Inside Russia's Underwear: A Brief History

There is a story that Russians like to remember that when a certain French actor -- some say that it was Yves Montand, others claim it was G?rard Philippe -- came to the Soviet Union sometime in the 1960s, he was so totally astounded by the reality of Soviet underwear that he took some samples back to France and decided to display them in an exhibit hall in Paris. Whether the exhibition was ever held, however, remains unclear.


Soviet underwear is remembered by many Russians as "extremely primitive," consisting mostly of very basic drawers and an undershirt. One former underwear designer goes so far as to posit that the history of Russian underwear is the history of sorrow, and that it was a source of deep shame to most Soviet women. Undergarments from the time of Stalin were notorious for their ugliness, unattractive colors and coarse fabrics.


Soviet underwear is also remembered as being largely unavailable. Even harder to find were undergarments from other Eastern European countries, which were always considered preferable to the rough in-country skivvies construed seemingly to disseminate the principles of utility and prudishness in even the most intimate of items.


At the same time that Russians were protecting their stiff underbellies with their infamous underpinnings, over in Paris, designer Coco Chanel was helping to raise a few eyebrows when she decided to use jersey fabric, typically used for men's underwear, for her suit designs, thus bringing underwear out of its proverbial closet to join the ranks of ready-to-wear -- and ultimately haute couture -- designs.


The same is true today as plenty of models, at the urging of present Chanel-designer Lagerfeld are sporting lingerie-inspired dresses, skirts and blouses that once were confined to the nether regions beneath street clothes.


It was not until the 1970s that underwear in Russia started to resemble its Western counterpart and that it began to correspond to trends in undergarment fashion, with hip-hugging girdles, full-figure padded bras and the indispensable slip that no woman, especially no Soviet woman, could be without. Manufacturers started to use lace, cotton and kapron -- a synthetic fiber similar to nylon produced in the Soviet Union -- for their garments.


One of the first manufacturers to make interesting underwear was the Cheryomushky firm, which soon after perestroika began to attract a lot of attention. Cheryomushky, taking advantage of the fact that underwear design in Russia is just as essential as anywhere else in the world, has helped the craft rise from its functional nizhnyee belyo status to become a genuine trade with professional underwear designers who take themselves very seriously. They are celebrating the end of Cold War concealment with styles that expose, accentuate and flatter.


Far from being vulgar or even slightly erotic, lingerie items have become perfectly normal independent articles of clothing worn as separates with long and short skirts and underneath jackets. This is a trend not lost here, as can be seen by the ubiquity of leggings on Moscow streets.


Designers at Cheryomushky have discarded functionality in favor of a soft feminine look that is barely distinguishable from discreet lingerie designs like Triumph and Belcor.


Part of this liberating change can be explained by the fact that much of the undergarments manufactured by the factory are made with foreign materials. A lacy bra and high-cut pair of knickers which look, if you don't examine them carefully, like they could have been found anywhere in the world, are made with Dutch lace and Latvian synthetics.


The domestic variety is deceivingly impressive. Tanya Vasilyeva, director of public relations at Cheryomushky, shows off what looks like a pretty underwire brassiere, reminiscent of a serviceable bra from the well-known French Huit line, but is actually made with unyeilding cloth that appears to be less than gentle on the skin.


The designers are somewhat reluctant to link the transformation of their designs to political transformations, preferring to see themselves as revolutionaries in their own right, bravely riding the unpredictable waves of fashion.


"Fashions change and so does our underwear," says one designer. "If d?collet?s are lower, we must of course design accordingly."


It's not quite as simple as that, of course. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, among its massive repercussions, allowed Russian women the chance to get their hands on something they had never had before: attractive lingerie. One of the Cheryomushky designers admitted that during Soviet times her creativity had been almost completely stifled by a lack of adequate materials and expectations from above that underwear be distinctly practical and, as a result, decidedly unpretty.


"Women were identified with being mothers and workers," she said. "As a result, underwear was functional. Comfort and practicality were what influenced designs 20 years ago." Underwear creations at Cheryomushky today are more feminine than ever.


While Cheryomushky exports many of its designs and has contracts with companies in Germany, there are plenty of stores throughout Moscow stocking the Cheryomushky line. Bras run for about 12,000 rubles and knickers for 8,000. Yeva, at 51 Sevatopolsky Prospekt, korp. 2, carries a full range of Cheryomushky. There is also has a project to open an exclusive store in GUM sometime in the future.