The November Issue
a dispatch on Tashkent streetwear + a litany of links to take your mind off things
This month’s feature comes from Alexandra Dennett, a pre-doctoral fellow at the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art at the Met and Harvard grad student. I met Alexandra when her research on photography in Soviet Central Asia brought her to my library, and got to know her over many coffees, eagerly soliciting updates on her work. Alexandra's dissertation focuses on photography and the politics of representation in Uzbekistan, from Russian colonization through the Soviet period. Foregrounding agency on both sides of the camera, her project examines how photographs participated in political life and shaped ideas about Central Asian identity in the twentieth century. For this work, Alexandra has traveled the globe examining photography archives across the U.S., U.K., France, Switzerland and Uzbekistan.
Her work in Uzbekistan has always held the most fascination for me; Alexandra spent about a year and a half there, working in collections in Tashkent, Bukhara, Khiva, and Samarkand. Compared with her colleagues who study Anglo-European collections, Alexandra needed more time to comb through card catalogues and tomes of Soviet-era finding aids, since few materials are digitized and researchers are prohibited from taking pictures of the collections and instead must take and rely on extensive notes. Despite all this, she has encountered and written on extraordinarily rare materials that will contribute deeply to art history’s understanding of print and propaganda culture in the Soviet Central Asian Republics, a region and period whose visual culture remains critically understudied.
This summer, during her latest visit to the archives, Alexandra started documenting another form of visual culture: Uzbek streetwear. Here is her dispatch.
Alexandra Dennett on the Dvoika: Variations on a Theme
On a recent visit to Chorsu bozori in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where the clothing market provides an endless source of fashion inspiration, I spotted a t-shirt printed with this phrase: “IN FASHION LEOPARD IS A COLOR.” Ducking into the metro, the cool assurance of this dictum came to mind as I was admiring an elegant older woman’s silk pantsuit, structured by an exuberant proliferation of interlocking animal prints (python, leopard, cheetah).
Called dvoika in both Russian and Uzbek, the matching set has long been the defining article of Uzbek women’s clothing. Its draped layers are available in light cottons, silks, and synthetics, providing cool, flowing, breathable outfits in the summer. In addition to offering protection from the intense blaze of the sun, with its long sleeves and wide-cut pants, the dvoika also appeals to Muslim women seeking modest clothing.
Walking around the streets of Tashkent, dvoiki can be seen on women of all ages, with a stunning range of effects. A dvoika can be dressed up or down, worn as professional clothing, as an everyday outfit, and as loungewear at home. The simple template provides a seemingly endless variety of possibilities: it could be monochromatic, conveying understated elegance in a muted palette or a bold statement with vibrant tones; it may feature a rhythmic printing of iconic European fashion brand names like Christian Dior, Chanel, Fendi, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versace, and combinations thereof; or it can boast bright floral, geometric, and other patterns. While matching tops and bottoms prevail, occasionally one half picks up an accent color of the pattern printed on the other.
In the cold months, the light fabrics give way to the luxurious, enveloping warmth of dark-colored velvets. Last winter I saw many bedazzled with rhinestones—with the logo of the NY Yankees, phrases like “Jazz love,” and a particularly glamorous composition with a tiger. There were also beautiful examples of pressed velvets, printed with shimmering brand logos that revealed themselves only in certain angles of light.
Given my admiration, it may come as no surprise to learn that I myself now own seven dvoiki, including the maroon velvet set pictured above with the NY Yankees logo, as well as a synthetic silk featuring a repeating pale green Christian Dior logo, and a blue Dior Toile de Jouy print with a tiger. But my favorites (and the ones I wear regularly) are made of light cotton and feature bright geometric prints.
Consistent yet kaleidoscopic, always available on the racks at the bozor in an ever-changing array of patterns and styles, the dvoika reveals the astonishing variety that can emerge from a fixed template. It also recalls another wise message on a t-shirt at Chorsu: “I’ve never seen elegance go out of style.”
Thanks to Alexandra Dennett for contributing this feature. You can read more about the archives where she has been doing her work in this wonderful feature in Gazeta Uzbekistan. It’s in Russian, but the Firefox browser translation into English isn’t bad, and the photographs of the the collections, librarians, and conservators by Evgeny Sorochin are stunning.
Sundry
The theme of the Spring 2025 Met Costume Institute Exhibition and gala is finally here! “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” promises to celebrate Black dandyism and focus on menswear, the first Met show to do so since 2003. The exhibition will be guest curated by scholar Monica Miller, author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity (2009) and has an impressive advisory board, including the wonderful scholar Jonathan Square of the Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom Project.
+ In case you missed it, Luxe Libris spoke with Morgan Library curator of printed books and bindings Jesse Erickson about the influence of Black dandyism on his style back in 2022.
“Like being in the room with a celebrity or a ghost. . .” Using only sketches and two grainy photographs from the archives, Bard Graduate Center MA student and Broadway costume designer Sydney Maresca recently brought to life two original designs by artist Sonia Delaunay for the 1923 Dadaist musical, Le coeur à gaz (The Gas Heart) that didn’t survive the play’s run. I found a few more photos of the costumes than the article provides over on Maresca’s instagram.
Speaking of costumes brought to life, I am so proud of my friend Caroline Hamilton whose exhibition “Women Artists of the Ballet Russes: Designing the Legacy” is now on at the McNay museum in San Antonio through January. The exhibition brings renewed attention to the women designers who created some of the most evocative costumes and set pieces for the storied ballet company. One of its showstopping moments reunites a backdrop designed by Natalia Goncharova for the 1937 Colonel W. de Basil Ballet Russes production of Le Coq d’Or (“The Golden Cockerel”) held by the McNay with Goncharova’s costume for the ballet’s Queen of Shemakhan sewn by Barbara Karinska on loan from Dansmuseet in Stockholm—the two have not appeared together since the original production. (For more on Karinska, see the first-ever issue of Luxe Libris which covered her life and photo archive.)
ICYMI: for my money, two great pieces came out of this year’s Style Issue from the New Yorker: Jennifer Wilson’s profile of celebrity stylist Law Roach featuring a dizzying number of star-studded quotes (Naomi Campbell! Edward Enninful! Rachel Zoe!) and the two vintage shopping together in New York, and Rachel Syme’s lush deep dive into the career of perfumer Francis Kurkdjian. (Unfortunately, trying to get my hands on a copy alerted me to the decline of print magazines purveyors in Cambridge, Massachusetts. If we’re not selling and buying print in this bookish town, who is??)
Dress historian and friend of the newsletter Elizabeth Block has a new book out, Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing that argues for a reexamination of the importance of hair which has historically been overlooked for its misguided association with frivolity (except by Fleabag of course). Her press tour, including an interview on Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness and book readings at actual hair salons, has been so fun to follow along with from afar.
Some Personal News
Long-time Luxe Libris readers know this newsletter only comes out when it’s good and ready, which seems to be about three-four times a year. In just a few weeks, my husband and I will welcome our first child into the world and her arrival may bring with it an even longer pause between issues, if not prohibit me from putting it out entirely. I hear life after kids is (wonderful but) difficult to predict! Whatever happens, I am grateful to those of you who have been reading along since 2022. A readership that takes pleasure as I do in anything at the intersection of cultural heritage, archives, and fashion is not to be taken for granted.
If you’ve found other newsletters, magazines, zines, books, documentaries or social media accounts you love that scratch a similar itch, consider dropping them in the comments.
With any luck, I’ll see you in the new year. Take care until then!
The BEST news is yet to come for your family. Thanks for everything!