When the 2008 Champions League final took place in Moscow, the following joke made the rounds in the Russian blogosphere: “There are people downtown singing Kalinka-Malinka and wearing furry hats with ears! It’s so easy to spot English people in Moscow!”
The traditional Russian shapka-ushanka (literally “hat with ears”) is pretty practical for when the weather gets really cold, and has also enjoyed a renaissance as of late (blame the hipsters on that. In fact, let’s go ahead and blame everything on the hipsters) - though I would still wager that in Moscow, it remains more popular with tourists than with locals.
There is, I must note, a more sinister side to Russian hats and that is the dreaded fur hat with no ears, or else with the ears neatly tied up. You know what I’m talking about: it’s a style that essentially makes you look square, by literally wearing a huge fuzzy block on your head. It is somewhat tolerable on men in a military context, but I use the word “somewhat” loosely.
Incindentally, another joke that made its rounds on the Russian blogosphere around the same time as the Champions League final was a little more cruel: “I was on Tverskaya tonight. Looked for someone in a traditional fur hat. Spotted one guy. He turned out to be a bum.”
As Russian society became more “internationalized,” people felt the pressure to shed the styles they had been trapped into by virtue of living in a closed market system. The fur hat instantly became a symbol of the drab past - and that’s besides the issue that environmentalists and animal rights activists take with fur (environmentalists and animal rights activists don’t get a whole lot of play in Russian fashionable circles nowadays, though it looks as though that’s changing).
The changing fortunes of the fur hat are both good and bad. I happen to find the thing convenient, even if I don’t wear one myself - first it was for fear of looking “too traditional,” now I’m afraid that someone might think that I am making an “ironic statement” of some kind (I prefer to make MY ironic statements with heart-patterned tights, thankyouverymuch). It can offset a particularly dainty sweater, or a very mundane peacoat. It can transform an outfit the way a beret used to - before berets were overdone by the Manic Pixie Dream Girl crowd. Finally, it’s a fashion that both boys and girls can share - without looking androgynous! (Androgyny is not my thing. I understand that for some people, it is totally Their Thing. But it’s a trend that I, as trendwatcher extraordinaire, find best to observe from a distance.)
Even as Moscow enjoys its warmest winter in years, many of us miss the fur hat as the spring-like wind blows sideways, howling miserably in the alleys and feeling as though it is literally biting our exposed, vulnerable ears.
I suppose a babushka-chic scarf can always take its place. But babushka-chic is a whole other tale of adventures in post-Soviet fashion...
The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Trendwatching in Russia is an extreme sport: if you’re not dodging champagne corks at weddings, you’re busy avoiding getting trampled by spike heels on public transportation. Thankfully, due to an amazing combination of masochism and bravado, I will do it for you while you read all about it from the safety of your living room.
Natalia Antonova is the deputy editor of The Moscow News. She also works as a playwright – her work has been featured at the Lyubimovka Festival in Moscow and Gogolfest in Kiev, Ukraine. She was born in Ukraine, but spent most of her life in the United States. She graduated from Duke University, where she majored in English and Slavic Literature. Before coming to Moscow, she worked in Dubai, UAE and Amman, Jordan. Her writing has been featured in The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Russia Profile, AlterNet, et al.
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