Hungarian women toe the line: How Communist propaganda parallels corporate advertising

This article suggests that fashion communication, especially fashion advertising, is a form of propaganda, and that propaganda is sometimes disguised as a form of sartorial communication. Just as advertisers and marketers in modern corporate societies use propaganda to mobilize a target audience and to sell goods infinitely, early Communism in Hungary set its sights on women and sought to generate its ideology and practices through them. Understanding the social importance of fashion for women and aspiring to win over an apolitical female citizenry, Hungarian Communists chose a women’s magazine, Asszonyok, which existed from 1945 to 1949, to help deliver its propaganda messages. This article also discusses examples of fashion communication in Asszonyok, with special focus on shoes, to show that the Communist Party regime in Hungary used sartorial symbolism as a primary tool of political persuasion aimed at women.