everyday or "living world": "In women's poetry/' Oginskaia writesy "there is a penetration into the living world that surrounds us. Anna Akhmatova lovingly- protectively relates to all things. She exposes their wise simplicity and wonder."5z Oginskaia states that the love depicted in Akhmatova's verses is not the naive love of Pushkin's Tatiana, but the jaded love of a contemporary soul who is convinced she will never gain happiness. Thus, Oginskaia appears to imply, Akhmatova provides both the inner and outer transformation necessary for the depiction of the "new woman." Akhmatova's conscious manipulation of her pose translates into an identification of author with her poetic depictions, and indeed her devoted readers often assumed a correspondence between the two, despite Akhmatova's denial of an autobiographical nature of her poetry. In her reminiscences on Blok, Akhmatova reveals that the Spanish shawl which he used in a poem to epitomize her mysterious beauty was a fabrication by Blok; yet it has become an enduring one in the mythology of the poet, and photographs appear to contest Akhmatova's denial of its existence. Akhmatova, like Lokhvitskaia, inserted herself in her poetry, insofar as her work depicts a feinmine consciousness, an awareness of the physical manifestations of feminine beauty that often matched her own. Such images, however, imply the poet looking at her own reflection, but as a reflection, a mask or pose, as any other poetic fabrication, lutii Annenkov refers to the following poem by Akhmatova in his memoirs as the poet's self-portrait, which in his estimation is an accurate one: Around the neck is a string of fine beads. In a wide muff I hide the hands. The eyes gaze vacantly about And wdh never weep again. 0.0|;insk aia, "O poe%it Annv Akhmatovy," 10 (1914): 13. 284 And the faci « * irs paler Against lavuiUu silk. My straight bangs Reach almost to the brows. And how unlike flight Is this haunting gait, As if a raft were underfoot, Not squares of parquetry. And the pale mouth is slightly open. Irregul.u, lalxirud. the breulhlng. And on m) bnvisl (remhic The flowers of a meeting that did not happen.^^ Akhmatova composed this poem in 1913, at the height of innovations in women's fashions.^ The concrete details of the depicted image likely facilitated emulation among her followers, but the images also correspond to a larger phenomenon among women: an enlightened self-consciousness that examines emotion and image, and the presence of women in a changed world. Lokhvitskaia's legacy is still evident in this poem, as the flowers of a missed encounter tremble on the lyric heroine's breast But the mention of minor details of dress operate in a manner understood only in the context of the modem reader of Akhmatova's world. These details arouse in the reader an association with the contradictory impulses in an emerging feminine identity, a conflict based in expanding challenges to traditional notions of men and women. In the following poem traditional roles are reversed, insofar as the female narrator confronts her position as the agent of deceit. 1 wept and repented. If only thunder would burst from the skies! ^ " Na shoe metkikh cheWk dad." TramWion from Tk; (vO m pW a Pwmis Am m : AkhmaWo, ed. Reeder, 251. lurit Annenkov, "Anna Akhmatova," DM iwrnt mdW ; wfrecA. T szW tNgedii (Moscow; Sovetskii kompozitor, n.d.), 114. M Though wiiUen in 1913, the poem was not published until 1921, in ttw collection PoJenWimk 285 My heavy heart was exhausted In your mhospitable house. I know the unendurable pain, The shame of the road back... Terrible, terrible, to return To the unloved one, the silent one. If I bend over him, beautifully dressed, Necklaces ringing - He'D only ask: "My incomparable beauty! Where were you praying for me?" In this poem, the female lyrical persona is not the "silent one" in the relationship; her necklaces sound her presence. Rather, she has taken her "incomparable beauty," a source of influence and power, and directed it elsewhere. Several of Akhmatova's contemporaries, while obviously attuned to the dynamics of the modem world of fashion, did not allow such interests to be reflected in their works. Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, in the pre-RevoIutionary years was a considerably wealthy woman. She demonstrated a fondness for the whims of contemporary fashion, often wearing colorful modem clothes, but treated the theme very little in her published volumes of verse. Her most explicit confrontation of the discourse of fashion and its relevance for the "new woman" appears in several poems that remained unpublished throughout her lifetime. In the cycle "The Girlfriend" (Podruga), a series of poems addressed to the poet Sofia Pamok with whom Tsvetaeva shared an intimate relationship in 1914-1915, one is struck by the frequent mention of particular details of contemporary women's costume: "And 1 stroked the long hair / On my little fur coat [ . . "Your dress— a black silken armor"; You dazzle with your fan or your fancy cane"; "1 was in a magnificent dress / Of light golden faille,/ You in a knitted black jacket / With a wing collar"; "How merrily the snowflakes glittered / On your gray and my sable fur," among other examples. Boym's reading of Tsvetaeva's 286 confrontation with gender expectations, while focusing on the post-Revolutionary period, claims a resistance on the part of Tsvetaeva to any explicit gender dictates in literature and a denial of "women's literature." While this position may also have been evident in her pre-Revolutionary work, the cycles of poetry Tsvetaeva published during this period, mostly her juvenile poetry, are primarily concerned with themes of childhood and family, and thus fail to clearly indicate her leanings. Yet the saturation of her poems to Pamok, the intimate confessions of one woman to another, reveal that while Tsvetaeva may not have chosen to allow this dimension of her poetic voice to reach a wider audience, she did perceive the expressive potential of dress and the emergence of a collective feminine discourse, from one woman to another. Among Akhmatova's peers in the St. Petersburg bohemian set, the writer Pallada Bogdanova-Belskaia figured as a prototypical "new woman"; she might even be best described as a caricature of the new type. Her penchant for theatrical behavior, lovers, husbands, cigarettes, aperitifs, and extravagant, colorful outfits made her a suitable addition to the city's notorious Stray Dog cabaret and a lively hostess for weekly gatherings, where she was surrounded by many of Petersburg's prominent literati.* In early 1915, Pallada, as she was generally known, published a collection of poems entitled Amwkfs (Amwkty).* While the first printing was modest in size, and her literary notoriety could not approach that of the prominent women writers of the period such as Akhmatova and Gippius, the book garnered enough popularity to be reprinted later the same year. K Geofgii Ivanov, "PrekraKnyi prink (Iz peterburgskikh vstrech)," SotmMK ÿodiùyM M p (omath, vol. 3 (Moscow: Soglasic, 1994), 426-427; )ohn E. Bowit, ed. and trana. Hic Sa/oM of Vcm SufW W M -SinrPbM ty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 53. Charles, "'Brodiachaia sohaka' i ee podrnga," Baron i mwa;, MiüoW Vmmgpr i Pallada comp. A, A. Murashev and A. lu. Skakov (St. Petersburg: Kolo, 2001), 119-54. "Al'bum Pallady, " Bomn 1 193-97. * Bowlt, ed. and trans. T Izc Solo» Album of i/era 53. 287 Pallada's provides perhaps the most concentrated compilation of references to women's fashion in the poetry of the period. The majority of poems in the collection trace the activities of a modem, urban, fashionable woman, as she experiences the pleasures and disappointments of passionate love. Though Pallada's collection is unique in its ubiquitous references to dress, similar depictions were drawn up by several of PaUada's female contemporaries, whose works appeared in women's magazines such as Woman's Caw sc (Zhenskoe delo) and Tkc ffouscrc^'s Magazine (Zhumal dlia khoziaek), Some critics characterized the lyrical heroine in Pallada's poems as a courtesan,^:' given her apparent multiple lovers and glamorous gowns, but I would argue that her identity remains deliberately ambiguous, and that she might as easily be seen as a prototypical "new woman" whose social class is necessarily unspecified. After the turn of the century, numerous popular critiques lamented the increased difficulty in distinguishing between well-paid prostitutes and "decent " ladies, and farces and feuilletons often turned on such cases of mistaken identity. As evident even in the initial lines of several of Pallada's poems, the image of the fashionably dressed woman is a dominant, recurring motif, and the first-person feminine lyrical voice betrays a degree of self- consciousness, a gesture toward an immediate identification with other women:^ "Let no one see how 1 will put on a hat and in front of the mirror wrap myself in fur"S9; "I won't raise my veil"*0; "Sadly I put on a hat of ermine fur"^^; "I powdered my face, neck 5^"Bcgdanova-Bel'skaia/' 299, 5 » One poem begins wllh "la sirizhennaia, ia strizliennaia / I ia pokhozha na rebenk* sovsem," T m shorn. I'm shorn / And look completely like a child," possibly a reference to Pallada's own scandalously chk Dutch bob haircuL Amrdely, 110. w 'Tust' nikh) ne vidit, kak nadenu shliapu / Kak pied zerkalom zakutaius' v mekha" (1914) Amukh/, 2nd ed. (Petrograd; Sirius, 1915), 33, N ) "Ne podnlmu avoiu vuaf," (1913) Amukly, 11, "Grustno sliaptku s gomostaevym mekhom / la nadela ..." Amzdcly,26. 288 and arms/'*^ These varied movements suit the emotional tenor of the heroine and range from angry defiance to suicidal desperation, but center around a concrete image of a familiar, independent contemporary woman, one very much absorbed in her visible fashionable self. In the following poem the fashionable woman assumes the role of the poef s muse: I don't want to write verses, I can't. When I even glance at tliem with my eyes I blush. She is the muse of accidental love, I am the scribe. She wears a sweet blouse of lace. And a tight underbodice. I wiU not write verses. Since 1 have no talent. I tempt her with my lips, Having waited for her forfeits. She understands and answers me. With her agreement. Amore will hurl an arrow for us. That will lead to happiness.^^ Among her professional activities, Pallada also regularly contributed articles on sartorial advice and etiquette for the magazine Argus, and thus spoke from a position of "authority" on women's dress fashions. Her journalism and faslùon-laden verses lie clearly within the scope of accepted literature by women at the time, and her preoccupations are often seemingly superficial. But they also reflect a significant development in the emergence of feminine literature, that is, literature not defined in relation to male conventions of writing, but that which reflects a consciously "feminine" creative impulse. Pallada articulates a distinct sense of feminine desire, and the feminine put in original Russian lines in tootnoh*? * 3 "la ne kochu pisat' sdkhami, / la ne umeiu ..." 98. 289 identity of her heroine repeatedly reinforced by the mention of various modes of dress. Writers such as Pallada who explored an accepted 'feminine" topic pushed the boundaries of women's literature, for she, like several others, transformed the traditional domestic intimacy of women's writing into something much more exposed and public, almost confessional. By doing so, she introduced a more threatening version of her reclusive predecessor; in this context, Pallada's heroine, whether call girl or society dame, is much more subversive, and her fashionable attire, the trappings of the "new woman," is more heavily nuanced. In the following poem, entitled "To Georgii Ivanov," and written in 1913, Pallada conveys the captivating allure and mystery of the "new woman," enhanced through the inclusion of the heroine's translucent veil: I won't raise my veil 1 won't show my lips for a Idss, And I won't say if my glove is tight. Or if it hurts my fingers. Today you can't guess Through the veil's light shadow. Why I so need to sleep. And why laziness has dominated the day. You touch my gloves. Curiously glance in my eyes, but too bad: You won't solve the mystery that way. Through a light, cloud-like veil.^ In works of prose by women writers that appeared around the turn of the century, the "new woman" is often more "fleshed out" than in its poetic incarnation. Yet, similar tendencies among writers both to deny or defy gender expectations is evident. One of the most popular authors of short satirical prose in the early twentieth century was Aleksandrovna Buchinkskaia, (née lokhvitskaia), who was more "Ne podmmu @vom vuaf/' AM m fctv, 11. 290 commonly known in life and literature by her pseudonym TefH. like Gippius, TefH exceUed in a genre of writing typically o^med by men, and while her gender was certainly known to the general public, her use of a pseudonym and an omniscient narrator deemphasized the role of her gender in her writing. She was a prolific writer, and while she produced some poetry, drama, and longer works of prose, it was her humorous, often satirical, stories that brought her literary fame. Her stories, which often draw upon the mundane reality of everyday life, appeared in several magazines, primarily SafiricaM (Satirikon) and Mfte Sahriron (Novyi Satmkon), and she published several collected editions of her stories, the first in 1910. In all estimations Teffi was one of the most widely read Russian women writers in pre-Revoludonary Russia, and while she began publishing only in 1901, her success endured throughout her émigré years in Paris. In the 1910s, one of the most frequent types to appear in Teffi's stories of urban life, and therefore to endure the brunt of her humor, was the "new woman," in its various iterations. Society's preoccupation with women's contemporary dress habits and fear of fashion's excesses are also treated throughout, and are particularly apparent in the collections from the immediate World War I and pre-Revoluüonary periods when the debate over women's dress was most heated.'*' In the second edition of the collection NofiuM g Kind (Nechego px)dobnogo), printed in 1915, a schematic bust of a woman with scandalously cropped hair, a generous jabot, dark choker, reddened Ups, and blackened eyes in the st)de of silent film stars is pictured with her hand on her hip in a * 5 For moiv on TefH's cmnwr, w e introduction to her recent collected works and Edythe Haber, "Nadezhda Teffi," R M saeM Tniyw A rtgrly. * Teffi's frequent mention of dress is also noted by Catriona Kelly in the chapter on Teffi in A Hzsfory of Russian Womea's tW iizM g, In addition, Kelly demonstrates that Tefd uses the real or "rcaiia" to make the absurd more believable. 291 look of defiance. While not creatW by l effi herself, the cover image is characteristic of Teffi's hyperbolic renderings of types, predominant among them the "new woman."'^^ The new cover illustration for the second publication indicates a recognition of the important role of fashion and the new woman as central concerns of society, and therefore of the collection, and indeed 1 effi treats the theme in considerable detail* Teffi's treatment of the fashion craze is rooted in a reflection of contemporary urban reality, yet it also appears to engage in a dialogue with several rdneteenlh'century themes surrounding women and dress, including those presented by Tolstoi in Kmdzer SoM afg. While the fashionable "new woman" often appears in a derogatory light in Teffi's stories, the author also frequendy parodies society's belief in women's vulnerability in face of fashion's powerful influence. Teffi takes such assumptions regarding fashion to an extreme to defamiharize them and make Aem appear at times ridiculous. In a short story written by TefG that first appeared in the Moscow newspaper Kussian Word (Russkoe slovo) in January 1914, the leading lines introduce the central character of the story: "A demonic woman is distinguished from an ordinary woman, primarily, in her manner of dress. She wears a black velvet cassock, a chain on her forehead, a bracelet on her leg, a ring with a hole for 'potassium cyanide which without fail will get her through to next Tuesday,' a stiletto behind her collars, rosary beads on her elbow and a portrait of Oscar Wilde on her left garter. She also wears typical elements of a woman's toilette, but not in the proper place. So, for example, a demonic woman takes the liberty to wear her belt on her head, an earring on her forehead or ^ Tefn, Nidifgo podokiogo, 2nd ed. (Petrograd: Satirikon, 1915). The artist's initials are I. R , * The cover illustration also closely resembles the image used on a critical study of the same year of the works of Anastasiia Verbitskaia. 292 neck, a ring on her Üiumb, a watch on her leg/'*^ Apart from ihe obvious sacrilege of the proximity of such contrasting elements— a religious robe and rosary beads combined with a racy garter and a stiletto— the significance of the characterization lies in the disorder or reordering of the details of the outfit. Ihe demonic woman wears arm bracelets and a watch on her leg, a chain and an earring on her forehead, in other words, she dares to challenge both social and sartorial dictates regarding one's appropriate appearance. Upon closer reading the story appears to be based in part on a caricature of the poetic mythology of Gippius. The references to misplaced items of a woman's toilette and the blasphemous conflation of reUgious and decadent apparel are familiar from memoir literature that discusses the poet's appearances.'^ The demonic woman "has a leaning toward literature," but hesitates to share her work with the masses because it is too deep for them, and "dangerous for life " The narrator reports that a well known critic cried ah night and prayed after reading her work. The demonic woman is capricious and tom between her two worlds: holy and base. In the middle of a ball she wih suddenly ask to be taken to a church where she can pray, but then just as quickly wih realize that she is a lowly creature with no hope for salvadon, while "hiding her nose in her fur scarf." The most salient reference to Gippius, in particular, who was to a degree a modem "new woman" in Russian society, is the demonic woman's cry that she is a "wretch" (la tvvwar'l), a quotation from a poem and story b )-^ Gippius of the same name. * N, A. Teffi, "Demonicheskaia zhenshchina," SofmMir gdiV w iK W io, vol. 5 (Moscow: Wkoim, 2000), 218-221. Originally publbtied in f)yw (St. Pelerabm};: 'o Among the references to Gippius, one reports tlul lor one gathering she attached a gem to her forehead, and for a religious meeting she was believed to have dressed in a scandalously provocative gown. The description in the TefG's story is also consistent with Ivanov's account of Pallada's manner of dress, such as the bracelets she wore on her ankles, Georgii Ivanov, "Prekrasnyi prints, 426-427. 293 These observations are made from a privileged perspective of omniscience that betrays no sign of gender typing by Teffi. The story is a satirical take on the demonic woman as a cultural fixture. But through its exaggerated caricaturedness, society's collective fear of the woman's satanic nature appears just as ridiculous as the figure herself. The demonic woman creates an aura of mystery around herself that is quickly revealed as window dressing however, such machinatioiw often work to her benefit. For example, as the story concludes, the narrator compares the method used by an ordinary woman, who during periods of financial hardship is forced to ask for assistance, to the strategy of a demonic woman in similarly dire circumstances. The ordinary woman meekly and apologetically asks for twenty-five rubles, with an oblique reference to repayment or future improvement of her situation. The demonic woman, in contrast, uses her mystique to completely befuddle and hypnotiz^e an admirer, so that he barely notices as he gives her money, even more than the twenty-five rubles she demanded from him. Succumbing to the intensity of the demonic woman's willful cries, the admirer joins her in an unmotivated fit of laughter. As he leaves he remarks on her "mysterious" and "unusual" behavior, and wonders if she has "fallen in love with him." The demonic woman has cast a spell on her vulnerable prey, but it is hardly the result of supernatural forces. Although Teffi portrays the spiritual or religious convictions of the woman in the story as artifice, and perhaps in doing so parodies her contemporary Gippius, the story is a testament to the crafty persuasiveness of the woman's unprecedented powers. The demonic woman has turned the world on its head, and has come out the victor, and is by no means a victim of her passions. Teffi does not exclusively portray dress as a vehicle for powcT, but she docs provide an indication that society perceived it to be so, particularly as the 1910s 294 progressed. In the short story "Hat" (Shliapa),^ for example, TefR parodies a poor woman's belief that a fashionable blue hat makes her suddenly wonderful to everyone. Varen'ka Zvczdochetova wakes up one morning after having spent half the night trying on her new hat, and excitedly anticipates the arrival of the poet (only insofar as he has chosen a pseudonym, but has not composed verses) Sineus Truvorov, who had promised to take her ice skating, "for contrast," before the poet arrives, Varen'ka puts on her old hat, a black cap (kolpak) and admires the transformation in her face when she trades it for her new blue hat with its authentic "blue bird of happiness." When she is out with her suitor, Varen'ka feels powerful: "She re ^ y was on this day unusual. The knowledge of her own elegance gave her confidence and happiness." The poet also repeatedly remarks on her "unusual quality" that day. Varen'ka contemplates what a remarkable life she would have if she were wealthy and could afford a new look every day. Yet when she returns to her room later in the day she discovers that she has mistakenly worn her old black cap. Teffi also composed various dramatic works for the theater, including miniatures or skits, such as "The Dreadful Dive" (Strashnyi kabachek), which in 19T3 was part of the repertoire at the Crooked Mirror, an avant-garde dub in St. Petersburg. The setting for the skit is a squalid late-night dub, which is visited by two upper-class couples who, in modem terms, have dedded to "go slumming." What the couples do not realize, as they fluctuate between intrigue and horror during their little adventure, is that the entire event is a performance for their benefit and for the owner's profit. Most scandalous among the "regulars" at the dub is a young woman who goes by the name Teffi, "Shliapa," in ZiiiKc tyi'f (Petrograd: Dwhm'aia iumoristirheskaia bibtioteka zhumala Novogo Satirikona, n.d. [19161), 5054. 295 "Malchishka" (little boy). Malchi«hka catches the eye of one of the male aristocrats, who claims he finds her "very original/' and buys her a glass of wine. The women, in contrast, are scandalized by Malchishka's coarse behavior. For example, when the admiring man gives her a gold coin, she hoists up her skirt to hid the money in her stocking. Later, she and a "hooligan" -admirer dance the apache together, which ends as a rival admirer, also a hooligan, stabs Malchishka's dance partner. Tire snobby strangers make a quick exit "before the police arrive," but once they are gone, the actors, as they all turn out to be, resort to their true polite behavior. By removing safety pins they transform their clothes into fashionable elegant gowns and frock coats, and speak to each other in a manner characteristic of the upper classes. Before she leaves Malchishka dons a large stylish hat, and gladly accepts an offer from one of her colleagues to see her safely home, given the late hour and suspect environs.^^ The autho/s construct of a play widiin a play emphasizes the element of performance among these various "types," in particular the "krasavitsa" (beautiful woman), Malchishka. Her "loose" behavior and contrasting "proper" behavior are more extensively described than the characteristics of her hooligan peers. The action of the interior play also centers around her interaction with men and a competition for her attention. Ultimately, within their act, this rivalry leads to the presumed death of one of her admirers, and although she grieves for him, as a "new woman" she also bears ultimate responsibility for his death. Her beauty has inspired such lethal competition; a love for her is therefore deadly. Yet with the release of the train of her dress, Malchishka is suddenly reverted to a decent woman. While Teffi appears to be mocking the ^ Teffi, "StTAshnvi kabachek, Iz reperUiara Krlvogo Zerkaia," in Vwew' miHwiHr' (SL Petersburg: bd. M. G 296 outmoded class standards and naïveté of the aristocracy, she is also revealing the superficial nature of such extravagant public performances, and thus the error in reading such artistic or sartorial performances as truth. She allows the central female figure of the play to transform herself effortlessly, which from a conservative perspective might seem compromising, but from an enlightened modem perspective would seem liberating. Dress, n t :antly facilitates this process. If TefH characterizes social dictates as restrictive and arbitrary, she also appears to aUow room for challenges to accepted standards, and thus existence within society is not predicated upon a passive role, but can involve a more engagement in its transformation. If we take the role of the artist, for example, in particular the woman artist, the motivation for such change, is considerable. In several stories Gippius creates a scenario in which an element of fashion assumes all responsibility for human weakness and the disruption of prevailing norms. In "Life and a Collar" (Zhizn' i vorotnik), a story from Teffi's first collection published in 1910, a woman's life is changed irrevocably after the purchase of a new collar. The story begins, "A person only imagines that he has unlimited control over things. Sometimes the most innocent little thing trots into one's life, turns it all around, and directs one's fate oE into a direction, that it had not been destined to go."73 Olechka Rozova, the fashion victim, is a meek woman, who until the collar enters her life, is satisEed with her husband of three years and their modest lifestyle. A shopping trip to the shopping arcade Goshuyi (kor changes that Irarmony forever. She becomes infatuated with a new collar and its charming yellow ribbon and buys it. After h ying it on at home she decides 7) Tefti, "Zhizn' i vorotnik," in nustazy. K m iga (St PeWMbnrg: SlUpovnik, 1910), 182- 86, 297 she must have a new blouse to go with it. One thing leads to the next and before long Olechka is lying to friends and family to obtain money to satisfy the "demands" of the collar. The "collar's life" takes over lier own. She becomes a "new woman," cutting off her hair, taking up smoking, carousing with friends of questionable morals, and even spending the night out with a young student. The collar answers before Olechka can voice her own protest, and makes decisions for her that she hnds unbearable. Finally the situation turns so troubling that Olechka's husband leaves her. The very next day Olechka's collar is lost in the laundry and she reverts to her former timid self. We learn that she is working in a bank to support herself. In a Soviet publication of Teffi's stories from 1926, "Life and the Collar" is given the prominent position of title story of the collection. Seen as an indictment of bourgeois values, the story stands in this context as a lesson in the dangers of materialism. This interpretation, however, appears to be a literal or superficial reading of a much more nuanced, layered message. On the one hand, "Life and a Collar" appears to be a reworking of the theme of the fallen woman, including those portrayed by Tolstoi in Aima K arc M iM A and Kreutzer Smafa. In such a reading, society's temptations, as typihed by the "pretty little collar," know no bounds in their potential to inflict pain upon their female victims. In this story, the woman's happy docile life is ruined by an unassuming collar. Her behavior while "under the influence" of the coUar is typical of the popular negative portrayals of the "new woman " (smoking, drinking, gallivanting). Yet, unlike the nineteenth-century heroines Anna and Pozdnyshev's wife, the woman in "Life and a Collar " does not die, nor does stie fall into prostitution as one might Ihen have expected of a woman who has been abandoned by her husband. Her position in a bank is instead a clear indication of her (and perhaps women's) economic independence, for which her 298 penchant for fasliion was a vehicle. The nodon that women were brainwashed into submission to fashion's dictates, denies their impulse to be fashionable as the articulation of feminine desire, and ignores their corresponding receptivity to change that was evident in numerous other spheres of social activity. Several other stories by Teffi treat this theme in a similar manner. In "The Button" (Pugovitsa), a story that first appeared in 1912, a woman, Katia, allows her quest for a replacement button for a new travel glove to dictate the itinerary of her European travels with her husband.^^^ Katia chastises her husband, Trubnikov, for not appreciating her efforts to look appropriately fashionable and bullies him into changing their destinations to better hunt down the button. They travel to many cities, but they miss all the famous sites and visit only button shops. Kada's superficial preoccupation is an obvious object of parody in the story, but her husband is made to look the complete fool. When he returns from his travels Trubnikov is so convinced by their chosen course of travel, that he begins to preach pompously about the various button stores. Kada has used her "feminine preoccupadon" to insist upon her desired agenda. Another short story, "Tlie Brooch" (Broshechka), begins with the accidental discovery of an anonymous piece of jewelry, which, by the end of ihe story, unveils a web of illicit liaisons that uldmately have nothing to do with the brooch itself.^s Ironically, while dress and the elements of a woman's toilette are most commonly used as devices to masquerade the truth, in this case the brooch acts as a catalyst to expose it. Teffi also wrote "The Brooch" as a short play— or rniniature, as she called them— with characters whose costumes would satisfy a cultural preoccupadon with Teffi, "Pugovitwa," in nzzstazy, (St Potenubwrg: Shipovnik, ]91i), 66-73. 7 5 Teffi, "Broshechka," in Nzstazy. 51-57, 299 dress: an aristocratic couple, an actress (the husband's mistress), and a young aristocratic gentleman (the wife's lover).W'The Woman Question " (Zhenskii vopros) appeared in the same collection as "The Brooch" in 1913.^ llie play was performed as part of the repertoire of the St. Petersburg Malyi Theater. Its subtitle, "a fantastic joke in one act," makes an interpretation of the play, c^ndently a comment on the women's movement in Russia, more difficult. In the play, a progressive eighteen-year-old woman, Katia, attends "lectures" and meetings of women activists and agitates with her family and peers for equal rights. One evening, while waiting up for her father to return home, she falls asleep and imagines a world where the roles of men and women have been switched: women have managed to achieve legal independence and ultimately have seized control of family and society. As the events in her dream unfold, Katia discovers that women are capable of being as base, crude, and selfish as men when put in positions of power. She is awoken suddenly by the door bell as her father arrives home. Katia greets him warmly and excitedly begins to tell him of her revelation, none of which her father understands. She declares "we are all the same" (my vse odinakovye) and tells her father she is ready to many Andrei Nikolaevich. This cry of "we're all the same," reflects the rallying cry of the suffragists, who lobbied for equal treatment under the law. Teffi, however, explores the other side of this claim for equality. If women are no different than men m their intellect and talents, then they must be equally capable of arrogance, sclf-centeredness, and deception. K aW a is relieved to leam that women can be just as "bad" as men. However, the play, a "joke, " seems to raise a question in regard to this conclusion in its final note. Having told his family that he had a late meeting, and 7 0 Teffi, "Broehechka," in yuaem' m inmAyr', (SL Petemhvrg: Izd, M. G Komfel'd, 1913), 104-16, ^ Teffi, "Zhenskii vopros," Pantesticlieskaw shutka v deiatvii. Iz fepertuara Peterb. Malaga Teatra, in I'D*»;' 44-67, 300 having repeatedly complained of their inadequate appreciation of his labor and sacriHce for them, Katie's father soon reveals his own dishonesty: "If only they had a little reaped^" he wonders, as he inadvertently pulls a woman's glove from his pocket and wipes the sweat off his brow.?* Women and men may be equally bad in Katia's world, but her father, carrying tire gl(iv(' « is a symbol of his illicit affair, looks even worse. Several of Teffi's miniature plays were written as monologues, and were part of a fashion for declamation (melodeklamirovat') among men and women at the time.^* This popular form of performance is noted in the memoirs of Nina KuTbina, the daughter of the artist and critic Nikolai KuTbin. Kul'bina writes that in the 1910s her mother took lessons in "melodeklamatsii" from an actor with whom she trained to recite Teffi's "White Boa" (Beloe tx)a).^ In "White Boa" a woman addresses a friend, one woman to another, apparendy in a public setting, and draws her into a conversation under the pretext that she wants to tell her what has recently happened to her white boa. However, she digresses so often in her speech that she never gets to the story of the white boa before her friend storms off. The bulk of the monologue concerns hat styles and dress fashions, what might be considered idle chatter among women, but it is interlaced with several veiled criticisms, ultimately a critique of the other woman's recent indiscretions. As Teffi appears to indicate, women's sartorial speech while often taken as meaningless and certainly non-intellectual, could easily veil more biting criticism or ideas. 7 » TelfL "Zhenskii vopros," in l/ixK?»' 67, See, tor example, the numerous serial volumes of works for declamation by Ruwian wriierg entitled Chkia d e W o m a k M '. M iw dozheahV N M y shonut mo»okgoe, : mzakazw, M N. N. Kul'bin, "Bmpominaniia ob obe," Russian Museum. Fond Kul'bina, Nikokaia Ivanova. Fond 134. e.kh. 95. 301 Teffi's nr^^.iUvr, parodie depictions of women might appear more characteristic of male writers, sin li as that of the flighty women in the story "On the Tram/' written during World War I, who describe the tragedy of war in terms of restrictions on dress and luxury (i.e. a fine of one ruble twenty-five kopecks for saying the word décolleté), but, with some exception, the omniscient narrator of Teffi's stories rarely displays any distinct gender characteristics. Though her stories are more commonly relegated to the ranks of "low-brow" or popular Uterature, the genre of parody, with its multi-layered readings imply a writer who is positioned somehow separate from society, at a privileged distance, perhaps even more clever or more astute, so as to draw attention to the patterns and trends others recognize only subconsciously. Not only does Teffi describe society's ills, but she cloaks her critiques in the décor and details familiar to most readers. As if drawing on the "wisdom" she conveys in her fiction, TefB wrote with a degree of authority on the ebb and flow of social change. For example, in an article published in P V oH M u's C aw sg in 1911 on the sudden introduction of slacks and sharouary in women's costume, Teffi is quoted from a recent article she had written on the new trend.*^ She writes that while change is inevitable, women should be careful what they wish for. Men's fashion, she argues, has reached a dead end, and a very drab, boring one at that. She warns that the transition to pants for women could have the same unfortunate effect on women's fashion: the illusion of democratic equality amidst utter stagnation, movement neither forward nor backward. In essence Tefh appears to argue for a useful distinction between men's and women's dress, and for an appreciation of the current vitality of w"m'»''s fashion. The perpetual redefinition of women's styles, Teffi 'LiteraWra o iubkaWi panwtonakh," Z/KM stoc (k/o 7-8 (]9t 1): 37-38 302 intimates/ is linked to the mobility and growth afforded women in culture. But the distinctions have their limits. In her short story "Pockets" (Karmany), for example, Teffi describes the ridiculous discrepancy between men and women in the number of pockets afforded their dress. Women have none, and thus have no place to store their lipstick or incriminating letters, and men have twelve, enough to store a watch and lose incriminating letters. Contemporary critical literature on Teffi's writing was fairly limited, as if the writer were simply taken for granted as a staple of popular literary culture. Yet; as Catriona Kelly argues, this apparently stable source of humor and irony was potentially subversive in form and content: "Her technique is defamiliarization in the most fundamental sense of the word: she takes a standard genre or literary strategy, and twists it in many directions, whilst at the same time encouraging the reader to revel in the pleasure of the apparently familiar."*3 The intimacy of her language and scenarios are an enduring element of her Action, and her ubiquitous voice lent her writing a degree of subtle persuasiveness. As a woman, TefA's accomplishments are even more notable. Like Gippius she attempted to deemphasize the role of gender in literature by mastering a genre normally attnbuted to men, and one that demanded the omnipotence and sophistica Aon many at the time assumed were only part of men's "nature." While gender did not seem an obvious element her work, her hyperbolic renderings of the new woman revead an effort to bring the issue of gender in writing to the attenAon of many. Much like the medium of fashion itself, T ef A's unassuming works acted to disseminate noAons of change and complexity where otherwise unexpected. Within the works iG Kcilv, A Hiaforv W oM K M 'g lA W fim g, 205. 303 themselves/ fashion operates as vehicle for change, not a whim waiting for its next victim. While Teffi's depiction of the fashionable new woman appear to subvert cultural assumptions regarding the passive nature of women, including notions of the fashion victim, they do not reveal a distinct feminine authorial voice, in the manner that Lokhvitskaia and Akhmatova accomplished in poetry. A more explicitly feminine "orientation ' in prose was more common to Üie popular works of Verbitskaia, whose talent for descriptive ... was often praised and parodied m the press. Verbitskaia's works draw, however, from a more direct expression of feminine desire that has been associated in recent critical literature with the Diary of Marie Baslrkirtseff (Mariia Bashkirtseva). An early outspoken advocate for the consummation of feminine creative desire, die artist Bashkirtseff gained most influence posthumously with the publication of her private journal. A mediocre artist, before dying at the young age of twenty-four Bashkirtseff spent most of her brief adult life abroad. With her claims to have lived a life "devoted to her art" her provocative Diary took many by surprise in Russia when it appeared in 1892. In die journal, Bashkirtseff keenly observes and reports the necessary negotiations she practiced in her roles as public woman and private artist. Catriona Kelly has argued that Bashkirtseff s contribudon is significant in that she revealed a woman's unprecedented preoccupation with the development of her individual eg o .K * Indeed Bashkirtseff s primary goal is defined as the successful mastering of her chosen art, painting. Charlotte Rosenthal sees Bashkirtseff s devotion to her art and personal desires as influencing a diverse group of women writers of the Silver Age, including Marina fsvetaeva whose sister Anastasiia documents Marina's worship of Bashkirtseff ^KeIty,A Higtory ofRHsfiVm Women's 155-57. 304 in her memoir.^ But as both Kelly and Rosenthal demonstrate^ Bashkirtseff s influence began even earlier. Bashkirtseff wavers between lamenting the limitations imposed upon her due to her gender and heartily indulging in all things feminine. These "feminine" interests— dress and other material pleasures, in particular— never appear to soften her sense of superiority, rather they enhance it. Her ego and self-confidence allow her to memipulate her beauty to her advantage, to gain the attention of influential artists and critics whose acquaintance she would like to meet, and to engage naive men in a war of wits. Much of Bashkirtseff s text centers on her visual impression, as she alternately aspires toward invisibility and visibility. As a diary, Bashkirtseffs narrative was taken as truth. In the end, however, Bashkirsteva is more a literary phenomenon, the heroine of her diary, than a historical figure of note. Arriving and dying somewhat prematurely to be deemed a genuine new woman, Bashkirtseff may have acted as a prototype for the new ideal who would appear a couple decades later. Her memoir gives testimony not only to her single-minded determination to achieve recognition as an artist, but also to her aspirations toward independence. Indeed, as Rosenthal has argued, Bashkirtseff "expanded the presentation of the female self for a new generation of women.*s But beyond giving the feminine greater range and presence, Bashkirtseff also introduced the pose of the feminine self in society as an intellectual and creative dilemma, one which women would confront more often as they gained greater access to the public sphere, and one which they would manipulate through beauty and dress. * * Rosenthal, "The Silver Age: Highpoint for Women?" 35, K Rosentlwt, "The Silver Age: Highpoint for Women?" 34. 305 Bashkirtseffs successors in Russia were aU o% ved groakr social freedom and soon became keen observers of the urban reality that surrounded them. Ihe independent "I" that Bashkirtseff believed was a prerequisite for all artistic production was slowly afforded women as traditional rules regarding women's presence in society were loosened. Women subsequently engaged independently in more public pastimes such as literary or cultural events, shopping, visiting exhibitions and the cinema. Class distinctions became less apparent after the turn of the century, and while there was a noted "high society" in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg, as the decades progressed the literati themselves were a mixed bunch. Readers of Bashkirtseffs diary were also diverse and might have included vast numbers of middle-class and perhaps lower-class women who could translate Bashkirtseff s bold independence into a search for individuality and accomplishment. They would also appreciate her eye for fashion, which Bashkirtseff indulges throughout her diary. Lengthy passages devoted to die alluring effect of her elegant gowns and "chic" manner of dress are coupled with admissions of her superior intelligence to that of her admirers. In 1908, in the popular women's magazine, ZWies' World, Bashkirtseff was lauded as a pioneer in modem women's fashion.^ She was not credited for liaving impacted Russian fashion directly, although she reputedly made several dresses of her own creation, but for having influenced the master of modem fashion, Frederick Worth. However, a more tangential relationship between Bashkirtsed and women's fashion might have also existed. By bringing Bashkirtseff and her diary to the attention of its subscribers, W ofM an's Cause may have simultaneously prompted the Dian/ to reach beyond the litemti to the more * lulii Ekts, 'Mariia Bashkirtseva kak zaknnodatel'nitaa m o d y m i r , 5 (1908): 5-8. Ironically, not long after this article, the authoi fulii Elets wrote a diatribe against contemporary women's fashion. 306 general reading public. A "hybrid" magazine, to use Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild's term, that combined feminist issues and more popular interests, P V om aM 's C aust? often couched radical ideas in the safe terms of fashion and other "traditiona]" interests.ip Thus, by honoring Bashkirtseffs acknowledged flair for fashion and exquisite taste, the magazine could render Bashkirtseff and die scandalous contents of her Dwyy more palatable to a wider segment of the public. Though suppressed throughout the Soviet period, perhaps the most widely read works by a woman writer in the pre-RevoIutionary years were those of Verbitskaia. During the peak of her fame in the early 1910s, Verbitskaia, author of numerous works of "boulevard" literature, as they were termed at the time, wrote a memoir of her youth entitled To Aiy Reader.' (Moemu chitateliu!). Like her fiction, Verbitskaia's reminiscences are highly detailed in their descriptions of scene, movement, and emotion, a tendency for which the author was often criticized, but which lent her works easily translatable to film. The memoir focuses on the evolution of Verbitskaia's deep appreciation jkr art, which she clearly asserts was taken from the influence of several impressive women who surrounded her in her early life. Though set in the late nineteenth century, Verbitskaia describes her mother, a provincial actress for whom she has tremendous respect, much in terms of the "new woman" of the 1910s: "She had the whole town at her feet. She set the fashion; her gowns were genuinely artistic, carefully designed works of art [...] She couldn't bear anything commonplace.''^*» * 7 Amodier example of this would be thdr feature article on women's ponta, in which Ihe notion of women's equality is subsumed under Hie more dominant topic of the trend in women's fashion to wear pants, a » Anastasia Verbitskaia, "To My Reader," in Russia dinwgh fV oH K T i's E yes." Tsonst Rwssio, eds. Tobv W. Clyman and Judith Vowles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 360. 307 Verbitskaia's fiction repeatedly treats the topic of the "new woman" in various forms: in She Freed H erge//" (O»vobodilos% 190?) the wife of a wealthy man tirelessly gives lessons to that she can live off her own earnings^ in "Her Future" (Ee sud'ba, 1908 [1912]) an independent woman attempts to keep a journal afloat, and in "The Story of a Life" (Istorüa odnoi zhizni, 1903), a woman has relinquished her inheritance to become a doctor. In these tales, all written before 1910, the "new woman" appears to be a product of nineteenth-century radical values, the ideas of Nikolai Chemyshevsky, for example, whose kW rat is to B e Done, the author claims, had a profound impact on her. While at times described as beautiful women, these heroines generally overtly deny any feminine vanity they might be inclined to experience, and reject contemporary styles for more sober clothing. In "Her Future" the journalist is described as dressing "severely" and "all in black," as "in die fashion of the 1880s." The narrator concludes, "She seemed more a beautiful adolescent boy than a woman."^? In the 1910s, particularly in Verbitskaia's blockbuster novel Keys (o Happmess, the "new woman" is updated to reflect the modem values of creativity and artistic inspiration now inherent in the new female types. Mania leltsova, the young heroine of Verbitskaia's novel is perhaps not a true "new woman"; her willingness to submit to the misogynisdc Nilidov has been described by many scholars as antithetical to the more progressive aspirations of women, including those propounded by the political Verbitskaia herself.* In addition. Mania is regularly taken care of, rather than providing for herself, though her career as a Duncanesque modem dancer eventually provides her with economic independence. M A. Verbikkaia, swii'bi (Moscow: 1912), 8, * Laura Engclslein, Key* lo HfypiM cg*, lA e ScarcA/ir A /ftW ernlIy m R M sm w (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 404-414, Rosalind Marsh, "Anastasiia Vcrtiltskaia reconsidered," Cendcr m R ussM M Ukndwnf, 184-205. 308 Despite these contradictions. Mania's unusual position as a modem feminine character stems from her blind pursuit of love and her inability to sense obstacles that might prevent her from reaching these goals. Mania is a tragic character who commits suicide in the end, but her disarming beauty and aura of sensuality become a vehicle for elevating the role of visual artistry in the characterization of new models of femininity. Following the release of a film based on K gys to Happimess, women in Russia's major cities were clamoring to "dress like Mania," in sheer white tunics, and to exude the artistry she embodied. Mania is perhaps a more prototypical "new woman" of the 1910s in that she represents not an idealized type such as the nineteenth-century feminine activists in Verbitskaia's earlier works or the women of numerous male Symbolist poets, but the complex, perhaps conflicted "new woman" of the modem world. After the release of Keys to Happiness, Verbitskaia was labeled by one critic as "Sanin in a skirt" for the purported immorality and explicit sexuality of her novel.^i Critics of Verbitskaia generally belittled her writing, particularly her repetitive prose and excessive descriptive detail, derisively calling her works "women's novels," and lamented her considerable popularity and influence on the public. One article claims that women's novels, such as Verbitskaia's, distinguish themselves from men's novels e u g M in style,92 and indeed Verbitskaia's novels appear to promote an immediacy of experience found in several works by women of the period. Anastasiia Tsevaeva's 1916 novel Sm oke, Sm oke, and Sm oke, her second work of fiction, begins with a warning to readers not to read the work as her own diary, as many had mistakenly read her first publication. She promises, however, that a true diary would be forthcoming, as indeed it Tan (B. G. Bogoraz), "Sanin v iubke," IRLI, f. t]5, op. 1. ed. kh. 15,1.1-Z ^ V, Davydov, A . t'grWkWw f m ' nmiany 'K bwcAi / '(kkh (Moscow: Zlatolwet, 1911), 16. 309 eventually would be, This novel, Ae musiogs of a mod,cm "new woman," instead, would merely convey "genuine, that is constructed impressions," yet the heroine in the novel is conveniently named "Asia," like the author herself, and numerous familiar historical figures appear throughout the work.^ The book begins with a confession from the narrator diat Ae work will make little sense to its readers: My voice— my life— my reading— if s like a secret— a game— Paganini. Like Wilde's speech— everything disappears— and it will be completely incomprehensible— what people find in me! Having bent over my photograph/calling card, which makes me look horrible (ridiculously so), they will be shocked: Where is the beauty? The colors on my lips, the velvet of my smile and glance, the velvet, the violin of my speech— he who reads my books, will not find in them even half of their meaning— because my books— are a violin, but my voice— is the bow. Fine hints of a smile, sarcasm, laughter, sorrow, irony, the lowering, raising of the voice— all disappear.. . — But in Ae room it gave an impression of music, and I was listened to carefully and quiedy.* The importance of Ae work, Ae narra Ar asserts, is its momentary resonance, its claim for listeners among a vast group of awaiting spectators. The sudden proliferation of images of Ashionable women— live, pictorial, or narrative— m Russian culAre m Ae early twentieA cenAry disrupted an environment Aat had long Actated that women remam largely hidden from society. Films, postcards, and magazines that depicted Ae "new woman" and Aus grabbed Ae public's attention were accompanied by short sAries, novels, and plays Aat provided a more compIeA sense of Ae complex emergence of Ae new type. As evident m Ae transition m literature of women's fashionable dress from a one-dimensional marker of women's presumed superficiality A a meAnymic function for Ae new sensibAty reflected in the myAology of the "new woman," women's sartorial revolution figured heavily m Ae Anastasiia Isvetatrva, D ym f, i fiyw (Moscow; Levinson, 1916), 7, * Anastasiia Tsveiaeva, Ovm, ((yw : dym, 13. 310 cultural transformation of women in the early twentieth century. The characterixation of women in Russian literature as victims of society's tremendous force was often replaced by women who had gained greater agency in determining their fate, particularly among several women writers of the period. The widespread influence of autobiography and formal devices of literature Aat provided a sense of immediacy of experience and reported Ae details of contemporary urban life enhanced Ac impact of litera Are m conveying Ae impulses— Award mdependence and creative production— of Ae modem woman. Women progressively sought roles as agents of change wiAm numerous venues, mcluding literaAre, as wiAessed by Ae emergence of numerous "serious" and popular women writers, or on a more "mundane," yet all-pervading level, through Ae vehicle of fashion. 311 CONCLUSION In most histimcal assessments of Russia's late-Imperial period the efforts by women to gain greater political representation have been characterized as feeble and limited in scope. While it is evident that few women at the time would have considered themselves advocates of women's rights, and few groups openly agitated for legal changes, the tendency to measure "emancipation" or gender equality primarily in terms of legislative representation is misleading and only diminishes the importance of substantial gains by women in other spheres of culture. By the turn of the century, for example, women in Russia had been granted access to several institutions of higher learning, and thus many had acquired the skills that prepared them for proikssions, albeit limited in number, in the arts and sciences in particular. While this development, which is regularly noted by historians, was significant in bringing about greater economic and social independence for women, its indirect collective impact on women far outweighed its direct influence on the minority of women who engaged in these activities. Studies that focus on accomplishments that can be measured statistically often fail to provide a sense for indirect consequences, in other words, for the numerous ways in which the tenor or mood of a given period is set, factors that might provide useful in determining, for example, the degree to which Russian women embraced the modem principles of individuality and creative freedom that emerged in the early twentieth century, even if they voiced little open concern for these developments. In Russia, though women seldom gained political or even financial power in the pre-War period, they were for the first time remarkably prgseuf and twWe in the public 312 arena. This public inOuence was coupled with an excitement and palpable orientation toward the future that touched women's lives in many ways, a type of "progressive" movement that, however, cannot easily be measured or documented. In a visual landscape flooded with numerous new stimulants— photography, cinema, modem art, and advertising, to name a few— a claim to such presence was notable, and, as 1 have argued, fueled a transition toward collective acceptance of a radical new model of femininity. In my study I have attempted to demonstrate the ways in which a less quantifiable, deeply complex arena of culture— women's fashion— delivered messages of a modem femininity in ways more conducive to change in Russia than perhaps more overt radical political measures might have been, such as those of their counterparts in several cities of western Europe and the United States. The revolution in women's fashion that emerged to irrevocably transform the arena into a more personal art form was met in Russia with profound interest and fascination. In the early twentieth century, all areas of the fashion industry surged in Russia— ateliers, department stores, and elite salons where new styles were displayed and sold; women's magazines, the cinema, advertisements, and fan postcards where fashions were indirectly or directly promoted— and contributed to the modernization of urban culture that Russia had begun to witness toward the end of the nineteenth century. The brilliant range of colors and fabrics on the Russian market met the potential for newness and fantasy of the designs imported from the West, and the expansive Russian fur industry supplied much of westem demand in addition to its own domestic clientele. The collective preoccupation widi fashion or the "fad" for the new styles, while part of a broader trend toward modem impulses of individualism, also fed an interest in the updated model of 313 femiiürûty ptoposed Üirough these fashions, one (hat embodied the modem principle of creative expression and an orientation forward. By tracing the interest in and influence of the transformed fashion industry in Russia I have sought to slrow how the impulse to create was in itself disruptive of the norm, and how accomplishing a greater and bolder social presence that embodied this principle brought Russian women much closer to many of their westem peers in their understanding of the changing role of women in a modem society. Fashion was never an exclusively feminine sphere, and 1 have not intended to rnirurnize the central position of several men in the creation and proliferation of modern women's fasluons throughout Europe, including Russia, and the United States. In Russia, even among the avant-garde, the artists who chose to apply their ideas to dress design were frequently men. However, the objects designed by these artists, just as those by the prominent couturiers in Russia and abroad, were meant overwhelmingly for women. As I have attempted to demonstrate, in the early twentieth century the world of fashion became a sphere most directly targeted at women, and, more importantly, used by women collectively in their quest (however unwitting) for greater presence and influence in society. Thus a large dimension of tlie fashion system took place once the dresses were released from the designers -male or female— and whatever type of dressmaking process— self, maid, seamstress, couturière— a woman relied upon for her suits and gowns. This process of animating one's toilette was nurtured in Russia by a distinct feminine discourse, one that was conveyed primarily through the vehicle of women's magazines, which themselves witnessed an increased involvement of women in various capacities. Women were encouraged, directly and indirectly, to celebrate the overt 314 sensuality, fantasy, dynamism, imwvaüon, intimidation, and merging of dissonant forms of the new designs. In addition, however, as the craze for fashion continued, various works of art and literature, many by women, began to directly reference this more feminized sphere, as if to draw the viewer into a meta-discursive relationship with the discourse of dress and to ponder the more subtle impulses of these new styles. The fashions stood for change, and an adherence to these styles comprised a degree if complicity in the destabilization of a former ideal. Perhaps most important to this process, given their ubiquity and novelty, were Ihe new vehicles for the dissemination of the images— various silent films, fan postcards, and photographic portraits— that gave women of all classes access to their beaut}'. A century later it is perhaps difhcult to appreciate the impact of the relatively new media — photography and film— that are now so commonplace in contemporary society. But for Russian urban centers in the early twentieth century, the proliferation of photographic images was indeed revolutionary and transforming. As a country that was slow to modernize and urbanize, with a large portion of the urban population at the turn of the century still only barely literate, if at aU , such images carried a tremendous power of persuasion. It is not surprising, therefore, that as visual culture gained a more dominant role in society the female silhouette made a radical departure from pre photographic, pre-dnematic years. I would not claim that the new feminine ide«d that was disseminated through photographic images did not remain an "unrealistic" physical achievement for most Russian women. However, in an age where the sophisticated techniques of photographic manipulation were not presumed on the part of the viewer, photographic images were laden with a degree of truth value. Ihe new ideal was somehow more "real" as a consequence of this influence, more fleshed out in 315 form and detail, And, as I have argned throughout the study, many observers at the time, as well as scholars that have later examined the period, have described the fashions that accompanied the new silhouette as also more "real" and more indicative of a feminine understanding of beauty, A veil of mystery was suddenly lifted from the world of fashion as elements of a woman's toilette were discussed, analyzed, constructed, and revised rather than merely dictated. Despite the emergence of haute couture and what was soon to become an elite community of designers and consumers, the process of creating fashions became transparent for women on all levels. With the introduction of photography and fdm, large portions of the urban public were soon schooled in reading images and the acquisition of these skills is significant However, the impact of these changes in fashion were also reflected in various developments in literature and the arts, and I have attempted to trace the occurrences in several works of the period. I have chosen to focus on works by women writers and artists, primarily the most popular among them, in other words, those who were widely read and seen, to highlight an evolution toward the integration of traditionally "femintne" themes into art by women and the establishment of a (perhaps transitional) type of feminine discourse. Whereas in the nineteenth century the few women who gained prominence often chose to avoid any hint of femininity in their work, in the early twentieth century several women writers and artists embraced what was presumed to be a traditionally feminine topic— women's dress— despite the potential risk of compromising their artistic authority or critical reception. In literature, the trope of fashion begins to function much differently in the modem context, and at times signifies an allegiance with the new feminine ideal, who in the literary context is contained in the mythology of the "new ^ woman." In the Russian 316 mcamation of the type, the "new woman" is often an aggressively femme-fatale- bohemian variant, whose behavior might be described as more avant-garde or socially and aesthetically subversive than politically progressive. "New women" in these works are generally no longer described as victims of a superGcial preoccupation with fashion, or if so, this presumption is often rendered satirically, such as in the works of Teffi. Instead, to be fashionable or even fashionably feminine in the new context is often equated with power and Intimidation. I have also attempted to demonstrate tlrat for Russian women artists, particularly those of the avant-garde, the decision to incorporate elements of contemporary fashion in their paintings or to design dresses and accessories for women and to integrate this work into their artistic systems represents a sincere attempt on their part to further their artistic goals regardless of the degree to which these interests would be read onto their personal mythology. Critical reviews of several women artists of the period reveal a tendency among some to equate women artists negatively with a predisposition for "fashions" in art, used here in the general sense of the term, implying a lack of depth and seriousness traditionally associated with the arena of fashion itself. Yet, despite any apparent risk to their standing as "legitimate" artists, several women artists appear to have sensed the growing dominance and expressive potential of the medium of dress, and took to the task as a serious artistic endeavor. In Russia the "new woman" on occasion also seemed also to be mirrored in the biographies of real women of society. The "new woman" and the new feminine "ideal" are thus closely linked notions, both of which seem most clearly articulated in culture in visual terms. Yet both prompted intellectual debate and introspection that served ultimately to elevate fashion's influence and to allow the "woman question" to endure 317 ag a social and inteHectual dilemma. Fashion's growing influence also forced men and women in sodet)' to more closely examine the personal creative statements (hey made in the theater of everyday life. The flood of visual stimulation in the urban sphere, coupled with innovations in popular dance and sport that evoked a tremendous dynamic impulse, created an aura of excitement that prevailed in Russia until World War I. After the onset of the war, many were quick to fall back on the assumption of fashion as a frivolous materialist concern. In the new war context, one might easily be deemed morally inferior for indulging an interest in fashion and for an implicit rejection of conservative models of gender roles. Fashion enthusiasts slowly retreated and rather than risk public chastisement fed their interest in the new styles vicariously through the cinema and photographic reproductions. The most dominant image of a Russian woman of H ie war period, one common to women's periodicals, was soon the woman who had relinquished fashionable attire for the sober uniform of a volunteer nurse. While elements of independence and mobility were preserved in the fashions that emerged during the war period, they were not flaunted as openly as in the more euphoric years leading up to the war. What most women learned in the pre-War years is that fashion is what we make of it. War guilt hampered Aeir abilities to do just that, though their interest and sympathies may have never waned. Yet, even during this bleak period of war, one must concede that fashion allowed the "new woman" and the "woman question" to more subtly infiltrate culture. Fashion remained a debated, intellectual task, an unresolved question looking forward in anticipation of resolution. It held the perhaps naïve promise of a world after war. 318 My study ends before the Revolution, but the periods that follow, the Soviet and post-Soviet eras also merit a closer look at the evolution of fashion in relation to models of feminifdty. Much scholarship has been written about the radical utopian experiments of the Constructivists in the 1920s and Ae folk-inspired work of several other artists who exhibited at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925. These various movements of the 1920s kept alive the sartorial spirit of the immediate pre-war years, and the discourse of fashion and analytical approach to dress continued to evolve and become more explicit as some chose to take a more programmatic approach to the medium. Many began to explore more openly the role of fashion as an agent of change, not merely for women, but for all members of the new communist society. Several of these experiments appear to reach back to the pre-RevoIutionary period for inspiration. Indeed several artists began their work before the transfer of power. Nadezhda Lamanova and Alexandra Exter, for example, apphed principles of construction and design that were dominant in their work of the pre-Revolutionary period. The Constructivists pursued a system of total aesdietic that shared much in common with the avant-garde experiments of the pre-Revolutionary years, while imposing the geometric model of abstract art onto the physical form of dress. Such experiments were met with limited success among the public and remained more artistic innovations than practical styles, but they drew upon the potential for artistry in dress that had developed in the pre-war years. Perhaps more symptomatic of the ideal of a revolutionary fashion were the propaganda textiles of the 1920s. Ihese designs and also the workers' costumes or pm zodtfzlidg of the Constructivists appear to have represented too direct an assault on the complex world of fashion. Ihe imposition of a political reality on a world that expressed 319 its sympathies in a more nuanced, indirect manner ultimately failed as the ''uniforms" of die new men and women of the revolutionary society were, it appeaurs, largely rqected by the general public. ITie system was by this point far too complex to be reduced to mere dictates from the experts. The new designs left little room for individuality, a crowning achievement of the new women's fashions of the pre-War period; in fact the Soviet fashions were intended instead to erase any sense of individuality, or even gender distinctions, from dress. A uniform by dehnition is largely antithetical to modem fashion. These Soviet experiments also contrasted gready with the styles that gained in popularity during the period of the New Economic Policy, when the fashions paralleled developments emerging from the West. Before long, either through propaganda or by default, the NEP designs were identified as the enemy of the new political ideal. They were symbolic of the old order and flaunted the decadent principles of consumerism and individualism rejected by the new state. The strength of the revolution in women's dress in the pre-war period appears to have derived largely from the will of the public, in particular the women who welcomed an opportunity to transform the new exciting styles into their own, and to carry this momentum for change forward. Those who participated in the fashion system of the early twentieth century could remain close enough to a prevailing norm as to not threaten their legitimacy in the eyes of their peers, while perhaps subconsciously enjoying the disruptive potential of the medium to subvert the status quo. It was an ideal if naïve combination of forces. In die Soviet era, the attempt to control the way members of society dressed mimicked similar efforts in numerous other arenas of culture. Yet it would be interesting to determine the outcome of these efforts. It appears that the Soviet government cared 320 little about this element of daily life or it simply failed to regulate dress as it did institutions of art, literature, and film, among others. Perhaps by ultimately settling upon a more "bourgeois," and for women traditionally feminine, standard of dress, society sought to defy an element of Soviet authoritarian rule. However, by adhering to such fashions women were steeped in nostalgia for an alternative, past culture rather than participating in a dynamic system oriented toward the future. The evolution of designs in Russia to a degree paralleled most transitions in the West, yet it preserved more "ferninine" distinctions (such as skirts, frills and flounces). Whereas styles for men and women grew progressively closer to each other in the West, particularly among the youth, in Russia these differences remained more pronounced. One might consider whether these preserved distinctions have any relationship to the gender inequality that is known to have endured throughout the Soviet era, despite the call for equality following the communist revolution. Throughout the Soviet era the bourgeois fashions of the late-Imperial period were often characterized as agents of a materialistic, capitalist enemy that exploited most members of society and created a grim situation for many women as the objects of male desire. In contrast to these assertions, more recent studies of late-Imperial Russia, while identifying ways in which economic policies of a market-driven system often posed a direat for individuals, particularly those of the poorer classes, have demonstrated the ways in which the modem consumer culture offered women an opportunity to come to the fore. "The" popular art of fashion in particular allowed many women not only to gain influence through presence in this period, but to internalize some of the ke)' principles of an evolving modem femininity they may have otherwise rejected. 321 BIBLIOGRAP^IY Abelson, Elaine, S. G (; ( 'Z ass N fzopZ^erg m Ae VirZonaff O gpayZ m cm Z Sim;. New York: ( KiuiU I !ni\ », i\ Press, 1989. 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Creator Durst, Elizabeth M. (author)

Core Title A cut above: Fashion as meta -culture in early -twentieth -century Russia

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Slavic Languages and Literatures

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Design and Decorative Arts,Literature, Slavic and East European,OAI-PMH Harvest,women's studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor [illegible] (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Troy, Nancy J. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-480233

Unique identifier UC11340060

Identifier 3133262.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-480233 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3133262.pdf

Dmrecord 480233

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Durst, Elizabeth M.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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