Bursting with style, couture and social context, Fashion and Clothing in Zagreb in the Sixties is an object lesson in how to “do” cultural history and keep it entertaining at the same time.
The close relationship between high politics and hem-lines is stitched subtly together in the exhibition’s accompanying notes. A wave of political liberalization in sixties’ Yugoslavia led to rising living standards, a shorter working week and a consumer boom. Croatian capital Zagreb stood at the centre of this new focus on lifestyle: pictures on display here reveal how department stores, clothes boutiques, textile factories and fashion shows played important roles in a complex culture of work and leisure.
The stars of the show are of course the clothes. The ravishing array of hats, footwear and frocks makes essential viewing for anyone interested in the history of design – or indeed looking for inspiration for retro stylings of their own. A display of lifestyle magazines documents the emergence of modern media culture, with leading weekly Svijet shrewdly combining iconic, aspirational front-cover shoots with pragmatic advice on what kind of look could be thrown together without blowing an entire month’s wages in the process.
Indeed one of the show’s most telling exhibits is a Singer knitting machine. With haute couture in the western sense still out of reach to most Croatian consumers, fashion was frequently a question of what you could knock up at home.