Moscow textiles celebrate 150th anniversary. Curator's guide to Moscow Fabrics exhibition

The Museum of Moscow opened an exhibition dedicated to textile development in Moscow — from first factories opened in the 19th century to the closure of all production facilities after the collapse of the USSR. The exhibition presents samples of fabrics from leading factories of the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods, as well as works by textile artists who developed both design for mass production and original pop art, abstraction, Art Nouveau and avant-garde prints.

Exhibition curators Alexander Selivanov and Ksenia Guseva tell about the ups and downs of the textile industry in Moscow.

Textile capital

Textile factories appeared in Moscow in the early 19th century. Each of them had its own specific features: some manufactured silk, others made cotton fabric. Moscow was considered to be the textile capital, with its large factories employing at least 3,000 people, residing on the grounds, as the production facilities featured a city within a city with their own well-developed infrastructure.

The textile industry has always been focused on the pattern. Tendencies varied with the time to reflect the events unfolding in the country.

The 1920s can be considered the starting point in the history of Russian textile design, when the Higher Art and Technical Studios (VKHUTEMAS) had their textile department opened.

The Museum of Moscow tells the history of textile production taking as an example six big productions —Danilovskaya and Tryokhgornaya manufactories, the Moscow Sverdlov State Silk Factory, Krasnaya Roza, Krasnye Tekstilshchiki and the First Moscow Cotton-Printing Factory.

Textile Moscow before the 1917 Revolution

The pre-revolutionary, overview section of the exhibition is dedicated to the factories in the Russian Empire and the Soviet period factories.

In the early 19th century, the country banned fabrics imports. The founders of the production facilities were either merchants who had adopted practices of western experts, or entrepreneurs from Europe. The map shows that all the six textile factories were built near the Moskva River for easy transportation reasons.

Textile artists sought to look to western fashion trends. First, they invited European specialists to bring their own samples of fabrics to reproduce at Moscow factories. The machines had not been upgraded to European standards, and foreign artists had to adapt to the existing ones.

The more colours a pattern had, the more printing layers it required, and it surely affected the cost. First, wooden shafts were used for printing to be later replaced by metal ones.

Pop art in tsarist Russia

Prokhorovka Tryokhgornaya Manufactory was an undisputed textile leader. Unlike most factories, Tyokhgorka employed artists who both followed all western trends and created unique products.

In the late 19th century, the artist Oscar Gruen was employed as the manufactory's chief artist. He was allowed to work without being driven by consumers’ demand. Gruen tasked his students to create certain patterns, while allowing them to experiment and use their imagination. It was the only factory to afford it.

As for Gruen, he was focused on designs for silk screen printing. His works are very reminiscent of the future avant-garde, Art Nouveau and pop art.

French deception and Leo Tolstoy's noisy neighbours

In 1875, Claude-Marie Giraud, born in Lyon, the textile capital of France, opened a silk weaving factory with a dyeing facility in Khamovniki. In 1879, the factory had 180 looms to reach 1,700 looms overtime.

The factory saw two scandals. First, Giraud launched a new paint shop bypassing all regulations. He dumped chemicals into the Moskva River, claiming that the waste is non-toxic, as the system is equipped with filters. The test found these substances to be toxic, however, and the deception was exposed.

The second story ended even worse for the Frenchman. Klavdy Osipovich, as the Russians called the foreigner, used the label of the Sapozhnikov Association, a more successful factory, for his fabrics. After the forgery was revealed, Giraud was expelled from the Russian Empire, but the factory kept running, managed by his sons.

Leo Tolstoy, who lived for some time in Khamovniki, where the factory C.O. Giraud & Sons launched, wrote in his treatise 'So, what shall we do?'

'Opposite the house I live in, there is a factory of silk products, outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment. And now, sitting in my room, I hear the incessant roar of machinery and I know what that roar means, because I was there, and I saw three thousand women standing for 12 hours at the looms amid the deafening noise to produce silk fabrics…'

Competition between leading factories and crush on Khodynskoye Pole

Danilovskaya and Tryokhgornaya manufactories were ongoing rivals. Moreover, they competed for government contracts. There was a great demand for anniversary and event souvenirs, such as the 100th anniversary of the War of 1812, the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Family and so on.

In this regard, Danilovskaya manufactory bypassed Tryokhgorka, with its renowned Nicholas II coronation kerchiefs. They had souvenirs wrapped inside, which caused a mass stampede on Khodynskoye Pole.

'Peasant' flower and exhibitions in Chicago

There was a special commission at the factories to approve samples of fabrics for mass production. Fashion was dictated by society. Most often, new patterns were denied. So one and the same pattern, such as floral print, had been replicated for years, as such chintz was popular with peasants and sold well.

Fabrics by the leading Moscow factories were presented in the international industry trade fairs in Paris and Chicago, and won gold medals. Before each contest, the participating factory invited a foreign artist to develop patterns for the fabrics of the winner-to-be.

Textile workers as the chief revolutionaries

In the late 19th—early 20th century, almost all factories sought to show themselves as socially responsible enterprises. The merchants built hospitals, libraries, and something like kindergartens for their workers. But in fact, according to employees, working and living conditions were unbearable: the working day was 12 hours or more, they all slept in barrack-like dormitories divided into male and female rooms.

Education in training institutions for the workers' children was limited to preparing a child for the work at a production facility. Remarkably, pre-revolutionary textile factories employed mostly men.

Workers were in a sense hostages of the factory system: they had nowhere to go, but it was very hard to work and live there. For these reasons, the revolutionary events of 1905 are closely linked to textile workers. They were the first to fight for their rights.

Big changes at big enterprises

After 1917, all enterprises were nationalised, but work at the factories stopped for several years. Because of the Civil War, factories had neither labour force, nor fuel or raw materials. After 1922, factories revived under new, Soviet names and, naturally, under other leadership.

Emil Tsindel's factory became the First Cotton-Printing Factory, С. O. Giraud & Sons became Krasnaya Roza (Red Rose) factory (in honour of Roza Luxemburg), Danilovskaya manufactory was renamed Frunze Moscow Cotton Factory, chintz manufactory owned by Albert Guebner became the Moscow Sverdlov State Silk Factory, Golyutvinskaya factory was named Krasnye Tekstilshchiki, and Prokhorovka Tryokhgornaya Manufactory became Tryokhgornaya Manufactory, with Dzerzhinsky added after 1936.

First specialists, or the beginning of Soviet textile Moscow

A key event in the history of textile design in Russia is an establishment of a fabric designer's profession. In 1920, Moscow had its Textile Department in VKHUTEMAS. The department aimed to overcome the decorative 'applied arts' trend and introduce technical disciplines into its program. The graduates were to become not just drawing artists, but technologist artists at textile factories.

The Department produced the first fabric designers who could already design textiles without copying them. Teachers treated students as their colleagues and gave them tasks similar to those at factories.

Most teachers were engaged in production. Oskar Gruen, who worked at Tryokhgornaya Manufactory before the 1917 Revolution, was a machine printing teacher. Vladimir Mayakovsky's sister Lyudmila (she worked at Tryokhgornaya and Krasnaya Roza manufactories) gave spray printing classes. The leading teachers were Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov Popova (they worked at the First Cotton-Printing Factory).

From avant-garde to social realism

In the 1920s, textile production was dominated by avant-garde and abstraction, taught at the textile faculty, and in the late 1930s, there was a forced turn to socialist realism and propaganda textile, with fabrics depicting aircraft, agricultural machinery, ships, factories, bridges and other achievements of the USSR.

During the same period, cotton fabrics were replaced by silk. Artists had their creative assignments to gain skills to meet the new trends.

War and Thaw

During the Great Patriotic War, factories produced fabrics required by the front, such as parachutes and dressings. When the war was over, they resumed producing their pre-war range.

An important historical event was the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students of 1957. Foreign guests were to understand that Moscow goes in tune with the times. To do this, we needed absolutely new fabrics, in structure and texture. In the 1960s, silk became an expensive material, with cotton affordable for anybody.

From that moment, comprehensive upgrade of the textile industry began, with the major objective to create western-style patterns, at the same time possessing the national character, so the artists turned to folk art such as Lubok, Dymkovo toys and ceramics.

Brezhnev stagnation and the collapse of the USSR

In the Thaw period, factories sought to achieve individualism, to show their creative priority, while in the 1970s and 1980s, like in the pre-revolutionary period, the chief criterion was being in demand, turning to mass production. Textile artists took back seat, they had not been offered either business or creative trips, so the art had declined. Design was reduced to regular checks, strips and the traditional dull colours.

Collaborative article by mos.ru and Mosgortur Agency.