When you think about fashion, you most likely think about France or Italy, since the most famous fashion industry creators are located in those countries. UK, US came into the fashion picture at the start of the 20th century.
Germany wasn’t really well known for it’s fashion designers and shops, until the 1920’s, with designers like Hugo Boss (1924), Adidas (1924) – and Puma (1948), but that’s another story. In the 1970’s that was a new generation of designers with brands like Joop!, Marc O’Polo, Tom Tailor or Closed.
Nowdays, Germany is one of the leading countries in the fashion industry, known for it’s elegant lines, but also for the weird and unconventional young designs. And of course, for it’s sport clothing.
Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich are well know creative fashion centers, with small hubs for design and production in locations like Herford, Metzingen, Herzogenaurach, Schorndorf, Chemnitz, Albstadt and Detmold.
The industry employs somewhere around 130 000 people in the country, with 1300 companies getting around 28 billion euros in revenue, with 45 % of the production being exported, mostly in other European countries, being the second largest producers of consumer goods after food.
The most known fashion fairs in Germany are the one in Berlin, with a bi-annual Berlin Fashion Week and the Igedo fair in Dusseldorf.
Well known German designers and models
Among the most notable fashion designers in Germany we can find names like Hugo Boss (BOSS), Wolfgang Joop (JOOP!), Jill Sander, Michael Michalsky, Tomas Maier, Robert Geller, Adi Dassler, Rudolf Dassler (The PUMA-Adidas feud) and maybe the most know of the all: Karl Lagerfeld.
Germany has a lot of well known models that wear a lot of the German collections on the fashion podiums around the world. The most know of them are, of course Heidi Klum and Claudia Schiffer, symbols of the 90’s. But those two are not the only German models you’ve heard before. Models like Diane Kruger, Eva Padberg, Toni Garrn, Julia Stegner, Tatjana Patitz, Manon von Gerkan, Birte Glang, Carola Remer, Franziska Knuppe, Vanessa Hegelmaier, Barbara Meier, Nadja Auermann, Shermine Shahrivar, Evelyn Sharma, Marten Laciny or Nico Schwanz are well known in the industry.
Germany also have a lot of fashion and design education coursers on big universities around the country, the most know being the Berlin University of Arts, Weissensee Academy of Arts, University of Arts Bremen, HAW Hamburg and Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.
How German women like do dress
MarieClaire has a good article in which they ask a lot of German fashion influencers how they like to dress. You can check it out if you like, there are a lot of interesting things about it. But to make it short, German ladies kind of go between sporty outfits to glamorous, prefering a clean and simple look.
Most of them can go from wearing a sport outfit like Funktionsunterwasche (oh, the German language, a beauty) in the morning for a jog, going to work in a simple “etuikleider” (sheath dress) and going out at night at a party in a glamorous cocktailkleider (I don’t think this work needs any translation). And if the weather goes bananas, they prefer to be cozy and choose a kapuzenmantel (very cozy coat) for the necessary daily walk.
Young women prefer to create some custom clothes and express themselves in some unconventional ways, but a lot of the women over 28 prefer cleared lines, simple, easy to wear and comfortable. They do believe in practice before look.
Do you have anything to add about German fashion that we didn’t include in this article ? Start the discussion in the comments bellow.
