02/07/2026
The exhibition Costume Art is currently on show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Presenting connections between garments from the Costume Institute and objects from the Museum’s other collections, the show features an image from our Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive paired with a Demna Gvasalia shirt, from the Vetements spring/summer 2019 collection.
The original photograph shows the torso of a Soviet-era criminal, taken in the Perm region, USSR, c.1980s. The shirt design references several key tattoos, transferring them onto a bodystocking garment, to give the initial impression that the wearer might be tattooed.
In the Soviet period, wearing unearned criminal tattoos would be severely punished by the vor v zakone (thieves in law). Transgressors would be beaten and made to remove the tattoo using glass or brick. They could also be forcibly tattooed with ‘lowering’ symbols, demoting them to the status of ‘untouchable’ (chukhany) within the prison. In severe cases they might also be r***d or killed.
To discover more about the signs by which the people of this hidden world mark and identify themselves, visit the Russian Criminal Tattoo section of our website.
The show Costume Art is currently open at the MET Fifth Avenue, New York, until 10 January 2027.
