The Empire's New Clothes: A History of the Russian Fashion Industry, 1700-1917

by Christine Ruane

In 1701 Tsar Peter the Great decreed that all residents of Moscow must abandon their traditional dress and wear European fashion.  Those who produced or sold Russian clothing would face “dreadful punishment.” Peter’s dress decree, part of his drive to make Russia more like Western Europe, had a profound impact on the history of Imperial Russia.

 

This engrossing book explores the impact of Westernization on Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries and presents a wealth of photographs of ordinary Russians in all their finery. Christine Ruane draws on memoirs, mail-order catalogues, fashion magazines, and other period sources to demonstrate that Russia’s adoption of Western fashion had symbolic, economic, and social ramifications and was inseparably linked to the development of capitalism, industrial production, and new forms of communication.  This book shows how the fashion industry became a forum through which Russians debated and formulated a new national identity.

Genres: Fashion, History, Russia, Nonfiction

276 pages, Hardcover

First published May 19, 2009

Reviews

[Inna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview on the emergence and development of fashion industry in the post-Petrine Russian empire. The author discusses the emergence of fashion journals, the developing modes of production, including the gradual de-skilling of tailoring and the victory of ready-made clothing and of sub-contracted sweatshops over the traditional artisanal establishments, as well as fashion as an expression of both European and Russian allegiances within the society, varying in proportion during different time periods.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruane has written a well-researched and in-depth book about a little-studied subject. This book is not only a chronology but a sociological study with a feminist twist. It uses illustrations, quotations from newspapers and magazines, contemporary statistics, and documents about workers conditions to build a multi-layered history of the Russian fashion industry from Peter the Great to the Russian Revolution.

Interesting themes that run throughout include the debate over the "Russianness" of wearing certain fashions and how "Russian" clothing fell in and out of favor and was even used to make a political statement; how women, though just as skilled as their male counterparts, were undervalued as workers and artisans; and how an early form of globalization helped to inject new ways of doing business and new technology into the Russian fashion industry. Ruane also does not neglect the part played by the media and the government.

Russia's grappling with its values and nationalism through dress is an integral part of its fashion industry's development, an aspect that might have been lost in a less robust history of the subject. The influence of Leon Bakst is another interesting aspect of the book, with his name appearing sporadically and photos of Ballet Russes-inspired clothing gracing the pages.

Ruane wisely ends her book just as the Bolsheviks take power. However, her dropping of names of those who were instrumental in the fashion and art scene of post-imperial and early Soviet years, such as Popova, makes a follow-up to this book a tantalizing possibility.

[Bern · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book suffers from what almost every historical survey suffers. It tries to covers too much in too small and contained a place, and as a result the end result is retaining new information without feeling like there was a coherent and strong historical argument. Which might seem a little odd for a book about as niche a topic as the imperial Russian fashion industry, but I promise it's true.

A lot of Ruane's arguments remain underdeveloped, but this was helpful in giving context, and so I would say that I'm disappointed to have read it, or that this book didn't need to be written. If anything it shows the amount of scholarship that should be happening, but isn't. Scholarship that I hope to one day contribute to.

I will say one comment. We need to talk more about the Empire part of the Russian Empire. All this talk about westernization and slavophilism and not enough talk about how these are in fact two ends of a the same spectrum of empire. Ewa Thompson, I need more people like you.

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous style. I'll admit- this wasn't one I read cover to cover but glanced mostly as the photos to see style trends. Amazing detail. Well presented.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Empire's New Clothes" is a broad discussion of the history of the Russian fashion industry from Peter the Great to the Revolution. Through this book, we see Peter the Great's wishes come true: by the time of the Revolution, the main participants all identified strongly with a Western look. Ruane shows this through a number of levels: fabrics and industry, working organization, and attitudes toward dress. (She's especially on-target when she discusses how sewing machines had become part of the package of ideas around women.) The book is lavishly illustrated with photos and art. (Indeed, the book ranks highly as one of the best illustrated historical works I've found.) On the downside, the author's comments on sewing style are sometimes curious (is she a seamstress? How does she know a specific cut signals bad tailoring?), and the book, due to its panoramic organization, seems to touch on major topics only briefly before moving on.

[Ekaterina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject, but the writing style is a bit dull.