Fashion: Couture for the Comrades

Katya Mikhulskaya giggles as she shows off her outfit -- a red-and-gold- braid ed army jacket paired with a frilly white lace skirt -- then coquettishly pulls up her hem to reveal black knee-high jackboots. Mikhulskaya, 23, developed her theory of fashion from years of riding the Moscow metro, where she saw women wearing a tasteless hodgepodge because the state-controlled fashion industry had made it impossible for them to put together well-coordinated wardrobes. "When it comes to fashion in Moscow," she says, "a sense of humor is especially important." Her fellow designer, Katya Fillipova, 29, pokes fun at Soviet icons; her...