Fashion as Transformation. The Example of Leipzig (1980 to 2000)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Dirk van Laak; Dr. Ulrike Langbein
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527880187

The research project combines fashion history with contemporary history and develops a new perspective on historical transformation processes. Taking Leipzig as an example, the project examines how social change is articulated, realized and documented through fashion and its actors. It is true that images of the self and of others work with fashion, a time marker par excellence. Yet contemporary history has paid little attention to fashion, just as, conversely, fashion research has not examined the East German transformation process. The project explores fashion as a fundamental form of expression and execution of society. A period of 20 years is considered, which takes the caesura of 1989/90 as its center. The investigation looks at the late GDR, whose erosion was also reflected in fashion, as well as at the Federal Republic after reunification, in which new spaces for consumption and expression opened up to the population, while at the same time existential challenges had to be mastered. With Leipzig, the focus is on a city that has long been associated with fashion in a variety of ways. As in every big city, specific milieus and scenes find their spaces and in fashion their medium. At the same time, Leipzig is a special case: fairs presented fashion in constant change. Jewish companies made Leipzig the world city of furs, which were refined and traded here until the fall of the Wall. Until then, Saxony was one of the most potent textile regions in Europe. The media city of Leipzig benefited from fashion just as much as it benefited from being a city of art. The project pursues three theses: First, it presents fashion as a cultural practice that reflected and implemented geo-social transformations. Secondly, fashion is characterized as a dynamic constellation of actors, networks and knowledge that responded flexibly to contemporary challenges. Third, the example of Leipzig shows how a revolving city, which had to reinvent itself again and again, successfully handed down its fashion disposition, precisely because it constantly transformed it. Fashion is thus activated as a probe for understanding profound cultural changes as well as an expression of temporal-historical transformations. For 'changes of dress' articulate a transformation of images and self-images, which in turn is based on the transformation of economic, political, and social situations as well as of cultural norms and values. The project presents its results as a monograph, in professional journals and, beyond the funding phase, as an exhibition. The transfer of knowledge finds interested partners and audiences in the city and the region. Cooperations with Leipzig museums, which also address the transformation process, are already underway. A participatory self-conception guides our work with contemporary witnesses and a public relations that communicates the project externally during it's entire duration.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants