{{short description| Russian fashion designer}} {{orphan|date=June 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Alla Levashova | native_name = Алла Александровна Левашова | image = Алла Александровна Левашова.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1918|3|22|df=y}} | birth_place = Moscow | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1974|3|3|1918|3|22}} | death_place = Moscow | resting_place = | citizenship = Soviet | occupation = Fashion designer | alma_mater = Moscow Textile Institute | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = |awards = }}
'''Alla Levashova ''' (22 March 1918 – 3 March 1974) was a Soviet fashion designer.<ref name="auto1">{{cite book |last= Gronow | first= Jukka |date= 19 August 2015|title= Fashion Meets Socialism: Fashion industry in the Soviet Union after the Second World War| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ovJvEAAAQBAJ|access-date= 19 May 2022|location= Helsinki|publisher= Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura | page=217| isbn= 978-9-522-22752-2}}</ref>
==Biography== Alla Levashova was born in Moscow on 22 March 1918. She graduated from the ''Moscow Textile Institute'' in 1941. She later played an important role in establishing the department of fashion designers at this institute.After completing her education, she joined at ''the Stanislavsky Moscow Opera and Drama Studio'' as a production designer. Later she moved to All-Union Model House, where she began a new career in fashion designing.<ref name="auto2">{{cite web |last1=hut |first1=Burning |title=Cutting and sewing fairies: how Soviet women fashion designers created clothes |url=https://woman.forumdaily.com/en/fei-krojki-i-shitya-kak-sozdavali-odezhdu-sovetskie-zhenshhiny-modelery/ |website=woman.forumdaily.com |access-date=19 May 2022}}</ref>
In 1966 she became director for the newly created ''Special Designing Bureau (SKhKB)'' in the Ministry of Light Industry.<ref>{{cite book |last= Bartlett | first= Djurdja |date= 8 October 2010|title= FashionEast: The Spectre that Haunted Socialism| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=q8Ai2wKyPKUC|access-date= 19 May 2022|location= Cambridge | publisher= MIT Press| page=257| isbn= 978-0-262-02650-5}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite book |last= Aso | first= Tsukasa |date= 22 April 2022|title= History of Design and Design Law: An International and Interdisciplinary Perspective| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=U3tsEAAAQBAJ|access-date= 19 May 2022|location= London | publisher= Springer Nature | page=369| isbn= 978-9-811-68782-2}}</ref> She established contact with number of popular fashion design houses in other countries including Christian Dior, and led the official Soviet delegation on visits.{{sfn| Bartlett |2010|p=297}}In Paris, she personally met the popular French designer Yves Saint Laurent, who was the artistic director of Christian Dior.
In 1962, Levashova succeeded in creating the Special Art and Design Bureau of the Ministry of Light Industry (SHKB) and became its director and artistic director.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Velʹčinskaâ |first=Olʹga Alekseevna |title=Kvartira N°2 i ee okrestnosti: moskovskoe assorti |date=2009 |publisher=Russkij putʹ |isbn=978-5-85887-317-4 |location=Moskva}}</ref> Levashova assigned a decisive role to fashion designers capable of working in industry.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2023-06-12 |title=Advanced Quality Planning for Low Production Volume with QRL (Quality Readiness Level) prioritiza... |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-4122.vid |access-date=2024-03-06 |doi=10.2514/6.2023-4122.vid |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Collection planning was based on the actual production of textile mills, knitwear, accessories, etc. SKHKB was the first enterprise in the country where the three-stage system of fashion production was applied. Also in SKHKB for the first time in the USSR the method of one basis was realized - creation of a series of models-variants on the basis of one pattern. The collections are updated by means of fabrics and decorations without introducing a fundamentally new cut. The method allows to easily reorganize production and increase the choice of fashionable goods.
In her writings, she advocated the need for creating “clothes for everyone,”<ref name="auto2"/> and emphasised on the importance of designing clothes for “broad masses.”<ref name="auto1"/> Under her leadership, the ''Special Designing Bureau'' facilitated the production of garments that were “inexpensive and accessible to ordinary people.”<ref name="auto"/>{{sfn| Gronow |2015|p=238}}
Her fashion designing models reflected the combination of “elegance and simplicity.”<ref name="auto2"/> She also actively promoted the “idea of central control of Soviet fashion industry” in which the local industries at different locations adopted the mass design solutions developed by an office at the federal level.<ref>{{cite web |last1=MANAEV |first1=GEORGY |title=How Lenin, Yves Saint Laurent, and Christian Dior laid the foundation for Soviet design |url=https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/328560-lenin-saint-laurent-soviet-design |website=rbth.com |access-date=19 May 2022}}</ref>
She is being considered as “one of the Soviet Union’s leading fashion designers.”<ref>{{cite web |last1=Timokhovitch |first1=Anna |title='Technical Aesthetics' in the U.S.S.R.:'The Design System of the U.S.S.R,' is the first-ever exhibition of its kind |url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/04/24/technical-aesthetics-in-the-ussr-a61022 |website=The Moscow Times |access-date=19 May 2022}}</ref>
She died in Moscow on 3 March 1974.
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levashova, Alla}} Category:1918 births Category:1974 deaths Category:Soviet women Category:Russian women fashion designers Category:People from Moscow