In 1980s communist East Germany, nearly all clothing available was mass-produced and functional rather than fashionable, leaving little room for individuality and self-expression.
But as a new exhibition in Berlin shows, there was a vibrant underground that offered not only fashion alternatives but also a subtle way to rebel against the oppressive regime.
And it was one which authorities could do little to counter.
For organisers of "In Grenzen Frei" (Free Inside the Borders) at the capital's Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts), this clothes-as-dissent was a small but valuable contribution towards the peaceful revolution that tore down the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this November.
"The fashion subculture liberated itself before the Berlin Wall fell made freedom a reality," according to a museum statement. "For them the GDR only continued to exist to a limited extent."
Providing patterns
One of the curators, Grit Seymour, recalls the period with horror. A student thrown out of her East Berlin fashion college "for political reasons" in 1986, she went on to become a successful international designer.
"There was absolutely no way on earth that we could walk around dressed in the stuff from the shops," she said.
A visitor looks at ensembles made of plastic film by east German fashion designer Sabine von Oettingen are on display at the exhibition "In Grenzen Frei" ("Free Within Borders") in Berlin 14 July 2009
People often got ideas from Sybille, a GDR fashion magazine with much more interesting outfits but ones not available to the masses – they were either too expensive or never made it past the Iron Curtain.
The magazine, however, included patterns and instructions on how to sew the outfits -- if you managed to find the materials. Photos from "Sybille" form part of the exhibition and replicas of patterns are on sale in the gift shop.
"Sybille was all about dreams, peddling dreams that could not really come true,” said Seymour. “There were 200,000 copies printed but each magazine went through at least 10 pairs of hands.”
There were also shops called Exquisit offering clothes by Paris-based designers like Norwegian Per Spook and Frenchman Daniel Hechter, but they didn't come cheap.
"A pair of leather trousers, for example, that I bought myself cost 1,100 marks, which was considerably more than the monthly income of a normal worker," Seymour said.
Fashions from the West slipped through in other ways, and were seen as a glimpse into an exciting new world.
Resistance through refusal
Writer Alexander Kuehne, for example, recalls being amazed by an article in a West German magazine he got hold of about "London's New Romantic Scene."
"They all had these pale, made-up faces ... the pictures showed an intense decadence, a feeling that was breaking out in me more and more," Kuehne says in a book accompanying the exhibition.
Inspired, Kuehne and his friends searched everywhere for clothes and accessories to recreate the look of "new romantic" bands such as Adam and the Ants or Spandau Ballet, taking eye patches from first aid kits and holding illicit events.
"Gelled hair, evening dresses and duffel coats with fur collars took over, for one evening, 500 square meters of this deadly boring republic," he says of one particular event.
There were even secret, avant-garde fashion shows organised by groups that sprang up with names like "Allerleirauh" (All Kinds of Fur) and "Chic, Charmant und Dauerhaft" (Chic, Charming and Enduring) or "Omelette Surprise."
Videos of these wild-looking evenings -- which were almost exclusively organised by and for women, with men present only as models or porters -- also feature in "In Grenzen Frei."
A visitor checks out photographs on display at the exhibition
Freedom and submersion
The scene went beyond fashion, with dress doubling as statements of both freedom and subversion.
"I came from the punk scene and we had a much more confrontational way of dealing with the state but suddenly I came across people who did things completely differently," says Henryk Gericke, one of the exhibition organisers. "They just let the state get on with it, while we tried to break it. This was a form of resistance that was completely new to me, it was a form of resistance through refusal."
Gericke, who made a film about the GDR punk scene called "Too Much Future" -- as opposed to the Sex Pistols' "No Future" -- also holds that "just ignoring the state" helped bring down the system in 1989.
"I definitely believe that the punks made a lot of things possible that from the mid-1980s onwards, things other groups made use of,” he added. “But they also pushed further the limits that we had opened."
The exhibition runs to September 13.
Simon Sturdee/AFP/Expatica
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“The fashion subculture liberated tself before the Berlin Wall fell made freedom a reality.”
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