Please note the changed opening hours from 16 April 2024. More

War and Clothing. Fashion illustration at the time of the First World War

25.09.2014 to 25.01.2015
Kunstbibliothek

The political upheavals of the period between 1914 and 1919 that shook the world and changed the course of history also left their mark on the silhouette of women's clothing and established the fashion industry as an increasingly important sector of the national economies of the Western world. Overshadowed by Art Nouveau and the so-called Golden or Roaring Twenties and therefore all too often overlooked by fashion historians, the clothes designed during the Great War are distinguished by a surprising vitality and modernity. Many details that had been introduced during the war years as practical innovations - the markedly shorter skirts and dresses, simple sportswear-inspired daywear, new materials such as wool and silk jersey or the penchant for black as a fashion colour - were retained and developed further after 1919.

 

The exhibition presents fashion illustrations and photographs from the fashion capitals of Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Among the exhibits are the exquisitely designed magazines Gazette du Bon Ton and Der Kleiderkasten as well as the Parisian fashion plate portfolios Modes et Manières d'Aujourd'hui with illustrations by George Lepape and André Marty and La Mode par Fried. The rare prints from the Mode Wien 1914/15 portfolio, published in cooperation with the Wiener Werkstätte, exemplify the characteristic expressive style of Vienna, while original drawings by Annie Offterdinger illustrate the sophisticated designs of the Berlin fashion house Alfred-Marie.

Fashion plates of the period of the First World War are marked by the influence of contemporary avant-garde trends in art such as Cubism, Fauvism and Expressionism. The selection of some 200 items from the rich holdings of the Fashion Image Collection of the Lipperheide Costume Library invites visitors to rediscover the astonishingly modern pictorial language of wartime fashion illustrations.

Matthäikirchplatz
10785 Berlin

wheelchair accessible

U-Bahn: Potsdamer Platz
S-Bahn: Potsdamer Platz
Bus: Potsdamer Brücke, Potsdamer Platz Bhf / Voßstraße, Kulturforum, Philharmonie

Sun 10:00 - 18:00
Mon closed
Tue 10:00 - 18:00
Wed 10:00 - 18:00
Thu 10:00 - 18:00
Fri 10:00 - 18:00
Sat 10:00 - 18:00

Opening times on public holidays Opening Hours

Kulturforum all exhibitions
12,00 EUR Concessions 6,00
all exhibitions
Buy ticket

Annual ticket Classic Plus all exhibitions
100,00 EUR Concessions 50,00
Classic Plus: all exhibitions


Annual membership Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

from just 25,00 EUR

Annual Passes for the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Tel 030 - 266 42 42 42 (Mon - Fri, 9 am - 4 pm)
Questions | Bookings | Feedback