ABSTRACT
The October revolution put up a new wall between Western fashions and the new Soviet style. With Russia's higher classes dispossessed and dishonored, class distinctions in clothing narrowed tremendously. Shortages of high-quality apparel further reduced those distinctions. Class differences in clothing are becoming more obvious. "Better people" wear clothing imported from the West, those lower on the social ladder dress in East European clothes, and the masses have to be content with either domestic or third world goods of inferior quality and style. Citizens from provincial towns around Moscow shop in the capital. Visitors from the southern republics, from Transcaucasia to Central Asia, also shop in Moscow and are willing to pay way above the official price for imported goods. Fashion shows are a very recent phenomenon and have been mostly staged by Western designers.
