ALTERNATIVE FASHION IN LATE SOCIALISM
ALTERNATIVE FASHION IN LATE SOCIALISM

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with a paradox: the activity of fashion production, which by its very definition presupposes a large number of users and the social recognition of its own preconditions, could not be realized in the Eighties in the social context of late socialism. During socialism, "alternative fashion" was an inevitably hopeless production. Its exclusivity lacked the credibility granted to western haute couture which successfully lent its name to mass produced clothes. The social standing of alternative fashion was rooted in the individual expression of unique life-style, recognized by just a handful of like-minded participants of one's own group. In itself, it testified to the character of those practices as well as to the social context in which it existed. The products of "alternative" fashion born during socialist times denied the whole system by their mere existence. By doing so, they justified their alternative status at both a sociological and at a political level. On the other hand, alternative fashion because it was essentially useless and produced as individual items, was stuck in the area traditionally defined as "art". It did not even question the postmodern industrially defined re-interpretation of art.

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