Nazi 'Chic'?: Fashioning Women in the Third Reich (Dress, Body, Culture)

In this book on the German fashion industry from WWI through to the end of the Third Reich, the author reveals the heated debates surrounding the issue of female image and clothing, as well as the relationship between Nazi propaganda and women's daily lives during this period in German history. This is the first book in English to deal comprehensively with German fashion from World War I through to the end of the Third Reich. It explores the failed attempt by the Nazi state to construct a female image that would mirror official gender policies, inculcate feelings of national pride, promote a German victory on the fashion runways of Europe and support a Nazi-controlled European fashion industry. Not only was fashion one of the country's largest industries throughout the interwar period, but German women ranked among the most elegantly dressed in all of Europe. While exploding the cultural stereotype of the German woman as either a Brunhilde in uniform or a chubby farmers wife, the author reveals the often heated debates surrounding the issue of female image and clothing, as well as the ambiguous and contradictory relationship between official Nazi propaganda and the reality of women's daily lives during this crucial period in German history. Because Hitler never took a firm public stance on fashion, an investigation of fashion policy reveals ambivalent posturing, competing factions and conflicting laws in what was clearly not a monolithic National Socialist state. Drawing on previously neglected primary sources, Guenther unearths new material to detail the inner workings of a government-supported fashion institute and an organization established to help aryanize the German fashion world. How did the few with power maintain style and elegance? How did the majority experience the increased standardization of clothing characteristic of the Nazi years? How did women deal with the severe clothing restrictions brought about by Nazi policies and the exigencies of war? These questions and many others, including the role of anti-Semitism, aryanization and the hypocrisy of Nazi policies, are all thoroughly examined in this pathbreaking book Annotation We are all familiar with the stereotype of the German woman as either a Brunhilde in uniform or a chubby farmer's wife. However, throughout the interwar period fashion was one of Germany's largest industries and German women ranked among the most elegantly dressed in all of Europe. This book explores the failed attempt by the Nazi state to construct a female image that would mirror official gender policies, instill feelings of national pride, promote a German victory on the fashion runwaysof Europe, and support a Nazi-controlled European fashion industry. How did the few women with power maintain style and elegance? How did the majority experience the increased standardization of clothing characteristic of the Nazi years? How did women deal with the severe clothing restrictions brought about by Nazi policies and the exigencies of war? Nazi 'Chic'? addresses these questions and many others, including the role of anti-Semitism, "aryanization," and the hypocrisy of Nazi policies. The result is the first book in English to deal comprehensively with German fashion from World War I through to the end of the Third Reich

We are all familiar with the stereotype of the German woman as either a Brunhilde in uniform or a chubby farmer's wife. However, throughout the interwar period fashion was one of Germany's largest industries and German women ranked among the most elegantly dressed in all of Europe. This book explores the failed attempt by the Nazi state to construct a female image that would mirror official gender policies, instill feelings of national pride, promote a German victory on the fashion runways of Europe, and support a Nazi-controlled European fashion industry. How did the few women with power maintain style and elegance? How did the majority experience the increased standardization of clothing characteristic of the Nazi years? How did women deal with the severe clothing restrictions brought about by Nazi policies and the exigencies of war? Nazi 'Chic'? addresses these questions and many others, including the role of anti-Semitism, "aryanization," and the hypocrisy of Nazi policies. The result is the first book in English to deal comprehensively with German fashion from World War I through to the end of the Third Reich.

This is the first book in English to deal comprehensively with German fashion from World War I through to the end of the Third Reich. It explores the failed attempt by the Nazi state to construct a female image that would mirror official gender polic ies, inculcate feelings of national pride, promote a German victory on the fashion runways of Europe and support a Nazi-controlled European fashion industry. Not only was fashion one of the countrys largest industries throughout the interwar period, but German women ranked among the most elegantly dressed in all of Europe. While exploding the cul. Within the larger history of fashion, especially for women, in Nazi Germany, Guenthor (history, Houston Community College, Texas) finds smaller stories of economic greed and political machinations; of ideological hyperboles, cultural contestations, and the manufacture of illusion; of gender fashioning and class conflict; of high fashion salons and Jewish ghettos; and of world war, home fronts, and concentration camps. Distributed in the US by Palgrave Macmillan. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Preliminaries......Page 1 Acknowledgments......Page 7 Contents......Page 9 1 Introduction......Page 13 2 The Fashion Debate in World War I......Page 31 3 The New Woman......Page 63 4 Fashioning Women in the Third Reich......Page 101 5 Purifying the German Clothing Industry......Page 153 7 The War Years......Page 213 8 Conclusion......Page 275 Notes......Page 289 Bibliography......Page 449 Index......Page 487 Introduction The fashion debate in World War I The "new" woman Fashioning women in the Third Reich "Purifying" the German clothing industry Germany's National Fashion Institute The war years Conclusion.