Review of Djurdja Bartlett's 'Fashion East: The Spectre that Haunted Socialism'

Djurdja Bartlett's 2010 book 'Fashion East: The Spectre that Haunted Socialism' examines sartorial history across the Soviet Communist bloc from the 1920s avant-garde to the late Soviet era. Published by The MIT Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 344-page volume is praised for its extensive archival research and illustrations. Bartlett structures her analysis into three chronological phases: utopian dress, socialist fashion, and everyday fashion, with the latter championing individual creativity through a DIY attitude. The book covers East-Central European nations including East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia, though it has been critiqued for homogenizing their distinct histories. Bartlett argues that fashion, as an open and evolving system, inherently resists the closed ideology of socialism, a thesis that draws on but diverges from Roland Barthes's work. Criticisms note the omission of men's fashion and an underdeveloped discussion of terms like 'socialism' and 'modernity.' The review, written by Malynne Sternstein and published on ARTMargins Online on May 28, 2013, highlights the book's ambitious scope while questioning its conceptual binaries.