NEWS FOR WOMEN Russians Are Becoming More Fashion-Conscious

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28129, 19 November 1956, Page 2

NEWS FOR WOMEN Russians Are Becoming More Fashion-Conscious

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

LONDON, November 18.

Foreign tourists visiting the Soviet Union this year are taking away with them the impression that Russians are gradually becoming fashion-conscious, after many years of apparent indifference to dress standards set by the Western world, says Fraser Wighton. The new process is slow and is hampered by the limited quantity and poor quality of certain kinds of consumer goods. Th© shops of Moscow, Which presumably get the best that is available in the Soviet Union, do not begin to compare with those of any modern Western city on either side of the Atlantic. But visitors who have returned to the Soviet Union this summer after an absence of, say, two years, have noticed a marked improvement in the standard of women’s dress.

The change in men’s attire is less perceptible, though it is significant that a daily dress show presented by one of Moscow’s leading stores includes a -show of male attire modelled by a rather self-conscious middle-aged man. This one-hour daily dress show is organised on Western lines with a woman commentator, who evidently has price, detail and size of the goods displayed, memorised down to the last detail. To the visitor the show strikes an original note for it demonstrates an effort, usually lacking in the shop windows, to present clothes at their most attractive.

One of the most defeating aspects of “window shopping” for the Moscow visitor is the absence of any evidence of flair for, display. The general effect is a jumble. Tailor’s dummies are not used to thd best advantage and many of the gowns and suits on view appear to have been slung on to the lay figure by someone who was completely indifferent to the effect produced. Peasant Taste

To get the picture in perspective, it is necessary to realise that Russia is, predominantly, a peasant country and that the street crowds which help to make up Moscow’s millions include many visitors from the surrounding rural areas. Their standards of dress are very low by comparison with those of any Western European country—though it could probably be argued

Well Tailored

that the “shawled” workers of some of Britain’s industrial areas are just as humbly garbed. Among the city women in Moscow clothes are often neat and serviceable, but there are few, even among the most youthful and good-looking, who would evoke the comment "that’s a smartly-dressed girl.” Many, though far from dowdy, just stop short of distinction in their appearance. The average Russian woman is bililt on stalwart lines, and some are evidently strangers to the art of corsetting, with the result that their "line" suffers. Nevertheless women are much better dressed than the men. A fondness for wide-bottomed trousers and overlong coat sleeves, displayed everywhere in Moscow, might well, leave the Western visitor with the impression that some of the men have put on other peoples’ suits by mistake. Occasionally the perfectly-groomed male is seen in Moscow. An example is the Prime Minister (Marshal Bulganin). He is usually seen in clothes of good quality and impeccable cut. On the other hand, Mr Nikita Khrushchev, Secretary of the Communist Party, could not, by Western standards, be considered a credit to his tailor. He favours the wide trousered type of suit beloved of so many of his countrymen. Because he and Marshal Bulganin are seen together so frequently, the difference *in their sartorial taste is emphasised.

The Foreign Secretary (Mr Dmitri Shepilov) whose tall, broad shouldered figure does .credit to a good suit, is another well-tailored man. Some of the best-dressed women are to be found in the artistic world. Leading ballerinas of the Bolshoi Theatre, for instance, wear finely-modelled clothes with distinction.

Clothes are once more beginning to have a place in the social scheme of things. Functions at which everyone wears evening dress are rare, but a kind of half-way’compromise has been reached. During the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recent visit to Moscow, the enthusiastic Russian audience, which included the cream of the capital's intelligentsia, included many men in dress suits and women in low-cut gowns.