Figure 1.--We believe that this is a catalog from Lev Rubaskin which appears to be a store in Lodz during 1912 just before World War I. The fashions look similar to standard European fashions of the day. Lodz is a city in Poland, but at the time Losz and most of the rest of Poland was controlled by the Tsarist Empire. Note that even though Lodz was a Polish city, the catalog was printed in Russian. We suspect that catalogs in thearea of Poland controlled by Germany were printed in German. We are less sure about the area of Poland comtrolled by Austria.
We do not have much information on clothing advertising and clothing during the Tsarist era nor do we know if there were mail order catalogs as in the West. There were department stores in the major cities. We have found one 1912 publicartion, although we do not yet know if it is a store catalog to inform people what the store offered or a mail order catalog which allowed people inrural areas to make purchases. It looks to us much like catlogs we have seen in the rest of Europe during the 1910s. Unfortunately we can not yet read the page in detail, but it does suggest that businesses in the Russian Empire were developing like other European economies before World War I and the Revolution.
1912
We have found one 1912 publicartion, although we do not yet know if it is a store catalog to inform people what the Lev Rubaskin store offered or a mail order catalog which allowed people in rural areas to make purchases. It looks to us much like catlogs we have seen in the rest of Europe during the 1910s. Unfortunately we can not yet read the page in detail, but it does suggest that businesses in the Russian Empire were developing like other European economies before World War I and the Revolution.
