On the origins of Russian supermodels

[archerships]

Where did all the beautiful Russians come from?

To put it bluntly, in the Soviet Union there was no market for female beauty. No fashion magazines featured beautiful women, since there weren’t any fashion magazines. No TV series depended upon beautiful women for high ratings, since there weren’t any ratings. There weren’t many men rich enough to seek out beautiful women and marry them, and foreign men couldn’t get the right sort of visa. There were a few film stars, of course, but some of the most famous—I’m thinking of Lyubov Orlova, alleged to be Stalin’s favorite actress—were wholesome and cheerful rather than sultry and stunning. Unusual beauty, like unusual genius, was considered highly suspicious in the Soviet Union and its satellite people’s republics.

This doesn’t mean there weren’t any beautiful women, of course, just that they didn’t have the clothes or cosmetics to enhance their looks, and, far more important, they couldn’t use their faces to launch international careers. Instead of gracing London drawing rooms, they stayed in Minsk, Omsk, or Alma Ata. Instead of couture, they wore cheap polyester. They could become assembly-line forewomen, Communist Party bosses, even local femmes fatales, but not Vogue cover girls. They didn’t even dream of becoming Vogue cover girls, since very few had ever seen an edition of Vogue.

Original: craschworks - comments

Comments

Huh.

[jasonecaesar.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about that before.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I don't think she was saying that Russian women were ugly during the Cold War. Rather, their beauty was rarely noticed because of the economic hardship. If you can't leave your village for an environment where your beauty will be rewarded, who else will know how beautiful you are?

I think the second article may be true too.

[olegvolk.livejournal.com]

The originator of that theory was the writer Leo Frankowski. He moved to Tver in Russia and married a local woman. My impression is that he misunderstood why the local women were willing to marry older, less attractive men. It's the same in every place where women don't have much earning ability. They seek what they do not have, such as stability.

They also bank of their looks more than American women, so they might dress up more and try to look attractive. You notice that they dress much more formally to work.

[olegvolk.livejournal.com]

http://www.leofrankowski.com/

[resipisco.livejournal.com]

pix or it didn't happen.