Matylda and Timo prefer loose-fit jeans with iron-on stickers, a t-shirt with snarling dogs, a hoodie and heavy chains as jewelry. Michelle prefers a comfortable everyday outfit with a white knitted coat, scarf and jeans. And for Pauline, where you shop matters more than the clothes, she bought everything second-hand.
The mannequins, decked out with the purchases made by the young people of Augsburg, provide very different answers to the question of what clothing is cool for them. You can find them in the last, participatory station of the new special exhibition in the Textile and Industry Museum in Augsburg (Tim), in which everything revolves around coolness. The show entertainingly unfolds the history of this term with the help of selected items of clothing.
Thinking about cool fits well in a time of general excitement and over-excitement. Billboards, photos, films and music from jazz to hip-hop ensure an amusing, elaborately staged journey through time through 20th century fashion. Between tuxedos, trench coats and evening dresses, you soon begin to think about what coolness actually means. In any case, the posture of the wearer seems to be more important than the garment itself. For the head of the museum, Karl Borromäus Murr, coolness is not just a concept, but a lifestyle, a form of communication with changing codes. As an aesthetic strategy, it is mostly used by young people who are in an “identity-diffuse stage of life” (Murr) in order to constitute and differentiate themselves socio-culturally. And if necessary to rebel.
Nonconformism: Bert Brecht in a black leather coat
He knew how to stage himself: Bertolt Brecht celebrates machoism here with a cigar and his famous black leather jacket.
(Photo: Zander & Labisch/picture alliance / ullstein bild)
There are several answers to the question of the origin of the cool, distant attitude. Some already interpret ancient stoicism as a variety of coolness, says Murr. Others place the origin in West African ideas of “itutu”, a concept of self-control. To appear unmoved to the outside world despite the greatest injustice was later a survival strategy in the context of slavery in the USA. Incidentally, as far as Germany is concerned: Most researchers favor the 1950s as the actual birth of coolness.
Seen in this light, Augsburg’s Bert Brecht was once again far ahead of his time. As early as the 1920s, he liked to be photographed in a demonstratively casual pose in the “classics of coolness” (Murr), i.e. a black leather coat or jacket. To this day, the latter, although almost always industrially produced and essentially unchanged for almost 100 years, is a sign of individuality and non-conformism. The ideal accessory for the green ex-foreign minister Joschka Fischer, whose jacket is one of the exhibits.
An iconic moment in film history: Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo and top hat in the film ‘Morocco’, 1930. She was a pioneer in Hollywood. She also liked to wear men’s clothes in real life.
(Photo: SZ Photo)
Leather was already used by knights or other warriors as a material for armor and was initially reserved for men. Like a whole range of other items of clothing, by the way. The suit, for example, whose gradual adoption by women is clearly illustrated. Nobody used the cool attitude as skilfully as Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, icons of crossing borders to this day. And gladly copied, for example by Madonna, who took up the Marlene Dietrich look again decades later.
Flowing fabric, very tight waist: maybe only real divas can wear this dream of a little dress
(Photo: LWL Industrial Museum)
Women could also be cool in evening dresses, although the associated stereotypes tend to imply a capricious, moody, yet cool-headed diva. The range of evening dresses offered by the Tim is worth seeing, whether it’s the black dress with beadwork, which came from the circle of Schwabing bohemian protagonist Franziska zu Reventlow, or the debut dress of soprano Diana Damrau.
James Dean in white t-shirt
T-shirt and jeans: James Dean, who only appeared in three major Hollywood films before he died in a Porsche accident at the age of 24, became a legend in this outfit.
(Photo: Frauke Wichmann)
One chapter is dedicated to the T-shirt, originally just an undershirt worn by American soldiers, another to blue jeans, a highly coveted item of clothing in Germany in the 1950s. The soldiers had brought the American workman’s trousers with them. And of course, only an original American pair of jeans was considered a real pair of jeans – Lee, Levi’s or Wrangler. “Cowboy pants”, which a German mail order company soon offered, were totally uncool. The prototype of coolness was of course James Dean, who became an absolute style icon as the rebellious teenager Jim in “…because they don’t know what they are doing” (1955) wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. And, thanks to mass media coverage, had a profound impact on the way young people dress.
Commercialization was not long in coming, after all the fashion designers discovered the blue fabric for themselves. When 15-year-old Brooke Shields advertised Calvin Klein jeans on posters in 1980 with the slogan that nothing came between her and her jeans, some of her contemporaries still found it scandalous. But no one associated these trousers with thoughts of protest, even if the advertising still tries to evoke a special feeling of freedom for those who wear jeans. But coolness has long since arrived in the mainstream.
Digression into the world of tracksuits: Today, the retro outfits with the three stripes are the ultimate expression of hipness. Dad used to wear them to old men’s soccer training sessions.
(Photo: Frauke Wichmann)
The digression into the world of tracksuits, a piece of clothing that initially wasn’t cool at all, was also amusing. Presented for the first time at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and advertised as a “comfortable Sunday suit” for leisure time, it took several years before sporting goods companies took possession of it. Adidas released the first tracksuit in 1968, designed for soccer star Franz Beckenbauer. But he only got really cool when a new subculture discovered him: breakdancers and skateboarders.
Coolness played an important role for black and Latin American youth in major American cities as early as the 1930s. In Harlem, they created the “Zoot Suit,” a suit that was often brightly colored, with oversized, thickly padded shoulders and balloon-like pants. But by the time America entered World War II, the garment was considered illegal. Material was strictly rationed, so zoot wearers were quickly considered unpatriotic and were chased through the streets of Los Angeles in 1943 by young white soldiers.
Coolness – staging fashion in the 20th century. Special exhibition until October 22, State Textile and Industrial Museum Augsburg. A brochure has been published to accompany the exhibition, 90 pages, price: 8 euros.