For a long time, the standards of female beauty in the Soviet Union were formed under the influence of the political and especially the economic situation, and not fashionable canons. It is for this reason that in Europe and the United States, Soviet women have long been considered too fat and tastelessly dressed. Foreigners only confirmed their opinion when in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev and his wife came to the United States on a visit. Next to the sophisticated, stylish Jackie Kennedy, Nina Khrushcheva, who was plump, dressed in shapeless, colorful robes, did not look her best.
Fashion for completeness
After the 1917 revolution, the young Soviet Union plunged into devastation and hunger for a dozen years. People simply had nothing to eat, so there was no time to think about fashion and beauty. When women in prosperous capital countries, thanks to feminism, received the right to work and became slimmer due to a more mobile lifestyle, Soviet women emaciated due to hunger.
Finally, the shooting of kulaks was ended and the economy was more or less restored. In the Soviet state for many years the fashion for a healthy peasant corpulence reigned. A Soviet citizen was supposed to have a blooming appearance, powerful arms and legs and large hips like a mother. She needed a lot of strength to work at the machine, on the collective farm and at the same time give birth to healthy offspring for the good of the Soviet Motherland.
Thinness in the Soviet Union was perceived as a sign of illness and was considered ugly. If the leading article of the production was sent to rest in a sanatorium and she returned from there with three or four extra pounds, the task of the medical institution was considered completed. The men were thrilled by the busty, appetizing kolkhoz women with honest, open faces.
Blonde beauties
The Soviet Union finally managed to fatten up its women, and they began to gradually glance westward. In the 30s and abroad there was a fashion for donuts, so domestic beauties did not complex about weight. But they spied on the fashion for blond from their foreign rivals. From that moment on, a woman similar to the mega-popular actress Lyubov Orlova in the USSR became the standard of beauty.
Soviet ladies mastered the simple art of bleaching curls with hydrogen peroxide and began to turn into blondes, one after another. The men joked: "Nothing paints a woman like hydrogen peroxide."
Post-war years
Soviet women did not have to enjoy fashionable trends for a very long time. The war broke out, and everyone was not up to painting. In the post-war decade, the same situation was repeated as after the revolution. Devastation and hunger made women thin and emaciated. It was extremely difficult to build at least a couple of extra pounds at the waist.
A decade later, the cult of a strong workers 'and peasants' body reigned in the country again. A woman in the Land of the Soviets was supposed to look like the Motherland: powerful, muscularly well-fed, ready to carry a wounded soldier out of the fire on her shoulders. In the 60s and 70s, slender girls began to appear in the Soviet Union. Such beauties were admired by men, but women did not imitate them. Slenderness in the USSR was not at all obligatory.
A radical breakdown of stereotypes took place in the 80s. The Burda-Moden magazine began selling in the country, bringing with it new standards. In 1988, the first beauty contest in the Union was held in Moscow. From that moment on, the country was swept by the race for harmony. The standard of beauty has become a tall, graceful and long-legged beauty - the complete opposite of a woman who was glorified by Soviet propaganda in past years.
