How The Clothing In East-West Is A Failure Of Forced Assimilation

Clothing in East-West is a failure of forced assimilation. Clothes serve a purpose to discriminate between foreign and domestic. When Marie arrives in Russia, she wears colorful western clothes, making it noticeable that she is a foreigner. To integrate herself into Soviet society, Marie leaves behind her Western style of clothing and adopts the Soviet style. The Soviets tend to wear dark and dull colors, which differs from her colorful French clothing. Marie has not truly assimilated to Soviet culture. Although she may dress like the rest of society, culture and linguistics impede her from fully assimilating. This scene shows the moment before Marie escapes to the French embassy. Marie wears French shoes and Soviet stockings that grabs the
attention of a guard, and she is almost caught. In the scene, Marie is half Western and half Soviet, which emphasizes her failure to fully assimilate into the Soviet culture.