What happens to fashion in a dystopian society?
In world controlled by a totalitarian leader, what does fashion look like? Are creativity and innovation allowed to flourish? We try to confine our idea of dystopia to gloomy books and depressing movies, but doing so ignores very real examples from a history of fascist regimes, particularly Nazi Germany.
Adolf Hitler’s political ideologies and actions are widely known, but less discussed is his attitude regarding fashion. Upon his rise to power in 1933, Adolf Hitler founded the German Fashion Institute, or the Deutsches Modeamt, which distributed style guides for German women. Later, the Association of Aryan Clothing Manufacturers (ADEFA) was created to exclude Jewish designers, with its fabric label to ensure clients that only Aryan hands had touched their clothes.
Hitler was determined that Germany have the best dressed women in Europe, and used his firm views on fashion to control and regulate the female image. He hated makeup, considering it unnecessary for women who should glow from “health and love of country,” and tried to bar the influence of foreign, especially American, beauty trends. Hitler also detested nail polish and hair dye, calling them whorish and morally degrading to German femininity.
Styles that were popular in the West, pioneered by designers like Coco Chanel, encouraged women to reject their corsets in favor of sportier, easy-flowing clothing. The Nazi leader saw this modern movement, which incorporated elements of menswear, as too rebellious and threatening to tradition. Hitler was outspoken against the popular French-model image because he considered their bodies to be too thin and waif-like, and therefore inadequate for child-bearing which was, in his mind, a German woman’s main contribution.
Schoolgirls were expected to keep their hair in braids, while women wore simple buns to embody the wholesome, peasant-like persona that Hitler envisioned as a national ideal. They were encouraged to dress in the traditional dirndl or tracht, clothing that was symbolic of motherhood and rural living, but at the time long-outdated and impractical for modern workers.
When fascist Adolf Hitler ran Germany, creativity was stifled and strict regulations were imposed on what it meant to be a “true” citizen. But what began as conventions of fashion would soon expand to eye color, hair color, and physical appearance.
In the United States today, those stories from the past are beginning to echo. Based off how someone looks and what they’re wearing, assumptions are made about their character and beliefs. Fashion is misused as a way to profile people who seem different, who dress differently. This “othering” must be called out for what it is: perilous warning signs of history, waiting to repeat itself.
