How one woman made a "beautiful revolution" in the USSR: Alla Levashova's fashion

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Many of us associate Soviet fashion with harsh prohibitions and a disheartening assortment of shops, scarcity and blacksmiths, at best, with the clatter of a sewing machine behind the wall. However, there were also gifted fashion designers in the USSR who dreamed of dressing compatriots in beautiful and comfortable outfits. One of the most important figures in Soviet fashion was Alla Levashova - the woman who changed everything.

Alla Levashova was born in 1918, in a creative Moscow family - her mother is an artist, sisters and brother also linked their lives with creativity. In 1914, Levashova graduated from the Moscow Textile Institute. Already in her student years, she showed herself to be a talented and proactive organizer, a real leader - on her initiative, a department of fashion designers appeared at the institute. The next few years she gave to the Stanislavsky Moscow Opera and Drama Studio, where she served as a production designer. And finally, in 1949, Alla Levashova came to work in the Soviet fashion industry - the All-Union House of Fashion Models.

There Levashova quickly achieved success. She knew very well the technology of making clothes, she was excellent at cutting, she had impeccable taste, but … Alla herself was dissatisfied with her work. Yes, her projects appeared on the pages of magazines and at exhibitions, she was praised by her leaders and respected by her colleagues. She did not have to deal with production and sales market restrictions - and this was what upset Levashova! The fashion house created exclusive collections that did not reach the general consumer. Ordinary Soviet women could only sigh, looking at photographs and drawings, and try to reproduce what they saw on their own. Fashion designers did not find connections with production, and production was in no hurry to release something new - it was believed that people could be content with faceless, boring things made of unpleasant, faded, but solid and non-staining fabrics.

And Levashova began to plan a revolution. She didn't want to dress the elite and stay on the pages of magazines - she wanted to change Soviet fashion. She wrote many articles and letters, at every opportunity, in each of her speeches and even in private conversation, she set up that fashion and production should unite - and, of course, serve the Soviet people. She insisted that beautiful clothes make everyday life more pleasant, and labor activity - more effective, has a positive effect on the personal life of citizens and the strength of marriage (in a conservative environment, such arguments had to be used!). It offered a three-stage system - making unique experimental prototypes, producing limited editions, and then introducing innovations into mass production. There was nothing risky or radical in this - but Levashova's approach was initially wary at first "at the top" …

However, in 1962, Levashova finally achieved the creation of the Special Artistic and Design Bureau of the Ministry of Light Industry (SHKB). She herself headed it, but the real “heads” of the bureau were talented fashion designers who knew how to work in industry and find a compromise between a creative impulse and real production. The workflow has been drastically rebuilt compared to the Model House. A thorough analysis of the production capabilities of light industry enterprises was carried out. The method of “one base” was used - on the basis of one pattern, production lines of models with different finishes and patterns, from different fabrics, with minimal changes in cut were created. So, without significant production sacrifices, it became possible to update the assortment. Elegant jackets without a collar appeared on sale, trapeze dresses - in the spirit of Cardin, but with folk embroidery and lace. Bolognese coats with decorative quilting were very popular. The bureau even put into production women's trousers! And, of course, evening dresses are simple, no frills, but comfortable and attractive.

Alla Levashova was one of the first to campaign for the creation of beautiful home clothes - factories began to produce elegant dressing gowns and pajamas with neat finishes. She was personally involved in the development of medical uniforms and work uniforms.

SHKB established international relations. Thanks to Alla Levashova, SKhKB officially handed over some patterns to Dior. True, the things sewn according to them remained in the archives of the bureau - for a Soviet consumer they would have to be radically altered. In general, the archives of the SKhKB boggle the imagination - there are thousands of sketches, models, experimental patterns, including patterns of French fashion houses transferred under a contract … Today, part of the archives can be seen at exhibitions dedicated to Soviet design - recently, research on the socialist heritage has become very popular …

Graphic designers were actively working at the SKhKB - they developed brand signs, logos and entire corporate styles, for example, Mikhail Shvartsman, an iconic artist of the second wave of the Russian avant-garde, worked there. In general, the atmosphere that reigned in the SKhKB resembled the one in which Russian constructivism and Suprematism flourished. Fashion designers studied primitive and folk art, argued, experimented … Of course, not all of their ideas reached the consumer - but those whose designs were commercially successful received awards. The incentive system at SKhKB worked in such a way that the designers retained the desire to bring their projects to life.

Alla Levashova was married twice. Her children preferred other spheres of activity to art and fashion - her daughter, Tatyana Oskolkova, became a translator, her son, Alexei Levashov, chose the career of an engineer. Her dream was to open her own SHKB store, where the most interesting things would be sold - but a serious illness prevented her from realizing another daring plan.