Fashion and clothes in interwar Chișinău

The article offers a detailed research of the interwar Chișinău evolution through the prism of fashion and clothing. An inherent phenomenon of a city at the several cultures intersection, the clothing evolution of the Chișinău inhabitants, after the Great War, was dictated, first of all, by the safety and comfort offered by the clothing. Later, in the mundane life of the city, the capital of a province newly anchored to Western values, the function of demonstrating social status through robes and clothing accessories returned among the townspeople. The tendency to modernize the city’s society after Western European fashion is easily explain if we consider the abundance of shops and advertising agencies that offered, including „Fashion Journals” that dictated trends in clothing. Another indication of the connection of clothing to fashion fluctuations was Chișinău’s anchoring of certain „Beauty Contests” specific to the western world.