[asats]

Pre-consumerist russia had incredibly colorful dresses: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=traditional+russian+dress&t=ffab&i...

If anything it's the communists that turned everyone into a gray mass, mostly because you had a very limited number of items of clothing that the state manufactured and you could buy, and the state decided on the color, and second because standing out in any way was at best frowned upon, and at worst dangerous, especially during stalin's times.