Oh Boy For Once I Did Some Reasearch

Oh boy for once I did some reasearch

I’m keepin this in read more because it’s going to be a lot of text but hello, the cape design, the pause and much of the patterns are not mine. I also want to disclaim that I’m not a fashion historian, so I might get a lot wrong, don’t hesitate to tell me and to point me to more source. I like fashion, but I felt very very unprepared to know what a Russian woman would wear in 1910, and I wasn’t vibing with the concept art that much so I did some research. I selected this garment :

It was made by the Mbryor house in France in 1925. I’m putting a link here there more pictures on the met museum’s webpage : https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/158225?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&when=A.D.+1900-present&ft=L%c3%a9on+Bakst&offset=0&rpp=80&pos=61

Even though the house was French, it was actually a collaboration between multiple designers, and I’m not too sure who exactly worked on this cape but I based myself on who worked at the couture house : “ Leon Bakst, Natalia Goncharova, a Russian Futurist artist, and Sarah Lipska, of Polish origins, were among the house's coterie of artists. “ Leon Baskt designed a lot of costumes, and I actually wanted to base the design on one of his pieces at first. The two women mentioned worked in embroidery, and have designed the pattern that is seen on the coat, which has a lot of cubist influence (which, yeah it makes sense, but I still think it’s really neat in 1925 to see cubist motifs on garments). I reworked the pattern to fit the colors style I wanted the designs to have and added some simple steppe alphabet letters, which can be seen on the edge of the pattern. Nina is supposed to have died probably close to 1905 - 1910 I believe her wearing this is anachronistic. From what I’ve seen while doing my research elite at that time seemed to be influenced by european designers, and generally had a cosmopolitan style (which is why having the cape being made in France by people of different designers), but much of the fashion was closely fitted with corsetier, which wasn’t the vibe I was going with Nina. (I should also mention a lot of costume design at the time were “”exotic””,which I definitely don’t feel comfortable to tackle, but should still be mentioned, as europe wasn’t at all the sole influence..)  Also most of the references I could find had hair tied up in updos, generally with a headbands or pearls keeping it up, so that made its way in the original design. I thought going for something futuristic would fit Nina, since, you know, we have a character who can predict the future.

Also, a lot of patterns during the 1920s had more of this loose style, with an emphasis on embroidery, which I thought was closer to her general art style. It was also somewhat important for me to have something that was designed by women, given the game interesting choice of having a town seemingly ruled first and foremost by women. (In general, during the 1920s, a lot of attention was put on what people were to wear, with restrictions on textile. But I also want to point out that there also seemed to be a certain concern with ‘liberating’ women’s bodies and fashion standards. There’s different influences and trends in that period, and also a gap between what was pushed by the government and what was done in practice, so don’t take my word for it)

I’m adding this https://www.rbth.com/arts/2017/05/10/fashion-and-the-russian-revolution-how-sackcloth-replaced-lace_760091 which I did read and goes more in depth in the evolution of clothing in between 1900 and 1920s