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Being actually another revival of the Edwardian
style stilyagas of the 80-s had their special features. The preceding
generations saw the exterior style in their own way relating it with classic
rockabilly (like men of the 60-s) or with jazz hepcats (like men of the 70-s). Yet
in the “Olympic” decade, aside from the obvious “new-wave” taint there were some
particular displays of “pure style”. So in Leningrad till the mid 80-s there
were devotees of the 50-s vintage style who formed the “teddy boys club”, that came
off vividly in 1983-84. Later there was a short-term manifestation of
the “nostalgists” before the suit fashion has mixed with aesthetics of the “new romantics” or melted in rockabilly culture. The most popular
hangout place of this style followers was a café called “The Climate”. In the early
80-s in Moscow besides the senior jazz stilyagas appeared a group of “the wide
ones” or as they were also called “utesovtsy” (after Leonid Utesov, the Soviet
singer of the 20-s, the trendsetter of wide suits). By the
mid 80-s, when Perestroyka gave the classic rock-n-roll the green light, quite
young stilyagas started to appear, who were replenishing their street
collections from their parents’ wardrobes.
These groups featured in Leningrad under the name of “the
secretists”, while in Moscow they were
called “the bravists” (after bands “Secret” and “Bravo”). “The new stilyagas” later became the main
visitors of Moscow consignment shops, cafes “Resonance” and “Konyushnya” (The
Stable) and Tishinsky flea-market. In the second half of the 80-s the young
growth divided into fans of the Soviet rock-n-roll and proletarian jazz, who existed for a few years in form of a hangout
on Arbat street, and fans of classic rockabilly, who formed Elvis Presley
fan-club. The last display of the “pure style”
at the turn and in the early 90-s was expressed by devotion to the
vintage Soviet aesthetics of Tishinsky flea-market and generalized characters of the Soviet “nerds”, “janitresses”, “aristocrats” and “skiers”,
that were generated by those who dropped out of all the subculture styles
categories and were later labeled as “freaks”.But all this had
nothing to do with what was meant by the word “stilyaga” neither in the postwar
period nor even in the 80-s.
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