CREAM OF THE CROP
Several models wearing woven wicker garments from Sarah Burton’s Spring 2011 Collection for the eponymous fashion label Alexander McQueen, almost appeared to have walked right out of a revolutionary Soviet textile, straight onto the runway... Though the socialist designers may have found the runway looks a bit more literal than intended, the ensembles undoubtedly would have advanced the proletariat agricultural ideals to center stage.
Printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa 1924 - 1925 • O. Griun • The V. Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
“The ‘20s and ‘30s of post-revolutionary Russia was a dynamic time in which Soviets refashioned their entire socio-cultural program on a massive scale. Factory designers, workers, and consumers, engaged with state ideology to shape a design tradition that is historically unique and had a lasting impact. The textile industry of old imperial Russia, the largest industrial employer before World War I, was in store for a Bolshevik makeover. A few committed artist-designers who were promoting Productivism, scientific design and manufacturing for the socialist cause, began working in the same factories as the well-trained textile factory workers. They turned everyday cotton into the stuff that modern day designers dream of... By 1928, students were moving in more symbolic and representational design directions. Textiles were seen as a ready vehicle for the political rhetoric of the young Socialist in a manner similar to graphic design and other forms for agitprop... Motifs promoting agriculture as the foundation of Soviet culture were popular with designers. This is perhaps due in part to an idyllic belief that Soviet agriculture and industry were interdependent... Some images presented a rather fanciful view of farm life, while others depicted the blurred boundaries between wheat and machine. The harsh reality of national famine was also ironically subdued with themes of agricultural abundance in which boundless sheathes of wheat and overflowing baskets crowded a textile landscape” • Selling the Farm: Textile Design in Early Soviet Society by Jessica Allee • All runway images courtesy of Vogue
Printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa Late 1920’s - Early 1930’s • Anonymous • Russian Museum, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Printed sateen fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa Late 1920’s - Early 1930’s • Anonymous • Russian Museum, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa Late 1920’s - Early 1930’s • Anonymous • Russian Museum, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Agricultural motif printed cotton entitled The Collectivization • Circa Late 1920’s • V. Maslov • The I. Yasinskaya Collection, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Soviet Agricultural Propaganda Poster • Circa 1945 • Vladimir Petrovich Dobrovol'skii • Image courtesy of Poster Plakat
Industrial printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa 1930 • N. Vassiliéva • Image courtesy of La Mode en Union Soviétique : 1917-1945 by Tatiana Strijénova
Soviet Agricultural Propaganda Poster • Circa 1946 • V. Klimashin • Image courtesy of Antikbar
Agricultural motif printed cotton entitled Rye • Circa 1930 • Bobyshev • Russian Museum, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Industrial printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa 1930 • Anonymous • Image courtesy of La Mode en Union Soviétique : 1917-1945 by Tatiana Strijénova
Industrial printed cotton fabric featuring a wheat motif • Circa Late 1920’s • M. Anoufriéva • Image courtesy of La Mode en Union Soviétique : 1917-1945 by Tatiana Strijénova
Industrial printed fabric featuring a Hammer & Sickle motif • Circa 1923 • Constantine Youone • Image courtesy of La Mode en Union Soviétique : 1917-1945 by Tatiana Strijénova
Soviet Agricultural Propaganda Poster • Circa 1931 • Dmitrii Stakhievich Moor • Image courtesy of Poster Plakat
Industrial printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa 1924 - 1925 • S. Burylin • Russian Museum, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Industrial printed cotton fabric featuring an agricultural motif • Circa 1924 - 1925 • S. Burylin • Russian Museum, Leningrad • Image courtesy of Revolutionary Textile Design : Russia in the 1920’s and 1930’s by I. Yasinskaya
Soviet propaganda poster for a high harvest • Circa 1946 • Viktor Ivanov • Image courtesy of Antikbar
