"Krasota v izgnanii" ("Beauty In Exile"), a new title published last month by the Slovo Publishing House in Moscow, is now selling like hotcakes, although it bears absolutely no resemblance to the aforementioned culinary masterpiece: It weighs several kilos, and costs a fortune.
The album-sized, illustrated 480-page book - with nearly 1,000 black-and-white photos - sells in central bookstores for 540 rubles. It can also be purchased for 400 rubles directly from the publishers at 41 Vorontsovskaya Ulitsa, next to the Proletarskaya metro station.
Several million Russians had to leave the country after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. The emigres were from all classes and all walks of life, but the proportion of aristocrats among them was extraordinarily high. As for the tsarist clan, of the nearly 100 Romanovs living in Russia at the time of the revolution, 17 were executed and the rest were lucky to get out alive.
Russians of that first post-revolutionary emigration wave moved to Constantinople and Kharbin, Belgrade and Prague, Berlin and Paris. To survive, many had to take jobs that were considerably below their former stations in life; they worked as taxi drivers and handymen, industrial workers and waiters. Women of noble origin were lucky to find positions as dressmakers.
But their pain was the fashion industry's gain. Several dozen men and women belonging to the highest echelon of Russian aristocracy moved into the world of international fashion as couturiers, designers, models, managers and owners of fashion houses, mostly in Paris.
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, Princess Trubetskaya, the Prince and Princess Yusupov and Princess Obolenskaya were all professionally involved with the world of fashion in their days of exile. They organized their own fashion houses and achieved fame and fortune in Western Europe in the period between the two world wars. These and other Russian emigres, as well as their creations, are the centerpiece of "Beauty in Exile."
The book's 40-year-old author, Alexander Vasiliyev, is a theater designer and set painter who has lived in Paris since 1987. He is also an historian of Russian fashion in the first half of this century, and a leading specialist in - and a passionate collector of - everything that has anything to do with the subject.
The book, which is printed in Italy, is not only beautiful, interesting and informative, but also very instructive and optimistic. It shows multiple examples of the strong wills and high spirits of our forebears, who succeeded so spectacularly in spite of all the obstacles put in their way.
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