MANAGERIAL DILEMMAS IN SOVIET TAILORING IN THE 1960S

Abstract

The article represents a microanalysis of Soviet tailoring in Perm region, exploring managerial practices in tailoring, its problems and internal contradictions. The author understands tailoring as the system of tailoring shops and workshops administered by the Department of Everyday service in Perm region. The regional tailoring system has not been sufficiently studied in comparison with the Clothing Design Houses of the Ministry of Light Industry and private dressmaking. The study focuses on fashion design management and the industrialization of tailoring. Evidence for the study comes from the State Archive of Perm Region. The article reveals that the main managerial problem of Soviet tailoring in the 1960s was maintaining a balance between the fulfillment of planned tasks and customer satisfaction. The tailoring industrialization attempted to combine the traditional approach to tailoring with the Fordist way of organizing customer goods production that dominated the decade. The lack of diversity in large-scale production made customers extensively use tailoring as a replacement and pushed further the development of tailoring industrialization. Tailoring professionals and party bureaucrats differed in their views on the future of tailoring. The managerial practices in fashion design included administrative enforcement and material incentives. Finally, directions for future work are discussed in the paper.