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The
«Alternative Fashion before Glossies, 1985-1995»
show displays the history of alternative
fashion, a trend that emerged at the junction of rock and squat club culture,
during the period that started with early perestroika before the arrival of
glossy fashion periodicals in mid 1990s. In mid 1980s the intoxicating
atmosphere of freedom triggered an unprecedented surge of underground culture.
The gathering of avant-garde artists, musicians, representatives of various
subcultures – punk, rock, new wave – gave birth to a unique phenomenon of
alternative fashion with shows that often turned into performances. Its
catwalks were not only such venues as the Fashion House in the Kuznetsky Most
street, the shows often took place at the concerts of Sergey Kuryokhin’s
Popular Mechanics group, the Sovincenter hall, and squats, concert halls where
rock music roared, and streets in the center of the city. Alternative fashion
was made famous by incredible combinations of hoop petticoats made of climbers’
blankets and French lace, uniform tunics boasting open backs, and skirts with
folds suspiciously reminding of draperies. The new trend in fashion emerged in
the period of the revolutionary gap in time when Soviet fashion was
ingloriously dying, trampled down by imported products and new tastes of
ordinary citizens.
During 1985-1995 alternative fashion was the symbol of changing times and a
brand of the perestroika. USSR
abroad, drawing the attention of western media with its experimental features.
Artists played the hard roles of trendsetters – the avant-garde artists
expressed their attitude to the contemporary through images and wear.
While at the beginning alternative fashion as a trend was romantic in its
amateurism, at the end of the period alternative fashion designers created
authors’ collections and shows which were in great demand among global
professionals. The phenomenon of alternative fashion was noticed and
appreciated by such western designers as Vivienne Westwood who had thought
earlier that there could be no fashion in the country of sickles and hammers,
and Yohji Yamamoto for whom special shows were organized in the epicenter of
the liberal Moscow
fashion crowd in the Petrovsky
Avenue. Paco Rabanne, Andrew Logan, Zandra Rhodes
and many other less famous european couturiers were interested in taking part
in the Riga Assembly of Untamed Fashion organized by Bruno Birmanis. Pani
Bronya (Dubner), a model of the Avant-Garde artist Alexander Petlyura
(Lyashenko), she became a symbol of recognition for the Russian alternative
fashion when she was awarded the title of Alternative Miss World 1998. The
exhibition presents about a hundred photographs with images of fashion created
by Katya Filippova, Gosha Ostretsov, Alexander Petlyura, Andrey Bartenev, Katya
Mikulskaya-Mosina, Katya Ryzhikova, Iren Burmistrova, the La Re duet, and Bruno Birmanis.
Curator info:
Irina Meglinskaya
Russian expert in photography, curator and teacher. In 1991 she opened The
School, the first photo gallery in Moscow (and
in Russia)
under the auspices of the Center for Contemporary Art in the Yakimanka Str. In
1998-2008 she headed the photo service of the Afisha Publishing House. Co-owner
of the Pobeda (Victory) photo gallery (in the territory of the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art. Launched
the Meglinskaya Gallery at Winzavod in 2010. Teaches photo editing at the Alexander Rodchenko
School in Moscow.
Mikhail Buster
Active in graphic art, design. Participant of the artistic underground movement
in the 1980s. Organized actions (the Singing Lisergines performance at the
Moscow Circus, 1992) and music festivals. Author of anthropological and
critical essays on underground art. Owner and curator of the kompost.ru
subculture archive. Curator and organizer of such art shows as The Last
Romantics of the Soviet Union, Zverev Center, 2006, Hooligans of the ‘80s
(Manege), 2009, Street-Style-80, All-Russia Exhibition Center, 2010. Author and
compiler of the “Hooligans of the ‘80s” album.
photo& video from exhibition
expo catalog
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