Nazi Chic
The style that just won’t go away
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In 1999 the British editor of GQ was fired for placing a Nazi on a list of who was Best Dressed in the 20th Century. He specifically praised the crisp style of Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, nicknamed the “Desert Fox,” who drove through Northern Africa as part of the Nazi colonial project during World War II. As the saga goes, Rommel lead his army from the front, yet managed to appear freshly pressed — at least in photographs — with not a hair out of place. A portrait of the perfect metrosexual (a title he would no doubt loathe).
It may be shallow to praise a handsome man for nothing but his looks and it certainly isn’t out of character for Western society to value beauty over character, but what does it mean when we laud a Nazi like Rommel?
The term “Nazi Chic” refers to the austere and tailored look of those in the Third Reich during the second world war, including Rommel. Adolf Hitler himself wore an undecorated and plain uniform while the majority of Nazi leadership dressed flamboyantly in black leather, brass buttons, and gilded epaulettes, stylings that would later influence 1970s punk and BDSM culture. From high end designers to campy trends like “swastikawaii,” the iconography of Nazi style has elbowed its way through history, whether its wearers promote its ideology or not.
By now it’s no secret fashion label BOSS (named after German designer Hugo Ferdinand Boss) was the official uniform supplier for Hitler’s early bodyguards, its successive paramilitary, and the Hitlerjugend, or Hitler Youth. With only six sewing machines to his name, Boss joined the Nazi party in 1931 and saw a significant increase in sales. Boss used some 180 forced laborers and prisoners of war from a variety of disenfranchised states to tailor Hitler’s uniforms until 1946, when he was penalized for his Nazism and heavily fined. He appealed his conviction and won, then died in 1948, presumably of guilt.
Meanwhile in Poland, Hedwig Hensel, known as Frau Hoess, lived and worked alongside her husband, lieutenant colonel Rudolf Hoess, the longest standing SS Commandant at Auschwitz Concentration Camp…
