ABOUT THIS BOOK

Since becoming the capital of reunited Germany, Berlin has had a dose of global money and international style added to its already impressive cultural veneer. Once home to emperors and dictators, peddlers and spies, it is now a fashion showplace that attracts the young and hip. Moving beyond descriptions of Berlin's fashion industry and its ready-to-wear clothing, Berliner Chic charts the turbulent stories of entrepreneurially-savvy manufacturers and cultural workers striving to establish their city as a fashion capital, and being repeatedly interrupted by politics, ideology, and war. There are many stories to tell about Berlin's fashion industry and Berliner Chic tells them all with considerable expertise.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Susan Ingram is associate professor and coordinator of European Studies at York University. Katrina Sark is a PhD student in the Department of German Studies at McGill University.

REVIEWS

“While German literary scholars and costume historians have produced numerous fascinating studies on the topic, fashion buffs outside of the German-speaking realm have rarely paid attention to Berlin as a center of fashion. Ingram and Sark’s book is thus filling an important gap in our awareness of fashion in Berlin as a major aesthetic and sociopolitical phenomenon of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In its scope and ambition, this is a pioneering study with a comprehensive approach to the various aspects of public life that have constituted historically Berlin’s distinctive position on the international fashion scene. Berliner Chic offers a wealth of theoretical references, a historical framework, and a rich bibliography, as well as plenty of charming anecdotes, engaging stories, and ample photographs. One can imagine the reader packing this book before a trip to Berlin and using it as an alternative travel guide.”

— Mila Ganeva, Worn Through

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Locating Berliner Chic

Chapter 1: Berliner Chic in Museums
Chapter 2: Berliner Chic and Historiography
Chapter 3: Berliner Chic and Photography
Chapter 4: Berliner Chic on the Silver Screen
Chapter 5: Berlin Calling: Sex and Drugs and Punk and Techno
Chapter 6: Becoming Berlin: The Flux of Corporate Luxe
Chapter 7: Conclusion—Where Fashion Lives Today, Battleground Berlin

References