But there were always shortages. In the exhibit, Dyogot has included many such personal stories. Another story tells of a horrified girl coming home to find her supremely practical grandmother cleaning the house while wearing her father's underwear. It wasn't all about ideology. Certainly the Soviet authorities had a stated interest in stamping out bourgeois decadence.
Ancient stockings made into rag rugs bring cries of recognition at the exhibit.
Dyogot remembers making and remaking her dead great-grandfather's warm winter underwear into sweat shirts for herself. By the 1990s, underwear had become a symbol of new freedom, and Russian women were eagerly replacing their unisex Soviet sweat pants with skimpy French negligees. Even today, marketing specialists say, lingerie is one area where any Russian woman who can afford it will never buy Russian. But they have no doubt whatsoever that buying Russian lingerie would be a mistake. Something not silk, something rough.