Author Topic: The Empire's New Clothes: A History of the Russian Fashion Industry, 1700-1917  (Read 2915 times)

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Offline pookiepie

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by Christine Ruane, Christine Ruane   (Hardcover - New Edition)
    * ISBN: 0300141556
    * Publisher: Yale University Press
    * Pub. Date: May 2009

From BN: 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.

Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Fashion and Ethnicity 4
Fashion and Social Status 8
Fashion and Gender 12
Fashion and Capitalism 14
Sources 16
1 The Emperor's New Clothes: The Creation of a Fashion Industry 19
2 The Gendering of Sewing in Russia 43
3 The Rise of Ready-to-Wear 67
4 The Fashion Press in Imperial Russia 87
5 Clothes Shopping in Imperial Russia 115
6 Adorned in Dreams: Clothing and National Identity 151
7 Adorned in Dreams: Fashion, Labor, and Politics 183
Epilogue 237
Notes 243
Index 264

Looks cool. As soon as I get my first paycheck, I'll be buying this. Can't wait :)