Fabrics of the Soviet Gymnasterka (Гимнастерки)- All Periods

[NATJER]

After some encouragement I have started this thread of the fabrics Soviet Gymnasterka. There is a huge variety of cotton and wool fabrics used pre-war, wartime and postwar Soviet Gyms. Please post them here for comparison and discussion. I hope this becomes a useful thread for collectors.

I have started the discussion with the standard cotton drill fabric used wartime Gyms. This is a heavy cotton fabric and the weave pattern. Please note the diagonal lines.

[Boycie]

Thank you for starting this thread NATJER.

I'd like to share some of my images with some analysis.

This is a surprisingly broad subject, so I will attempt to share information whilst keeping it coherent; there are a lot of rabbit holes we could go down...

I'll show some items that aren't gymnasterkas but feature the same fabrics as were used later in the thread.

I'll start off with some 'summer' cotton fabrics and then show some 'double-diagonal' weaves and some wool.

Firstly, here is an image of 4 gyms side by side. I will go into a little more detail below.



1. 1950s Officer's Gymnasterka
2. 1950s Other Rank's Gymnasterka
3. 1942(?) Other Rank's Gymnasterka
4. 1941 Other Rank's Gymnasterka

1. This fabric appears a lot post war on a number of garments including kitels and pilotkas. I can't rule out its use in wartime; I've just never come across an item made out it that was of a wartime pattern. The WW2 officers' gyms i've come across, whilst being darker than ORs, are never this dark. Here it is again on a kitel from the early 50s.



2. This is from a 1950s OR's gym. It's a very common fabric and was also used for pilotkas. I can't attest to its use in wartime but it appears to fade to quite a distinctive orangey/yellow hue. Below is an image alongside gym 4 for reference.



3. This is an interesting one because you don't see it so much after the war. Like the others, it has a diagonal weave, but if you look closely, the tiny 'right angle' weaves come into view. This fabric tends to start as a very orange/brown, but fades to a very pale hue. I haven't captured this well in the picture but it is the fabric shown in NATJER's post above. It is also distinctive because (unlike the other fabrics above) it looks quite different on the reverse. Here is an illustration of the outside and the inside:



And now here is an image of the same kind of fabric but on a very heavily worn/washed/faded gym (Which you can see here Pocketless M43 Gym with Tushonka Buttons ):



4. This is a 1941 made gym of the 'classic material' it was used before the war too. The hue is a fraction more green than some of the later more yellow and brown fabrics like the two shown above. The image below is a slightly better one of gyms 2,3,4 to give a better idea of the weave with the gym itself below (this gym makes a guest appearance at the end of this thread which is a great reference M35 gymnasterka with unusual chemical protection modifications? ).





Next i'll post some images of double diagonal.

[Boycie]

Double Diagonal (DD) is a very popular fabric for its hard wearing and flexible properties. It is mostly found in galife/sharovari (breeches) or pilotka caps, but it does appear in gymnasterkas and bigger garments now and again. The external appearance differs from the internal and i will try and demonstrate this in the pictures. None of these are of gymnasterkas; I don't own a DD one and have only seen post war winter examples.

These pictures are from some 1942 dated breeches. Note the distinct difference between surfaces. In colour, it is very similar to the last gym described above.





This is from a 1950s pilotka, same weave, but the colour is a bit more yellow/orange - really close to the 1950s gym fabric shown in my last post.



...and here again on a 1950s parade mundir. It's a really heavy feeling fabric.



One observation I would make up front about DD, is that it was used pre-war up until the 1970s (at least).

[Boycie]

Wool.. I don't have a gym I can show right now but i've handled a fair few and have some items of the same fabric. Wool appears in officers and ORs gyms in the war period. I suspect it was phased out for thicker gaberdine materials not long after as post war items I have tend to be dark green diagonal or DD. I won't discuss parade mundirs here, which are probably the exception.

Below is a comparison of two wool pilotkas. Note how the wartime wool is more coarse. I'm not saying fine wool wasn't used in WW2, i'm sure it was, but this is what I have at hand to compare now and we can probably draw conclusions about the necessities of war production..





..now some WW2 officer's breeches. Again, really quite coarse.



Compare to the smooth finish on this 1950s furazhka.



I'm sorry if the difference in the last two doesn't jump out; the breeches feel much rougher!

[Boycie]

Finally, lend lease... Soviets used material from the UK (from WW1 Imperial stocks), Canada, the USA and also Poland (the latter often apparently UK stocks being used by the Polish Army if some Russian forums are to be believed).

These are all generally called lend-lease although technically, that's just from the USA. Here are two of my items from LL material, a gym and a kitel. I have no idea if it's from the UK, USA and i'm not sure anyone on Russian speaking internet knows either.

I should probably post these on a US/UK thread and see if anyone knows...

[Boycie]

I find this subject a bit of a minefield to be honest!

If I were to offer advice to anyone interested in learning more, it would be to pick up a few 'known' items like post war pilotkas and gyms (whilst they're cheap as chips) to get an idea of fabrics that are definitely post-war. They are worth collecting in their own right anyway.

There are also in-expensive wartime items that can be bought for comparison (especially 'gas hoods' which I don't believe have been heavily faked yet). For a modest spend, this gives you the chance to compare and contrast fabrics and ultimately get a more expensive item you are happy with.

With a 10 million odd person Red Army of 1945, the 'known fabrics' are just the tip of the ice-burg...

To make all of the above a little less confusing, here's a comparison of some of what I showed above in one image:



1. Officer's Gym 1950s
2. OR's Gym 1950s
3. OR's Gym 1941
4. Officer's Pilotka 1950s
5. OR's Pilotka 1950s
6. Officer's breeches WW2
7. Officer's Pilotka WW2
8. OR's breeches WW2