Late Soviet Fashion (expanded)

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The four grace. Typical outfit on subbotnik (neighbourhood clean up). Training pants, rubber boots, jumpers.

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The typical clothes of the “correct” soviet youth (not the stylish) in summer: shirts, pants, gumshoes. The senior is in a blazer and sandals.

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This is some kind of student assembly. Which means people are dressed up. The most solemn clothes are mainly blazers. Some people have turtlenecks or pullovers under the blazers. Overall pretty neat.

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The winter apparel, especially in Siberia, was pretty solid. On the picture almost everyone is dressed in the same kind of coat. The guy in the back left is wearing some imported nylon jacket (possibly of a Romanian brand “Tabani”). The one to the right is in a sheepskin coat. Almost everyone is wearing ushanka hats. To the right there is a woman in a fur coat made of patches.

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Here is another sample of, so to speak, fashion. Fall. To the left is a guy in a checked coat, which was popular in the USSR in 1970s. To the right there is a rather fashionable guy wearing a close-fitting jacket with a strap. His hat though… and those pads on his feet. Overall the whole group makes an impression of kids from poor neighbourhoods. But I assure you, these are not poor kids. These are regular clothes. Everybody was dressed like this, including me.

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Here is another winter group. Again: coats with fur collars, ushanka hats, pants, heavy boots (not Martins, this is a local brand “Scorohod”).

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This is a group of young people before going to some demonstration (judging by the posters on the background, it is a November 7th Demonstration). Consider that for the events like that people put on the best clothes they have.

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This is some kind of open air party. The girl to the left is wearing a pot-cap and a jacket with some weird looking dress under it. Two girls on the right are in checked coats. In the center there is a girl in a rather fashionable light coat.

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Here is summer clothing on some kind of picnic. The right girl is in a training suit with a sweater on top. The guy in the center is also wearing sport clothes. To the left the girl is dressed in a fashionable top. And the kid at the bottom is in a typical checked shirt and a weird-looking cap.

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This is most likely subbotnik – the Saturday trash pick up. Consider that every soviet citizen had set of working clothes for such events as a trash pick, or harvest gathering (people had to attend these events).

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This is a potato harvesting event. By the way, do you have a padded jacket in your closet? No? what would you wear if you are sent to pick potatoes tomorrow? Every Soviet citizen had one.

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Girls on the potato event. The shawls on their heads are so cute.

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Somewhere on a resort. Here the clothes are a bit more smart. The guy to the left is dressed in pants (not jeans!). On his feet there are some Soviet tennis shoes; orange or blue t-shirt; fashionable rubber strap. To the right there is also a typical for the Union character. Stylish guys overall.

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This is a tourist camp. The girl is wearing a typical blue training suit. A lot of people had those. The girl on the background has the same one.

So, as we may see, there was not much fashion in the USSR. A soviet citizen bought what was available, and the more imported clothes one had, the more stylish he or she was. And it didn’t matter at all that different elements of the outfit didn’t go along with each other. Because most of the people couldn’t afford themselves foreign clothes, everyone was dressed uniformly and boring.

Information is taken from the forum “USSR – the lost paradise?”

http://izmail.es/forums/printthread.php?t=7481&pp=10&page=33 author – the user “Птиц”.