Pravda’s Great Leap Forward

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 4

Pravda’s Great Leap Forward

[A Sub-leader in the “Guardian,” Manchester] A great truth dawned yesterday (December 20, 1965) on “Pravda”—clothes interest women. For the first time in its history, that relentless newspaper published a woman’s fashion story. And eight pictures of clothes. It must have been a triumphant moment for the Russians. Their revolution will soon be 50 years old and so far, apparently. their clothes have been beneath discussion. They must obviously have been wearing something since 1917, but they did not care to talk about it. Not much anyway.

And when they did they spoke slightingly, on the whole, about the things they were being asked to wear. The more so because the notion seems to have been gaining ground that a Soviet citizen has a duty to look smart or even (in the opinion of N. Lvov, writing last year in “Soviet Moldavia”) beautiful. “The outward appearance of the builder of communism must correspond to his inner beauty and essence. Let our tailors and shoemakers keep that in mind.” Mr Lvov had been badly disappointed in the work of Soroka Clothing Factory No. 4, the Ungen Consumer Ser-

vice Combine and a shoe factory called Benderi No. 3. “Krokodil” joined in with a pointed inquiry as to why a provincial clothing store — the Belgorod Gorpromtorg—had ordered 110,000 roubles’ worth of black plush jackets. Nobody in their senses, said “Krokodil” reasonably enough, would wear a black plush jacket There is no accounting for taste, though, in Russia or anywhere else. Last year, apparently, Russian men took to wearing mauve evening suits.