Hats from beyond the Iron Curtain

[mineral]

I ran into these clips of the Soviet 1984 October Revolution parade in the Red Square on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk1wj2ryS0E&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDDh9cmz1cY&feature=related

and I noticed that not only the top men (seen about the 4:00 mark of the first clip) but also the commoners in the audience (seen about the last 20 seconds of the second) were all wearing a hat of some sort (whether fedoras or ushankas).

I was wondering then if the hat tradition had ever died in the Soviet Union. Were the men just wearing hats just because of the ocassion, or did the Soviets wore hats on a daily basis all the way into the 1980's? And did they make their own hats, or did they sneak in "capitalist" Borsalinos and Stetsons for their own comfort?

Do excuse me if the answer is "well known" or blindingly obvious. I am a bit too young to know too much about the daily lives of the Soviets, but too curious not to ask.

 

[deanglen]

Very interesting question. Someone here should know.





dean

 

[vonwotan]

Unfortunately I don't really know the answer to your question but, from our last trip to Russia, it did seem that there were more people wearing hats that many other places we have visited.

I would imagine that with the cold weather and lack of certain amenities well into the 1980's hats and warm winter coats would be a practical necessity for some folks.

I'm a big fan of the Persian Lambswool hats and, would love to find one of the greatcoats finished with a persian lambswool collar. For more casual dress I would be happy with one of those heavy lined leather coats that were favorites in certain cold war spy movies. I grow less tollerant of the cold all the time so these things come to mind when our local temperatures dip below freezing...

 

[metropd]

Wow, this is one of the most interesting posts I have ever seen on the Fedora Lounge.:eusa_clap :eusa_clap

If you look at pictures of people standing in long lines at markets(simplisticy put-due to the command economies destruction of the price mechanism)in the CCCP in the 1980's, you will see many people wearing hats.

Also my belief, just a guess... is that tradition was held very strongly and due to being cut off from most market economies things like mens hats continued into the 1980's. The influence of western pop culture and constant fashion trends did not penetrate a society where the whole economy, culture, government, lifestyle was dictated and planned out by a central planning agency.

 

[metropd]

Also countries like the DDR (East Germany)were producing mens dress hats. I would not be surprised if countries from the Warsaw Pact such as the DDR were supplying hats to the Russians.

It would be very intersting to know if a custom hatters business was publically or privatley owned. Some weapons companies by the 1980's were allowed to be privatley owned with strict regulation. Just a guess but by the Brezhnev era consumerism, corruption, and even organized crime started to plague the Soviet Elite. I would not be surprised soon after if western items such as hats from market economies say borsalino for example began to trickle their way into a soviet citizens wardrobe.

 

[vonwotan]

This article doesn't really discuss hats or specific clothing in the former USSR however, the section on Soviet Style mentions the development of a "clothing production industry" instead of a "fashion industry" based on "fashion trends approved by the all-Union conferences."

From this I would think like so many other industries, fashion and design would have stalled. With a focus on production, I would guess that the clothing available to most consumers would not have changed much.

My apologies gents - I forgot to include the link:

http://www.mnweekly.ru/lifestyle/20070802/55265279.html

 

[metropd]

This article doesn't really discuss hats or specific clothing in the former USSR however, the section on Soviet Style mentions the development of a "clothing production industry" instead of a "fashion industry" based on "fashion trends approved by the all-Union conferences."

From this I would think like so many other industries, fashion and design would have stalled. With a focus on production, I would guess that the clothing available to most consumers would not have changed much.

Very well said.; I couldn't of said it better!

 

[metropd]

Soviet Style mentions the development of a "clothing production industry" instead of a "fashion industry" based on "fashion trends approved by the all-Union conferences."

Ohhh my god, blue overalls are sooooo last decades 5 year plan, don't you know black overalls with the faded hammer and sickle are in.

 

[mineral]

Ohhh my god, blue overalls are sooooo last decades 5 year plan, don't you know black overalls with the faded hammer and sickle are in.

HA! That's a good one. :eusa_clap

Thanks for all the replies! Does anyone else want to have a go at the question?

 

[HungaryTom]

Iron curtain VS fashion

Mineral,

I am Hungarian. I was 14 when our family left from behind the Iron Curtain to West Germany for 3 years-once we returned finally in Hungary in 1989 it did break down.

The ‘real existing socialism’ as a system was different in the 1920-1930s, in the 1950s, 1980s. As it faded, more and more ‘privileges’ were allowed for the people. When Stalin deliberately starved 8 million Ukrainians to death in the 1930s -this was the Holodomor- and did the Great Terror, you can imagine that fashion was not the priority. After WW2, the loss of 20 million people when they had to did re-build the country with POWs and deported people and all the rest you can guess that fine gear was not the first concern either.

Fashion and those things were actually more coming after Stalin died, so it begun after the 1960s.

The Soviet Union was ultimately collapsing since they spent waaay to much on the arms race and empire building (financing their pro Soviet regimes and political/guerilla movements throughout Africa, Asia, Latin-America etc.)

Example: my father told that e.g. the equipment of a hospital in Siófok (look it up at wikipedia, this town exists) was 'voluntarily donated to our brothers in Vietnam', shipped to Vietnam ( I presume at the Hungarian state's costs) during the Vietnam war and there a US air raid destroyed it lets say within a half hour. The renovation of the hospital in Hungary was postponed thereby by a decade or so.

Another example: in Ethiopia the East German doctors were flying in supplies for themselves and to distribute it to the people I assume that was also not cheap.

Neither were the gazillions of SS20 missiles, the submarines, Navy vessels, tanks, Mig jets etc...and ultimately the adventure in Afghanistan.

In other words the emphasis was not put on the people's personal welfare. Then there were naturally places where it was a bit different: Hungary took loans in the 1970s to improve the people’s living standards. But we were the paradise for the Soviet soldiers stationed here. I don’t know how the Soviet Union really was.

Ushankas: it was an essential winter headgear since in the Russian winter anyone’s ANYONE’S hairs and ears fall off if no FUR cap - yes fur cap covers the head. (Inuit and the aboriginals of Siberia -Tchutcks, Evenki, Njenec, etc.- all have head coverings in the harsh winter.) In Siberia there is a plenty of mink, sable, foxes etc. bred and hunted for this purpose, so the furs are there. My grandma visited the soviet union in 1980s and she told that Ushankas were given to people against tickets and low prices this means that it was not a consumer society like purchase but a state sponsored one. On the other hand one had to wait for the item and one got one cap each few year or so. It was an economy of demand not supply.
And consider that Ushankas are something like the berets for the French, Western hats for Texans, so it is not an issue of being modern or not...it will last forever until there are Russians.

My dad had a nutria fur cape he purchased in Poland when we were there for skiing in Zakopane.

Fedoras: it is not that difficult to produce the raw hat bodies and to block them, I am sure that there were hat factories in the Soviet Union too. After the collapse of the socialist system in 1989 most state owned companies did break down, the garment industry has changed profoundly. This is true for Hungary, I don’t think it would be different in the former CCCP.

Felt hats: since the felters are still active in the countries of the former Soviet block (even US hatters buy in many cases their hat bodies from the Czech republic) there was no difficulty to get felt hat bodies. I have a custom hatter in Budapest, he told that in the 1960s there was a felt making factory where his dad worked and still many-many hatters in Budapest. Hatters, hat companies were also abundant.

Borsalino or Stetson hats? 'The spell of rotting capitalism?' Are you kidding? Maybe some privileged diplomats or intelligence officers on 'foreign service' could have obtained one, but they were much more eager for electronics (stereo recorders, radios, computers, walkman etc.) perfumes, fine alcoholic beverages, porn material, etc...There were 'diplomat shops' where one could purchase for Dollars, Deutschmark etc. but since it was forbidden for common mortals to have western currencies at home and tourists were allowed to go to ‘the West’ only once in a few years with a minimum amount of currencies those shops were also available rather for diplomats or the few tourists. This was the case in Hungary: 'the happiest barracks' behind the curtain.

Maybe they did obtain one or two Borsalinos, as design templates to imitate. Similar thing as one could see at tailors or hairdressers: worn out, faded pictures from the west in the shop window as a kind of style guide. The artisans tried to reproduce those originals better or not so good.

All union fashion conferences...that is a good one. You can imagine that aging party functionaries delegated in those bodies that decided what is fashionable and what is not tolerable - they were not the ultimate creative and innovative guys.

In the Soviet Union I know common people weren’t free to move around the country. Yes within the country - they needed a permit to go from one district to the other, from one large town to another. Since there were lots of military districts which were no entry areas to outsiders, you can imagine that nice hats were not the top agenda.

What you saw on the top of the Kremlin waving to people was the crème de la crème: top Soviet functionaries had access to anything through their network of diplomats. Brezhnev loved for example fast Western cars. Early Bolsheviki photos show Lenin&co. in the confiscated limousines of the Tsars, etc. The leaders weren’t always fans of living the lives of the proletariat. The people, who were filmed winking, might have been also carefully selected and clothed accordingly – really.

Regards:

Tom

 

[Mike Hammer]

The Warsaw Pact wasn't just a "mutual defense" treaty, there were economic and social concerns that were spelled out too. Not only "Brothers in Defense" but "Brothers in production" as well. So you find men wearing Czech hats, East German trousers, Russian underwear and Polish shirts.
Mens fashion (ladies fashion, too) pretty well stalled during the iron curtain years. Until around 1950 or so, the Soviet Union itself was so poor that clothing rationing continued. These years saw so many veterans still wearing the wool greatcoat from their wartime service they are known colloquially as "the greatcoat times".
Soviet style production tended to be pretty stagnant, and some of the industries that the west developed didn't really start for many years afterwards. Synthetic fabrics were relatively unknown until the 1970's, so you wore wool, cotton, or linen. Plastic was used in shoes, of all things, to conserve leather. The plastic tended to crack and they were not well thought of. Socks were typically *not issued* to soldiers, and the traditional way of keeping the foot warm and dry, a flannel cloth one wrapped around the foot was used instead. (Comfy, eh?)

But, back to hats. I'm sure Russians made felt hats, but I suspect you would have needed some pull to actually lay hands on one, soviet society being what it was. Most men wore the soft cloth "gatsby" style cap until the 1970's at least for a dress item, and frequently wore the kind of cap one sees called a "mao" cap for everyday. The ever popular "Ushanka" would adorn the heads of many in winter, in real fur for the higher classes, and "Fish fur" for the masses. Babushka usually made due with a heavy wool shawl pulled over her head. In some regions a nice lambswool hat was traditional and functional.

 

[cookie]

Thanks Tom for reminding us what Communism was all about

Mineral,

I am Hungarian. I was 14 when our family left from behind the Iron Curtain to West Germany for 3 years-once we returned finally in Hungary in 1989 it did break down.

The ‘real existing socialism’ as a system was different in the 1920-1930s, in the 1950s, 1980s. As it faded, more and more ‘privileges’ were allowed for the people. When Stalin deliberately starved 8 million Ukrainians to death in the 1930s -this was the Holodomor- and did the Great Terror, you can imagine that fashion was not the priority. After WW2, the loss of 20 million people when they had to did re-build the country with POWs and deported people and all the rest you can guess that fine gear was not the first concern either.

Fashion and those things were actually more coming after Stalin died, so it begun after the 1960s.

The Soviet Union was ultimately collapsing since they spent waaay to much on the arms race and empire building (financing their pro Soviet regimes and political/guerilla movements throughout Africa, Asia, Latin-America etc.)

Example: my father told that e.g. the equipment of a hospital in Si??fok (look it up at wikipedia, this town exists) was 'voluntarily donated to our brothers in Vietnam', shipped to Vietnam ( I presume at the Hungarian state's costs) during the Vietnam war and there a US air raid destroyed it lets say within a half hour. The renovation of the hospital in Hungary was postponed thereby by a decade or so.

Another example: in Ethiopia the East German doctors were flying in supplies for themselves and to distribute it to the people I assume that was also not cheap.

Neither were the gazillions of SS20 missiles, the submarines, Navy vessels, tanks, Mig jets etc...and ultimately the adventure in Afghanistan.

In other words the emphasis was not put on the people's personal welfare. Then there were naturally places where it was a bit different: Hungary took loans in the 1970s to improve the people’s living standards. But we were the paradise for the Soviet soldiers stationed here. I don’t know how the Soviet Union really was.

Ushankas: it was an essential winter headgear since in the Russian winter anyone’s ANYONE’S hairs and ears fall off if no FUR cap - yes fur cap covers the head. (Inuit and the aboriginals of Siberia -Tchutcks, Evenki, Njenec, etc.- all have head coverings in the harsh winter.) In Siberia there is a plenty of mink, sable, foxes etc. bred and hunted for this purpose, so the furs are there. My grandma visited the soviet union in 1980s and she told that Ushankas were given to people against tickets and low prices this means that it was not a consumer society like purchase but a state sponsored one. On the other hand one had to wait for the item and one got one cap each few year or so. It was an economy of demand not supply.
And consider that Ushankas are something like the berets for the French, Western hats for Texans, so it is not an issue of being modern or not...it will last forever until there are Russians.

My dad had a nutria fur cape he purchased in Poland when we were there for skiing in Zakopane.

Fedoras: it is not that difficult to produce the raw hat bodies and to block them, I am sure that there were hat factories in the Soviet Union too. After the collapse of the socialist system in 1989 most state owned companies did break down, the garment industry has changed profoundly. This is true for Hungary, I don’t think it would be different in the former CCCP.

Felt hats: since the felters are still active in the countries of the former Soviet block (even US hatters buy in many cases their hat bodies from the Czech republic) there was no difficulty to get felt hat bodies. I have a custom hatter in Budapest, he told that in the 1960s there was a felt making factory where his dad worked and still many-many hatters in Budapest. Hatters, hat companies were also abundant.

Borsalino or Stetson hats? 'The spell of rotting capitalism?' Are you kidding? Maybe some privileged diplomats or intelligence officers on 'foreign service' could have obtained one, but they were much more eager for electronics (stereo recorders, radios, computers, walkman etc.) perfumes, fine alcoholic beverages, porn material, etc...There were 'diplomat shops' where one could purchase for Dollars, Deutschmark etc. but since it was forbidden for common mortals to have western currencies at home and tourists were allowed to go to ‘the West’ only once in a few years with a minimum amount of currencies those shops were also available rather for diplomats or the few tourists. This was the case in Hungary: 'the happiest barracks' behind the curtain.

Maybe they did obtain one or two Borsalinos, as design templates to imitate. Similar thing as one could see at tailors or hairdressers: worn out, faded pictures from the west in the shop window as a kind of style guide. The artisans tried to reproduce those originals better or not so good.

All union fashion conferences...that is a good one. You can imagine that aging party functionaries delegated in those bodies that decided what is fashionable and what is not tolerable - they were not the ultimate creative and innovative guys.

In the Soviet Union I know common people weren’t free to move around the country. Yes within the country - they needed a permit to go from one district to the other, from one large town to another. Since there were lots of military districts which were no entry areas to outsiders, you can imagine that nice hats were not the top agenda.

What you saw on the top of the Kremlin waving to people was the cr?®me de la cr?®me: top Soviet functionaries had access to anything through their network of diplomats. Brezhnev loved for example fast Western cars. Early Bolsheviki photos show Lenin&co. in the confiscated limousines of the Tsars, etc. The leaders weren‚Äôt always fans of living the lives of the proletariat. The people, who were filmed winking, might have been also carefully selected and clothed accordingly ‚Äì really.

Regards:

Tom

Its hard to belive this was the way in E Europe only 20 years ago. Total lack of personal freedom and drudgery to pay for ideological wars.

 

[metropd]

Its hard to belive this was the way in E Europe only 20 years ago. Total lack of personal freedom and drudgery to pay for ideological wars.

20 years ago? Look at Russia now. Putin has his oil and his investors from the west, he can flex his arm and dismantle any attempt for freedom and democracy in the name of national security.

Hey but look at the bright side the Economist did show him with a fedora on the cover.

 

[mineral]

Thank you all for the responses! I really appreciate learning from this forum.

And about this, metropd:

"Hey but look at the bright side the Economist did show him with a fedora on the cover."

Was that the one with him and a Tommy gun as well?

 

[metropd]

Yes, they photoshoped the fedora. I think he had a gas pump instead of a tommy gun. Joke being the mafia of the 21st century are multi-national corporations.

 

[Pat_H]

Mineral,

I am Hungarian. I was 14 when our family left from behind the Iron Curtain to West Germany for 3 years-once we returned finally in Hungary in 1989 it did break down.

The ‘real existing socialism’ as a system was different in the 1920-1930s, in the 1950s, 1980s. As it faded, more and more ‘privileges’ were allowed for the people. When Stalin deliberately starved 8 million Ukrainians to death in the 1930s -this was the Holodomor- and did the Great Terror, you can imagine that fashion was not the priority. After WW2, the loss of 20 million people when they had to did re-build the country with POWs and deported people and all the rest you can guess that fine gear was not the first concern either.

Fashion and those things were actually more coming after Stalin died, so it begun after the 1960s.

The Soviet Union was ultimately collapsing since they spent waaay to much on the arms race and empire building (financing their pro Soviet regimes and political/guerilla movements throughout Africa, Asia, Latin-America etc.)

Example: my father told that e.g. the equipment of a hospital in Si??fok (look it up at wikipedia, this town exists) was 'voluntarily donated to our brothers in Vietnam', shipped to Vietnam ( I presume at the Hungarian state's costs) during the Vietnam war and there a US air raid destroyed it lets say within a half hour. The renovation of the hospital in Hungary was postponed thereby by a decade or so.

Another example: in Ethiopia the East German doctors were flying in supplies for themselves and to distribute it to the people I assume that was also not cheap.

Neither were the gazillions of SS20 missiles, the submarines, Navy vessels, tanks, Mig jets etc...and ultimately the adventure in Afghanistan.

In other words the emphasis was not put on the people's personal welfare. Then there were naturally places where it was a bit different: Hungary took loans in the 1970s to improve the people’s living standards. But we were the paradise for the Soviet soldiers stationed here. I don’t know how the Soviet Union really was.

Ushankas: it was an essential winter headgear since in the Russian winter anyone’s ANYONE’S hairs and ears fall off if no FUR cap - yes fur cap covers the head. (Inuit and the aboriginals of Siberia -Tchutcks, Evenki, Njenec, etc.- all have head coverings in the harsh winter.) In Siberia there is a plenty of mink, sable, foxes etc. bred and hunted for this purpose, so the furs are there. My grandma visited the soviet union in 1980s and she told that Ushankas were given to people against tickets and low prices this means that it was not a consumer society like purchase but a state sponsored one. On the other hand one had to wait for the item and one got one cap each few year or so. It was an economy of demand not supply.
And consider that Ushankas are something like the berets for the French, Western hats for Texans, so it is not an issue of being modern or not...it will last forever until there are Russians.

My dad had a nutria fur cape he purchased in Poland when we were there for skiing in Zakopane.

Fedoras: it is not that difficult to produce the raw hat bodies and to block them, I am sure that there were hat factories in the Soviet Union too. After the collapse of the socialist system in 1989 most state owned companies did break down, the garment industry has changed profoundly. This is true for Hungary, I don’t think it would be different in the former CCCP.

Felt hats: since the felters are still active in the countries of the former Soviet block (even US hatters buy in many cases their hat bodies from the Czech republic) there was no difficulty to get felt hat bodies. I have a custom hatter in Budapest, he told that in the 1960s there was a felt making factory where his dad worked and still many-many hatters in Budapest. Hatters, hat companies were also abundant.

Borsalino or Stetson hats? 'The spell of rotting capitalism?' Are you kidding? Maybe some privileged diplomats or intelligence officers on 'foreign service' could have obtained one, but they were much more eager for electronics (stereo recorders, radios, computers, walkman etc.) perfumes, fine alcoholic beverages, porn material, etc...There were 'diplomat shops' where one could purchase for Dollars, Deutschmark etc. but since it was forbidden for common mortals to have western currencies at home and tourists were allowed to go to ‘the West’ only once in a few years with a minimum amount of currencies those shops were also available rather for diplomats or the few tourists. This was the case in Hungary: 'the happiest barracks' behind the curtain.

Maybe they did obtain one or two Borsalinos, as design templates to imitate. Similar thing as one could see at tailors or hairdressers: worn out, faded pictures from the west in the shop window as a kind of style guide. The artisans tried to reproduce those originals better or not so good.

All union fashion conferences...that is a good one. You can imagine that aging party functionaries delegated in those bodies that decided what is fashionable and what is not tolerable - they were not the ultimate creative and innovative guys.

In the Soviet Union I know common people weren’t free to move around the country. Yes within the country - they needed a permit to go from one district to the other, from one large town to another. Since there were lots of military districts which were no entry areas to outsiders, you can imagine that nice hats were not the top agenda.

What you saw on the top of the Kremlin waving to people was the cr?®me de la cr?®me: top Soviet functionaries had access to anything through their network of diplomats. Brezhnev loved for example fast Western cars. Early Bolsheviki photos show Lenin&co. in the confiscated limousines of the Tsars, etc. The leaders weren‚Äôt always fans of living the lives of the proletariat. The people, who were filmed winking, might have been also carefully selected and clothed accordingly ‚Äì really.

Regards:

Tom

Very interesting insight to an era too easily forogotten, but which we've only just passed by.

 

[Pat_H]

It'd be impossible to add much to Tom's post, but one thing I would note that is in the Soviet state run systems, all sorts of "fashions" were more or less frozen in time.

A prime example might be military uniforms. Soviet military uniforms, save for special uniforms, remained amazingly consistent from prior to WWII until the fall of the Soviet Union. In the same period of time, nearly every western army went through countless uniform variations. Likewise, the East German Army wore a uniform based on the WWII German uniform from the onset of its formation, until the Berlin Wall came down. Much in the way of East German field equipment, and even uniforms, were completely unchanged from the WWII German patterns throughout this period of time.

The likely lesson of this is that in a repressive state run system, clothing doesn't change, as there's no need to plan for it. That's not a happy fact in terms of us hat fans, but it likely explains Soviet fashions.