Books 2024: Historical Lessons From Berlin for Today’s Fashion Industry – Global Atlanta

Book: Fashion Metropolis Berlin

Author: Uwe Westphal

Reviewed by: Oliver Gorf, executive director, Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta

Something unique emerged in the heart of Berlin in the 19th century: a creative center for fashion and ready-made clothing.

The hundreds of clothing companies that were established there manufactured modern clothing and developed new designs that were sold throughout Germany and the world.

This industry reached the height of its success in the 1920s. Freed from their corsets, sophisticated women of the time dressed in the “Berlin chic” sold by Valentin Manheimer, Herrmann Gerson or the Wertheim department stores. After 1933, however, most Jewish clothing industrialists were confronted with hatred and violence; they were robbed, displaced and murdered.

Uwe Westphal is an author residing in Berlin and London. He has worked for PEN and as a journalist and producer for PBS and CBS in New York. The art historian has spent decades researching the subject of this book, and it shows.

My interest in this historical book came from the present, though. Fashion is an enormous global industry. It sits at the very crossroads of individual expression and the global ecological consequences of our lifestyle choices. Fashion may be beautiful, but Fashion definitely is political.

And so, in a project that connected the old Berlin with the new Berlin, and both with Atlanta and beyond, we hosted FASHION UTOPIA, in which the Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta as part of the German-French collaboration Kultur Ensemble explored the works of a Berlin-based, international designer collective called Die Platte and its attempts to guide the history of fashion towards diversity, inclusivity, and ecologically responsible production.

We dared to draw an arc from the 19th century to the 21st century. And we will continue the project as an exchange program between Atlanta and Berlin, hopeful that the lessons of history may guide us into a better future.

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Each year, Global Atlanta asks influential readers and community leaders to review the most impactful book they read during the course of the year. This endeavor has continued annually since 2010.

See last year’s full list of books on Bookshop here and see Global Atlanta’s full store, featuring Reader Picks lists going back to 2013 along with lists of books we’ve covered through stories or author talks.

All books were chosen and reviews written independently, with only mild editing from our staff.

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