The empire's new clothes
By: Christine Ruane.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9780300141559
Subjects: Clothing and dress -- Russia -- History; Clothing trade -- Russia -- History; Russia -- History -- 1613-1917
Description: "This book explores the impact of Westernization on Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth 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, political, 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 formed a new national identity."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The emperor's new clothes : the creation of a fashion industry; title: The gendering of sewing in Russia; title: The rise of ready-to-wear; title: The fashion press in imperial Russia; title: Clothes shopping in imperial Russia; title: Adorned in dreams : clothing and national identity; title: Adorned in dreams : fashion, labor, and politics; title: The war on fashion.