Clothing Industry

 

the branch of light industry that produces clothing and other sewn goods for household and industrial purposes from woven and knitted fabrics; artificial and natural leather and fur; and double- and triple-layered materials of new design. It also produces various finishing materials and accessories and components. In the USSR the clothing industry is the largest industrial branch producing consumer goods, with an average annual output valued at more than 20 billion rubles.

In prerevolutionary Russia, the manufacture of clothing was a cottage industry, and there were no garment factories. In large cities craftsmen served the upper classes and the clergy, and commercial firms extensively employed home workers, including those who lived in rural areas. Most of the population wore homespun clothing. Only just before World War I were the first clothing shops established; they had only very simple equipment—hand-driven sewing machines, irons, and needles.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Department of Ready-made Clothing and Underwear was established at the Central Textile Trust (Tsentrotekstil) in 1918; in April 1920 the Main Committee of the Clothing Industry was formed under the Supreme Council on the National Economy. The primary task of the committee was to industrialize the sector by centralized production planning. The clothing industry began developing rapidly as the result of new construction and the technical reequipping and organization of production-line manufacturing. The creation of domestic machine building for the clothing industry was a decisive step. By 1930, 32,000 general-purpose industrial machines and 6,500 specialized machines manufactured by the Podol’sk Machine Plant had been installed in the industry’s enterprises. Between 1921 and 1930 the output of garments increased by a factor of 4.3. In 1930 the Scientific Research Institute of the Clothing Industry was founded in Moscow.