Why Textiles?
This collection focus is on the textile industry and designs in the Soviet Union's fashion history. While the collection highlights this area in Soviet history, it also addresses labor history and women's history in this society. This topic originally meant to explore textiles patterns, construction patterns, trends, and themes in propaganda, as in the red headscarf, or kosynka motif used to represent Soviet women in early propaganda posters. However, in the process of curating objects, a majority of the collections are representations of the textile industry in art works. This brings up the topic of production as part of fashion history as an art form of labor alongside the art of fashion visuals. In turn, these depictions present everyday fashions, as worn by the production workers, alongside pieces that present the thought pieces of garment creation.
In the Soviet history context: The area of industry and pieces of its progress alongside the progression of Soviet society.
In the Labor history context: Representations of workers in their workplace and perception of workers by Soviet-era artists and in the Soviet Union's propaganda.
In the Women's history context: This was a women dominated industry, women are mainly depicted in the art works, and we have highlights of women designers of textiles and garments from early Soviet constructivist movement. These items highlight women and their work in society, particularly in how society gets their garments manufactured and designed.
Much of the collection images have been sourced from auction, seller, or collection websites as they provide more adequate information on objects origins and measurements. Further, objects around this topic show to be quite rare as they relate to the subjects of women’s work, labor history, and the niche in Soviet history. The three early textiles are sourced directly from the Ivanovo Calico Museum, which is located in one of the major cities of textile production. Sources to the images are given in the bottom sections of the References page.
This topic is important in the area of digital cultural heritage as post-Soviet states and people continue to discard, destroy, or misrepresent Soviet cultural heritage items as not of the Soviet or Soviet-mixed culture. These actions contribute to the erasure of existed Soviet identities, experiences, and history, leaving empty gaps to the interpretations of the Soviet Union and its peoples.
This harm is seen with the erasure of Ukraine's and other post-Soviet countries independence and their distinct items of cultural heritage by the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin's propaganda efforts, which has utilized the shared history under the Soviet Union in political narratives. As the Russian Federation’s army continues to steal cultural heritage items from Ukraine, it is important to separate and recognize uniquely Soviet cultural items and narratives to understand distinctions between the Soviet and the independent cultures which existed in the Soviet society. Such separations can be addressed while also giving recognition and appreciation to the culture, history, and labor of this collection.
Additionally, understanding how the Soviet Union's produced art and citizen artists perceived women, the industry, and labor can give us a chance to think in comparatives between Soviet cultures and our contemporary experiences, particularly in the United States. As in: If commemorative art that recognizes primarily women's work and production labor is labeled as authoritarian propaganda, what does that say about how we view or value production labor and working class women in our capitalistic culture?