Political Protest and Snobbery
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The ethnological research on the everyday life of big Polish cities has only commenced. The author describes a series of customary behaviours connected with the dress of the students of Cracow in the years 1945-1956. Basing on the newspapers of those times and on his own memories, the author discusses the fashion of that period, the ways of obtaining the clothing and its alteration necessary since a considerable part of it came from the military stores of the Western armies. A proper haircut and a special way of bearing propagated by the Communist youth organization, a manifestation of the philosophy of life. According to the author that fashion was a conscious form of protest expressed by the academic youth against the cultural unification introduced by the totalitarian system forms in Poland in the period following World War II.