Clothes sewn according to patterns from catalogs and Burda, treasures found at bazaars and in second-hand stores, re-designed parents’ clothes, trousers dyed anew, blouses made from cloth diapers, shoes with special designs cut out - any method of acquiring an original costume was ok.
If at the end of the 80s someone from behind the Iron Curtain wanted to look good, he or she had to show off with a lot of real inventiveness. This happened differently across the map of Eastern Europe, but the proletarians of all the countries there were united in their enormous creativity.
PRL (People's Republic of Poland)
The main inspiration came from western films, music videos and photos found in foreign newspapers. Some people sewed clothes they had spied before at the tailors, others tried to copy them at home by means of dyeing old clothes or narrowing trousers legs or sleeves, either manually or on their own sewing machines. On special occasions, clothes were bought in stores of the dollar network Pewex, but as an imported blouse cost there as much as three average salaries, only a few could afford shop regularly in this paradise, tempting as it was with its real scent of the west. Fashion depended on the environment.
The most elegant young men in the humanities faculties wore black trousers, white shirts and classic denim jackets, of course dyed black. On their shoulders hung light leather bags, the straps slung diagonally, in a military style, across their slender chests. They wore suede lace-up shoes, sometimes beige, but preferably black. Their girlfriends usually wore long black skirts, and in the autumn a long coat was compulsory. Those who wanted to demonstrate their independence and freedom reached for surplus military jackets, usually American or Canadian. In the movie "Siekierezada", Janek Pradera wore a Canadian army jacket. The movie, based on a book by Edward Stachura, perfectly matched the freedom myth. Teenagers sewed skirts, dresses and blouses out of cloth diapers, usually putting the stitches in by hand.
The advantage of these clothes was that you could dye them any color in a cooking pot. Socks and scarves were dyed a furious yellow-green with Rivanol, which unlike clothes dyes, was available everywhere at that time. In general, the height of any girlish dream was to pick up an outfit from Hoffland. As the risk of meeting someone in the same clothes at a party was very high, most fashionable ladies crumpled logos under brooches and other added features, or subtly altered their dress or trousers before they joined the ballroom battle.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
There were no Pewex stores, second-hand shops or clothes bazaars. The biggest dream was an item of clothing, sent by family from Poland – this was the method by which Baltic young people got their hands on jeans (or the regional "justy" that left ones legs a ghostly bluish hue after a rain storm) and colorful dresses. The Polish church did not provide packages with clothes, so as not to attract the attention of the authorities; it was usually limited to chocolate, dark yellow cheese and salted butter from the Netherlands.
Attending religion lessons or mass itself was a form of rebellion against the order established by the authorities. In the Baltic states, there was no question of a sudden outbreak of garish, bright purple, winter jackets sometimes designed by Polish manufacturers, so the streets were dominated by drab greys and dark, dull autumn colors that are difficult to define. A stretched sweater, knitted by grandma, and original combinations of dad’s shirts and your older brother’s trousers allowed you to stand out from the crowd.
The avant-garde girls wore long skirts, sewn by their mothers or aunts. It was hard to get any material in the shops, so teenagers who wanted to wear something original altered their parents’ and grandparents’ clothes. They narrowed bell-trousers and shortened skirts from the 60s that their mothers had worn. Fathers’ shirts that hung on skinny girls like the caricature of a dress were very helpful in the creation of a certain image. Scarves, which gave each face a unique frame, were very popular, and soon became a mandatory accessory for school uniforms, suits, sweaters and coats.
GDR
Thanks to parcels from families living in West Germany, East Berlin was the nearest western fashion capital for eastern countries. There, you could see real denim jeans and jackets on the streets (these had been "thrown" over the Berlin Wall). People also wore cotton blouses with ironed-on prints depicting the idolized faces and hairstyles of foreign musicians, as well as slogans in English.
Some of them were pretty odd -nobody really knows why white, disposable paper jackets with logos for engine oil or butter brands on their backs were very popular. There were many other examples of creativity: interesting shoes, jackets and coats could be purchased from friends who had richer relatives abroad. Many people made a living from selling on these gifts. East Germany was the land where the hand-to-hand trade flourished the most. Groups of friends gathered, in a state of pious adoration, around those of their number who had access to an incoming wave of clothes.
When information about a new delivery spread, you had to come running to the apartment of the happy "redistributor", or else others would be faster in this hunt for interesting items of clothing. In 1989, in the east of Germany, there was no money for expensive materials, decorations or buttons. Therefore the leather-like "Dederon" and other chemical textiles were invented. The jeans brands "Shanty", "Wisent" and "Boxer", which sadly didn’t match up to their counter parts from the west, were also produced there. The magazine "Sibyl", which showed contemporary fashion in eastern Germany, was very popular. As only some people could afford exclusive or western fashion ,a sewing machine was standard equipment within each family.
Romania
Kent cigarettes (with their golden stripe) were the informal currency in Romania, and the clothes' world was ruled by jeans or classic trousers and nylon sports jackets. Absolutely everyone had one of these jackets, and it didn’t matter whether they came with a stand-up collar, a hood or standard collar. They were mostly navy blue, just the same hue as the blue of the Romanian flag.
However, people generally also loved to wear black, brown or white jackets, and women often chose red or orange. Young people wore hoodies and cotton blouses under the jackets, while the older folk wore patterned sweaters and classic shirts. The real dream items, which would really make you stand out from the crowd, were leather jackets and duffel coats. Elegant Romanian women paraded in black skirts and jackets and white blouses or classic black dresses. Baggy parents' clothing was also re-designed by tailors.
The collars of shirt or the waists of old grandmother's skirts were made smaller. To get original sweaters you had to rely on the knitting skills of your mother or grandmother. Unfortunately, it was not at all easy to get hold of wool. Romanian stores, even in the greatest crises, never lacked oranges and olive oil, but to obtain wool you had to dismantle old sweaters. This was, without being ironic, the real beginning of recycling: the same raw material produced several generations of clothes.
Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, richly decorated folk costumes were the inspiration for fashionable girls. In a country where there have been traditional songs sung and dances performed in every bar and restaurant for centuries, folk costumes were, like the traditional salads with peppers and vinaigrette sauce, evergreens, and relatively easy to get hold of.
There was no shortage of talented embroiderers and seamstresses, so their products had a myriad of patterns and all the colors of the rainbow. To achieve an original effect, it was enough to combine an embroidered folk blouse with modern trousers. In winter, traditional fur hats were worn as accessories to coats. The Bulgarians were not embarrassed to wear their folklore and therefore the streets of Bulgaria were dominated by a "merry" styling, which was absent in the other countries of the so called people's democracy.
Like everywhere else in southern Europe, the most popular costume for men was a suit and white shirt - a look that never goes out of fashion. The black suits and simple white shirts worn with classic suit trousers are still popular in Bulgaria today, both for special occasions and as everyday wear. On the golden shores of the Black Sea, girls spied the newest clothes trends on guests of the hotel 'ghettos' for currency holders from the rotten West.
With a little luck you could buy jeans or a cotton shirt - maybe even from a Pole or an East German in coastal towns like Kamcia. In this way the natives acquired original clothes, and the tourists got to spend their extra cash on Bulgarian watermelons and souvenirs.
Czechoslovakia
Czech ballerinas, also called “cwiczki”, with their flexible thin rubber soles, pure cotton fabric and elastic band across the instep, were cult footwear in Czechoslovakia. They were pretty and comfortable. Almost everyone wore them in the land of stewed cabbage and dumplings, and ladies in all of Czechoslovakia’s neighboring countries dreamed of owning a pair. To stand out from the crowd, people dyed them in all possible colors, cut out patterns in them, or sewed in colorful details on the shoes. What else? Young people tended to wear denim uniforms and long sweaters. Blouses with wide sleeves and men’s shirts were hits – these were best a few sizes too big, of a funny style, and taken out of granddad’s wardrobe before being dyed anew a strong color. Short jackets that gave the impression they were a little too small were very popular - they were hard to get buttoned up.
The avant-garde youth mostly opted for leather motorcycle jackets, and the greatest winter prize was a fur-lined American pilot’s jacket. The Czechoslovakian Pewex was called Tuzex and, like in Poland, you could buy western trousers or tops there. A lot of clothes were brought from Poland, Hungary and East Germany, and jeans were sewn by the Vietnamese minority in Czechoslovakia. Sometimes you also came across interesting clothes in department stores in Prague and other big cities like Brno and Bratislava.
Hungary
Thick roll neck pullovers or stretched (worn out) sweaters, white coats and surplus jackets distinguished trendy Hungarians from the more conservative people, who dressed in suits, and finally from those who were indifferent to fashion and wore jeans, cotton T-shirts and checked shirts. A sweater was the sign that you were dealing with a member of the intellectual elite. It was usually black, with a simple pattern, knitted most often by a grandmother, aunt or mother. Music videos and western record covers were a good source of inspiration for the creation of fashionable outfits. Usually the Beatles or Led Zeppelin performed the role of arbiters of elegance. Wrangler jackets and dungarees, spotted on American stars in music videos, were particularly desired. A long woollen scarf, the longer the better, was a compulsory accessory.
Elegant ladies ordered clothes at the tailor's or re-designed their old things themselves.
Many contemporary Hungarian designers like Dóra Abod have taken inspiration from the fashion of the 80's. In her collections she attempts to evoke the rock scene atmosphere from 25 years ago and is quick to reach for leather and shiny fabrics. Fans of turtlenecks and classic clothes can these days dress themselves in USE Unesed garments, and Nanushka is popular among lovers of large shirts.
Many ideas for the creation of original clothes were repeated in different countries, where people were weary of looking at the empty shelves in communist shops where clothes were sold only in theory. What could the people do? An old, popular saying goes: "the tailor cuts his coat according to his cloth". But even in these melancholy times, the communities cut off from the clothes that had been introduced in Paris, Milan, New York, did not allow themselves to be pressed into one common format.
The Czechs had their “ćwiczki”, Poles had their great clothes bazaars and master tailors, the Bulgarians made use of their tradition, and the Germans surfed on the wave of the West. And even though the streets were dominated by greyness, there were always people who wanted, and were able, to shine thanks to their great imaginations, stubbornness and creativity.
Bibliography:
Viktor Tarnavskyi, „Dzieci swoich czasów. Ruchy młodzieżowe w Rosji a zmiany kulturowe po upadku ZSRR, Wydawnictwo Trio, 2007
Beata Łaciak, „Obyczajowość polska czasu transformacji, czyli wojna postu z karnawałem”, Wydawnictwo Trio, 2007
Jacek Kurczewski, Mariusz Cichomski, Krzysztof Wiliński, „Wielkie bazary warszawskie”, Wydawnictwo Trio, 2010
Przemysław Zieliński, „Scena rockowa w PRL. Historia, organizacja, znaczenie, Wydawnictwo Trio, 2007
Moda. Historia mody XX wieku, Taschen, 2012
The writing of the section about clothes in Poland was assisted by the recollections of, among others: Wojciech Stanislawski, historian and editor of "Rzeczpospolita", Jacek Kaminski, longtime editor of "Gazeta Wyborcza", who currently works with “Lampa” magazine, and the theater expert Maryna Bersz.
The writing of the section on clothes in the Baltic countries was assisted by the recollections of, among others, Marija Paskevic, a Polish woman who grew up in Lithuania and was a high school student in 1989. She now lives in Norway, where she works in a bookstore and studies pedagogy.
The writing of the section about clothes in Romania and Bulgaria was assisted by the recollections of, among others, Hubert Kropielnicki, editor of the weekly "Przekrój", who spent his holidays in these countries in the years around 1989.
The writing of the section about clothes in Czechoslovakia was assisted by the memories of, among others, Ján Krivoša, First Secretary, Embassy of the Czech Republic, and also used the websites: www.pagyna.wz.cz/80leta.html and www.mezizenami.cz/clanek/nesmrtelna-80-leta as useful references.
The writing of the section about clothes in the GDR was written with the help of, among others, Joanna Janecka, Department of Culture, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Warsaw, and also used the website: http://www.zeitklicks.de/ddr/zeitklicks/zeit/alltag/leben-in-der-ddr/mode-im-sozialismus/ as a useful reference.
by Katarzyna Szczerbowska