Not a Russian Novel, but the Novel Russia
Now, “Russian Style,” a new coffee-table book published by Assouline, seeks to mothball — or at least subvert — stereotypes of Russia as a land of vodka, babushkas and the mafia.
The book, celebrated at a party on July 7 in Paris during the haute couture shows, is designed as a glossary of Russian style and culture. It has one entry per page, each illustrated by a striking, often ironic image.
“O,” for example, stands for oligarchs, the generation of young Russian business tycoons who became rich during the post-Soviet 1990s. Accompanying the text is a caricature from The Wall Street Journal of Roman Abramovich, the billionaire and former oil magnate who owns the Chelsea soccer club in England.
People “knew vodka, ballet, Yeltsin,” said Evelina Khromtchenko, the book’s author. She is also the editor in chief of the Russian edition of L’Officiel magazine. “I decided to tell them a few more words of Russian vocabulary.”
Like “American Style” by Kelly Killoren Bensimon, also from Assouline, “Russian Style” aims to present a catalog of national treasures. It juxtaposes classic and modern icons of Russian fashion, literature, politics, culture and sports. They are often didactic pairings meant to demonstrate the reach of Russia’s contemporary influence beyond the country’s borders — a concept Ms. Khromtchenko refers to as “Made in Russia.”
On one page, for example, Leonid Brezhnev, the late Soviet premier, sporting a 1970s-era three-button Soviet power suit, faces a page with Maria Sharapova, a Wimbledon champion and Tag Heuer spokesmodel, clad in Nike tennis whites. On another page, a black-and-white still of Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina in a fur hat sits next to a contemporary fashion shot of the model Gemma Ward wearing a Russian-style astrakhan lamb hat, called a pirozhok, designed by Prada.
“Something can be very fashionable and used all over the world in fashion without people knowing it is originally Russian,” Ms. Khromtchenko said.
Indeed, the book goes to great lengths to show how some familiar objects — like brassieres or borscht — were originally made in Russia, or at least made by someone born in Russia. (In the 1930s, Ida Kaganovich Rosenthal, a Russian émigré to New Jersey, designed what was then called Maiden Form, the first structured bra.)
At the same time, “Russian Style” uses contemporary Moscow artists and celebrities to sweep away clichés and depict the new iconography of Russian power.
There is a portrait of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, made out of tiny black pearls of caviar, grouped together to form every detail, from the top of his fur hat down to the collar of his greatcoat. There is a plexiglass sculpture of a gas pump, shaped like a dollar sign, which seems to poke fun at the precariousness of the Russian economy and its dependence on world oil prices. And, sandwiched somewhere in between, is a photo of Dasha Zhukova, a fresh-faced Russian “It” girl with an enigmatic smile.
In other words, in this book, made in Russia means no more mothballs.
You don't really have a choice in the matter.
