Fashion and Socialism: The Politics of Dress in the Cold War Era

Catalog description

This course analyzes the relationship between fashion and politics in the former state socialist regimes of the Soviet Bloc (Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Cuba) during the Cold War, with a brief cameo of China. Mainly characterized by state ownership of the means of production, centralized planning, and communist party rule, the communist regimes addressed fashion as a capitalist phenomenon, implementing strategies to transform people"s sartorial practices. Students will understand fashion as both an instrument of power and a vehicle of political critique and change. Beginning with an introduction to material culture and fashion studies, the course proceeds to an examination of the ways in which those regimes manipulated fashion to legitimize their power, followed by an examination of the sartorial practices citizens developed to assimilate, adapt, and resist dominant sartorial styles. Students will examine literature from the humanities and social sciences, documentaries, movies, and primary sources, including fashion magazines and clothes.