Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1931, Page 82

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 27, 1931, e T sl Bootlegging BEAUTY to RUSSIA Fashionable Dress Is Against the Law in Bolsheviki Land, and the American Woman Is All but Mobbed forLipstick Butts and Her Worn-Qut Silk Hose and Undies. BY HAZEL CANNING. OU don't really need to see all of Rus- sia to die laughing. If you just catch a squint.at a few of the Russian “belles” of 1931, the Flower of the Proletariat, in their - gray flapping gabardine coats—which is about the only coat that a woman may buy in Russia—in the bandanna which swathes these ladies’ heads, and the most anything at all which happens to cover up their exceeding- ly large feet, you will feel like laughing right out loud. That is, you will at first. But if you are a woman, snd understand what a terrific tragedy it is to have to go to about your life dressed up like something out of the grab bag the saving ladies of New England sent to clothe the missionaries up in Labrador, your laughter will shortly be supplanted by the warmest’ sympathy one woman can extend to another. For the women of Russia, edition of 1931, - g#o about as scarecrows—and they cannot help it. A new sort of rebellion is probably on its way—the rebellion of the beauty-starved wom- en of Russia for pretty clothes, and cold creaTs, and other niceties of the toilet which women have craved since the world began. These are the opinions and the prophecies of a very pleasant and personable young woman who has just returned from Russia. * - This young woman is Mrs. Eve Garrett Grady, wife of an American engineer, recently employed by the Russian state. Mrs. Grady is a writer and, in fact, it was because she made a few little jokes in print about Stalin that that worthy put her out of his country. - Just recently Mrs. Grady told in a book ali - sbout “Seeing Red.” But on this page, for the first time anywhere, she tclis the story of the beauty-starved Russian women. Pirst, she lists some of the things considered essential to a woman’s beauty which it is im- : possible and often forbidden to have or to buy in Russia. NO woman may buy cold cream, powder, scent, silk stockings, silk underwear, tollet water or more than one small cake of soap 2 month. And this soap must do for both laun- dry and personal purposes. If a Russian woman succeeds in buyifig or begging some little nicety from the Americans, e is under a cloud. She may even be fined sent to prison for thus transgressirg against Soviet ideals. But, though the laws and the conditions are what they are, there is a merry little business dome in bootlegged beauty accessories. And thereby hangs a tale of tragedy-—and comedy as weil. But Mrs. Grady starts her story by telling what happened to her, the first morning of her arrival in Russia, when she stepped out of her hotel on a rainy day: “I wore what I considered was quite a pleas- ing little rain garment, of rubberized blue silk with an Alice blue lining of crepe de chine. It " was a pleasing confection. But I had not stepped into the street before half a dozen people of assorted sexes and ages were grasp- " ing my raincoat, peering into my eyes, shaking their heads, examining the crepe de chine lin- . ing and then sputtering away in a swift and voluble Russian. “I ran back into my hotel and asked the clerk, who spoke English, ‘What do they think I am, an aristocrat, or a member of the hated bourgeoisic? Were they getting ready to put me into jail?’ J“ ‘Comrade Grady, no indeed,’ he said; ‘they ‘were merely admiring the excellence of your costume !’ ™ “I ran upstairs and hid that lovely raincoat away down in the lowest layer of my trunk, and left it there. Admiration is all right—but I was mobbed! " OWEVER, an American woman must dress in carpet slippers, a bandanna for her head, a patched gabardine coat and leave her gloves at home before she frees hersell from the incessant admiration and study of the Russians, who stop her—who stopped me 'most every time I stepped out—to examine and ad- mire the pretty clothes. “Silk stockings, particularly, made them wist- ful. In the United States a good husband is he who brings home the bacon. In Russia a loving husband is he who stops an American woman and by pleas and persuasion and good rubles. if necessary, induces her to part with one of pairs of ‘States’ silk stockings for him to carry home to his wife, “When I went into Russia I had two dozen pairs. I had not been there two months before I had given away all except three or four very worn and feded pairs. And then we were in- vited to a party. I had to send, post haste, te a friend in England, asking her to send me three pairs. She did. “It took me seven days, seven irips to the " custom house, much persuasion, all the po- litical influence I could muster and the services of an interpreter, before I get these innocent stockings out ef the customs. And then I had to pay $4.50 a peir as duty en stockings that were worth about $1.50. “‘Now this, as I figure it, is the situation with the Russian woman: There are the middle class, tire hfited bourgeoisie, whe remember what it was, before the war, te wear lovely things. There are the preletarians, who never had anything, but whe, now and then, awaken to the idea that there are beautiful things in the world and—suddenly—want them pas- sionately. . Ia the land where fashions and aids to feminine beauty are illegal. A typical group of Russian women, dressed as all Soviet women must dress. “There are also the young girls born since the war, who wear knives in their belts and re- volvers in their pockets and try to persusde themselves that the true, class-conscious prole- tarian does not wish to detract from her grand new freedom with silly fripperies. But sooner or later many of these young folks also get a glimmering of what a feminine world may be where there is plenty of lipstick and silk under- wear and scents and refreshing powders.” RE was a little Russian girl Mrs. Grady knew who sat at table opposite her at a big dinner given for the American specialisis and their wives and Russian friends. A yoiing Britisher who was a devil among the ladies had been trying to pay the girl court for a long time, rather vainly. ' This evening he asked her, through an interpreter, if he might not see her home after the dinner. “Tell the gentleman I am a good girl,” she said, for she had seen much in her short life and trusted no man. But later Mrs. Grady saw this same girl on the arm of the young man who was a devil with the ladies, and soon she heard her story: “Ah, yes,” a Russian friend explained, “he gave her two pairs of silk bloomers and a great, big bottle of perfume. What girl could hold out against such princely presents!” But the dearth of those aids to beauty, so dear to feminine hearts, has prompted more bootlegging and more ingenuity among Russian women than any one would believe possible. Any American leaving Russia is besieged with requests to bring back lipsticks, compacts, eye shadow—all the ingredients of the beauty Kkit. Mrs. Grady knew one bachelor who was very eager to oblige. He came back with three trunks full of powders and silk fripperies and creams and frocks and—since he was a bach- elor—he was thoughtful enough to provide himself with a “temporary wife” who ‘pos- sessed” all these things. HE Soviet official at the border who ex- amines trunks looked hard at all the beauty preparations and burst into protests: “But, sir,” he said, “you spoil your wife with 0 many gewgaws. Things will be different for these pampered American women when the revolution reaches your America.” “Ah, yes,” agreed the bachelor, looking at his temporary wife, “but unless we buy our women plenty of the gewgaws they will not wait for the revolution. They will stage a little revolution of their own!” And the things were passed, though the “wife” trembled and jail very nearly yawned for the bachelor bootlegger of beauty prepara- tions. But Mrs. Grady says this dearth of pretty things even invades the home to make house- keeping ridiculous, now and then. There was her servant, Natacha. She worked for the Gradys for three months, wearing sacking tied with twine on her feet for shoes. Then she an- nounced, “When I get my $50 saved I will buy me & pair of shoes, real American shoes.”