Communist Germany’s Fashion Scene Exposed in a New Documentary

The phrases “high fashion” and “Communist Germany” may not immediately conjure images of cutting edge garb, but former model and filmmaker Marco Wilms in his new documentary Comrade Couture hopes to change that by offering a peek into the underground world of 1980′s DIY Eastern Bloc fashion, one of the few artistic movements that was able to bloom under communist rule. By combining film footage and photos from the 1980s with four of the fashion scene’s most vivid personalities, Wilms attempts to share with the viewer “the thrill of freedom and economically unencumbered creativity that lent East Germany’s fashion underground its potency”.

The fashion itself, which borders on goth, punk, and S & M, though tame by today’s standards was so subversive during its time that locations of fashion shows had to be kept in the strictest of confidences, for fear that the communist police would catch wind of these illegal displays and arrest them all. Though to some this may seem like paranoia, after the fall of Communism in 1989 evidence was found in Stasi files (the East German Secret Police) that the more prominent members of the movement were under surveillance, and those who were seen as part of the underground were targeted if they stepped into more public places like Berlin’s transport- hub Alexanderplatz. In his documentary Wilms, who himself was targeted by authorities and spent several years in a fish factory before becoming a state-selected model, hopes to show the audience what a subversive act it was to be an independent designer in East Germany, and what the end of the USSR meant for this cultivated scene.

The underground fashion of Chic, Charmant und Dauerhaft and Allerleirauh will be featured in an exhibit on East German Fashion in Berlin’s Kunstgewerbemuseum beginning on July 4.

To view full interview with Marco Wilms visit Der Spiegel online.