The Right Stuff, Wrapped and Ready: The Effect of International Packaging Styles and Trends in Communist Eastern Europe

• In Event: What Did the Socialist Sweater Look Like, and Why Does it Matter?: New Perspectives on Socialist Materialities

Abstract

Under the influence of “international” (i.e., capitalist) trends, and spurred by worries that domestic practices lagged behind models from abroad, the commercial establishments of several East European countries from the 1960s onward moved, in striking ways, beyond concerns of mere functionality in packaging design. This presentation uses primary sources from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia to analyze the dynamics of this important shift. To be sure, enterprise specialists continued to devote considerable attention to technical and material aspects of packaging, recognizing functional considerations as an essential yet problematic aspect of the self-service retail model then rising to prominence. The question of the “right” materials never disappeared, but in fairly short order concerns about packaging extended beyond questions of the strictly material — product protection and preservation, portability, easy storage, placement on shelves and racks, and similar practical matters — to address the ways in which containers, wrappers, and labels might, if designed with proper “progressive” techniques, further the sales goals of socialist commerce and, at the same time, advance the brand image of particular products and the firms that produced them. Materials now mattered in a new way: indeed, choosing and designing the right packaging materials, in the right way, could often become an essential part of consumer engagement and sales promotion. Unreserved enthusiasm about branding was not the norm everywhere; Yugoslavia and Hungary proved looser and more adventurous. Yet an acceptance of the basic logic of brand-carrying packaging as a necessary, beneficial instrument of consumer markets marked each country surveyed.

Author

• Patrick H. Patterson, UC San Diego