Космос и его покорение как источник историй и образов для российской streetwear-моды

Шаги/Steps. 2021. Т. 7. № 4. С. 261–280.

Kulinicheva E.

The subject of this paper are printed clothing and accessories produced by Russian fashion brands known as streetwear brands in 2010s — early 2020s and dedicated to space heroes such as Yuri Gagarin and history of space exploration. This paper conceptualizes streetwear fashion as a field where popular knowledge about space and the history of its exploration can be seen and at the same time where such knowledge is popularized or even produced. The paper analyzes the iconography of space which Russian streetwear fashion developed: what heroes and events are the most popular in this field of cultural production, how they are depicted and in which contexts they are embedded. It also compares the iconography of space that is introduced in this field with the Soviet canon of memory about space exploration and Soviet iconography of cosmonautics. As my analysis shows, Russian brands known as streetwear regularly refer to the history of space exploration as a source of ideas and images for their collections, not only on anniversaries. At the same time, the circle of the most popular heroes and events is quite narrow: this is Yuri Gagarin, the launch of the first sputnik and the flight of the two soviet space dogs Belka and Strelka. Other people or projects are notably less popular. The transformation of the Soviet canon of commemorated space exploration history is also clearly seen. New types of space iconography appear, and the typology of sources of inspiration is becoming more diverse and includes different kinds of Soviet material culture dedicated to the conquest of space such as architecture, sculpture and philately.

Keywords: мода, космос, повседневность, Public history, визуальные исследования, публичная история, fashion, Visual Studies, Gagarin, Гагарин, textile and clothing industries, освоение космоса, искусственный спутник Земли, streetwear, образы космоса, space race, streetwear, sputnik, images of space