At the beginning of August 2007, one of the main news in the fashion world was the appearance of “a new Russian supermodel” on the advertising poster of the famous French fashion house. “Enough Scarlett Johansson! NBC News reported that Mikhail Gorbachev is the new face of Louis Vuitton.
The first and last Soviet president, 76 at the time, starred in a commercial for the brand’s travel bags alongside tennis players Stefi Graf and Andre Agassi and actresses Catherine Deneuve. The photograph, taken by the famous Annie Leibovitz, is shown sitting in a limousine: one hand holding the doorknob, facing the collapsing Berlin Wall outside the window, a long, broad-shouldered coat open, a travel bag in LV logos next to the car seat.
As Pietro Beccari, Louis Vuitton’s marketing director, explained to The Guardian, Mikhail Gorbachev was brought in because it was time for the fashion house to strike a balance and show another important side of the brand. True, the brand was suspected of being politically biased – a magazine about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko comes out of LV’s bag – but its representatives denied that they attributed such a meaning to the shooting.
Still, the magazine couldn’t help but be an occasion for jokes. “Of the whole group (people in the advertising campaign – socialbites.ca), Mr. Gorbachev seems the least comfortable. He grips the doorknob as if he had polonium 210 in the bag,” the New York Times wrote.
According to the fashion historian, cultural scientist, author of the book “Soviet Fashion”. 1917-1991″ Megan Virtanen could not be called a style icon when Mikhail Gorbachev “came to power”. Politicians tend to dress conservatively, and Soviet officials are even more conservative.
“Although Mikhail Gorbachev in his youth liked to dress well, when he came to power, the clothes in which he appeared in public were not original: standard suits sewn in the “Tsek” workshop on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, but from imported fabrics . They sewed there qualitatively, but extremely conservatively, ”Virtanen explains to socialbites.ca.
According to journalist Dmitry A. Bykov, the style of clothing of Mikhail Gorbachev dictated the need to “imitate” the environment: in the Central Committee of the CPSU it was customary to wear a “mouse gray” suit on trips (they appeared at official events). black and dark blue). Gorbachev, the youngest member of the Politburo, had to adapt.
“Mikhail Sergeevich – with all his southern love for flowers in clothes – had to wear a gray suit to be his own. It was forcibly imitated,” Bykov wrote in GQ magazine last year.
The need to integrate with the environment is also confirmed by Megan Virtanen. “A gray suit and a gray hat – this was a kind of “uniform” of the Politburo at that time, and Gorbachev preferred not to stand out too much. “Black classics were chosen for official visits abroad,” he says. However, she notes her influence on her husband Raisa Maksimovna Gorbacheva. “The ties are particularly noteworthy – Mikhail Gorbachev changed them frequently and chose them specifically to match his wife’s outfit,” says Virtanen.
Today, stylists call this dressing technique, in which couples resort to “double dressing.”
“The Gorbachev couple began to use the principle of “double bow” long before the widespread use of this concept. They chose similar prints, the tones of their outfits were always in harmony, and the accessories echoed. Not only were the colors the same, even the width of the stripes on the suits,” stylist and image maker Tatyana Gubskaya told socialbites.ca.
He especially pays attention to scarves and ties. “The Gorbachevs, who spent many years in the party’s range of dull gray suits and coats, nevertheless found a way to stylize and diversify them. Burgundy brown ties and large textured scarves never “disputed” with Raisa Maksimovna’s outfits – and they really always matched perfectly, ”says Gubskaya.
According to Megan Virtanen, “Raisa Gorbacheva, dressed by Tamara Makeeva from ODMO, tried to persuade her husband to use the services of the House of Models.”
“But according to the memoirs of Alexander Igmand, who once dressed Leonid Brezhnev himself, the new general secretary of ODMO only changed a few suits brought from Canada,” the fashion historian says.
But the coats and suits of Mikhail Sergeevich were still sewn in a departmental workshop on Kutuzovsky Prospekt.
“Because he was unpretentious in clothes, he was demanding, even picky, when it came to a new suit. The tailors were employees of the 9th division of the KGB; Despite the fact that Mikhail Sergeevich had many complaints about his work, he did not want to take someone from the outside. Apparently, he was afraid of an unnecessary leak of information under the new masters, ”wrote Vladimir Medvedev, the former head of Gorbachev’s bodyguards, in his book The Man Behind His Back.
So it turned out that Gorbachev’s style was the Politburo uniform: a gray jacket, a gray Homburg hat. And a fluffy mohair scarf – these were worn by almost all Soviet workers. However, an ordinary engineer can also own a woolen Crombie coat, provided that a friend of his wife’s girlfriend works in a departmental workshop.
Interestingly, Gorbachev managed to “imitate” not only Soviet terminology, but also Western partners.
“Researchers of the style of the Gorbachev couple clarify that they certainly have two wardrobes: gray, boring, pro-Soviet for “internal use” and stylish, perfectly adjusted by Raisa Maksimovna for foreign trips, ”says Tatyana Gubskaya.
In the late 1980s, Western publications followed the Gorbachevs’ wardrobe on trips. Basically, of course, behind the clothes of Raisa Maksimovna, but the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee sometimes became a fashionable messenger.
So in 1987, the Sunday Express reported that before the summit in Washington, Gorbachev purchased clothes from “a private Italian tailor.” As the socialite Lady Olga Maitland writes, fashionistas who follow Raisa Gorbacheva’s style “should pay attention to her husband Mikhail’s appearance for a moment”. He claimed that the USSR ambassador to Italy had chosen Franco Litrico as a tailor for Mikhail Gorbachev, who had a workshop on the Via Veneto.
The columnist quoted the master’s words: “I was very surprised when I received the order, but I was happy to complete it for him,” he said. He added that the Soviet leader was unable to fly to Rome for hardware, but the model sketches were sent to Moscow for approval.
“Gorbachev chose a light gray suit with a vest, a dark suit with a light waistcoat, an elegant Italian cap, a dark blazer with light trousers, an evening jacket and tie, and a tweed riding jacket and dark trousers for informal meetings, ” the corner its author and concluded that the wardrobe cost Gorbachev about $9,000.
Paying attention to Gorbachev’s clothes began two years ago. In a report from the Geneva summit that spoke of Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader’s march across the lake, the LA Times journalist notes that both always wear coats according to the weather. The New York Times added, however, that Gorbachev, unlike Reagan, wore a hat – although this was the Soviet nomenklatura dress code.
Gorbachev’s style had another feature. “It is believed that she brought back the Astrakhan patty hat fashion,” says Megan Virtanen. On such holidays she appeared on the podium of the Mausoleum.
Gorbachev’s unofficial photos, including of Western leaders, show that outside of his life in power, he still has a soft spot for bright colors, cozy sweaters and light windbreakers. Leaving gray, he became like any Western leader, be it German Chancellor Helmut Kohl or US President Ronald Reagan.