Monica Racic interviews Djurdja Bartlett about her new book, “FashionEast: The Spectre that Haunted Socialism”:
Coco Chanel gained ... much praise in socialist fashion media. Although Chanel might have seemed an unlikely comrade for socialist fashion, she was a natural choice in that she was merely perfecting, season after season, the smart woman’s work suit that she had designed in the mid-fifties. Of course, women under socialism could not afford a Chanel suit. They could not even find similar styles in the shops. Instead, they were advised to crochet their Chanel suits themselves.