This article examines the style of Pussy Riot in the context of the contemporary Russian fashion scene. Media representations of Pussy Riot’s ‘Punk Prayer’ and its aftermath have focused on their style as an extension of western feminism and punk, but this is by no means the only layer of meaning contained in their ‘fashion attack’. Using images of Pussy Riot’s performances and the group’s own commentary on their style, which have been circulated on social media, this article traces Pussy Riot’s fashion aesthetic as part of a complex and evolving Russian tradition of clothes as rebellion. It considers, first, how Russian underground fashion provides a context and a vocabulary of protest fashion with which Pussy Riot engages, and, second, how the recent development of Russian ‘glamour’ politics has configured fashion as a key battleground on which to challenge Putin’s political hegemony. As such, this article engages with fashion both as a tool and an object of political protest and explores fashion as a form of dissent beyond the catwalk and internet.
