Russian Immigrants and Fur Coats
For my portion of the class project, I’d like to take a deeper look into the correlation between Russian women wearing fur coats and snobbery. I live in a predominantly Russian neighborhood and once it hits below 50 degrees, I see women wearing coats that can go for five times my rent. My mother came here when she was in her early 20s- she came with nothing and built herself up to landing a job that allowed her to live a comfortable lifestyle. My mother says that her first big purchase was a fur coat, because she said that to her it signified that she made something of herself in America. These fur coats are more than a fashion statement, they say “look at me, I’m better than you because I can afford to buy $7,000 pieces of clothing.” There is no doubt that fur coats represent the transition that immigrants went through because back in the former Soviet Union, only a very small elite class could afford to wear such luxurious items. Here in America, and especially New York, immigrants have the opportunity to engage in social mobility and build themselves up towards the upper class.
In addition to conversing with my mother about her personal experience and significance behind her fur coat, I have several fur clothing stores in vicinity to my home. Because I speak Russian, I think it would be fairly easy for me to walk in and talk to the owners about what kind of clientele they receive and what they think about the connection between fur clothing and wealth/the immigrant experience. In terms of organization, maybe we can divide the website into tabs of how clothing connects to economic status, religion, gender roles, festivities, and so forth. Perhaps another way we can organize the website would be in terms of country of origin; for instance, my part would go under a “Russian” tab, whereas there will be other tabs for how clothing is related to immigrants from India, China, and so on.
