Aleksandar Joksimović: socialist fashion

Aleksandar Joksimović was one of the most famous designers in Yugoslavia, known not only for his designs, but above all for his ability to conjugate traditions and innovation.

The 1960s have always been considered a burgeoning era of social change. Fashion was an integral part of a progressive movement - and indeed was used to react to the poverty and difficulties of the previous decades and demonstrate new ways to negotiate people's identity, both individually and as nations.

This is not only true for the more known - and studied - areas of the world: we all can make up an image of what the London scene would have looked like during the swinging years, thanks to the many movies, accounts, books and ephemera related to that moment.

But the London scene was not the only one that housed a stylistic revolution. Indeed, the Yugoslav fashion scene was as ebullient with new ideas, and this is mainly thanks to designer Aleksandar Joksimović.

Born in 1933, Joksimović briefly studied scenography, to then graduate in 1958 in textile design from the College of Applied Arts in Novi Sad.

His political commitment was manifest from the very start of his career. At the beginning of the 1960s, he was employed as designer of work uniforms for the City of Belgrade Institute for Household Improvement. Joksimović engaged with the everyday management of the Institute, and was one of the founders of its National Salon, a place for fashion to be showcased and appreciated.

Fashion's calling arrived, and he gleefully responded, designing his first evening wear collection in 1963. His designs were praised by critics, whose comments gave great visibility to Joksimović’s work, making him one of the most prominent personalities in the Yugoslavian fashion system.

In 1964, he started working with the Centrotekstil, Yugoslavia's export-import giant, and his designs became even more popular. He managed to keep his role as head designer within the National Salon: his designs were appreciated both by the market and by the political powers, since they came from the encounter of fashionable cuts and shapes with traditional motifs and decorations.

Always very attentive to the social scenario in which he was operating, Joksimović was successful in understanding the social changes that were happening in Yugoslavia.

He catered to the rising wealthier middle class, while paying respect to the state ideology, including details from folk costumes in his creations. His womenswear and menswear collections, presented together, featured modern designs while still including traditional motifs and craft techniques - and his promotional images often showcased monuments and architecture associated with the political power of the time.

The peak of his success is represented by three collections, shown between 1967 and 1969: Simonides, Stained Glass and Landscape and Jerina.

Simonides was the first 'haute couture' collection of socialist Yugoslavia. It was presented to the Belgrade audience on 7 March 1967. The collection featured pearls, complex embroidery and prints together with simple, neat cuts, with more constructed bell sleeves, inspired by medieval Byzantine clothing and Serbian traditional attire.

Stained glass and Landscape took inspiration from the coloured glass windows with Orthodox and Catholic monasteries. The collection was showcased in the exhibition hall of the Belgrade Fair, and it was also screened in Zagreb and Ljubljana.

Jerina, presented in 1969, included reference to the latest designs by Pierre Cardin, but was described as an ode to the legendary construction of the city of Smederevo. It demonstrated how the designer was aligning the meaning of his collections to the promotion of the state put in action by the political class.

All three collections were featured in many western fashion magazines, marking a radical change of the concept of high fashion in socialist Yugoslavia.

In 2005, Aleksandar Joksimović donated documentation about his work to the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade, which dedicated a show to the designer and his legacy in 2015.