As of: November 27, 2023 11:59 p.m
Her name is mentioned in the same breath as that of fashion legends such as Giorgio Armani or Calvin Klein: Jil Sander revolutionized the fashion world from Hamburg. The major fashion magazines celebrated her as the “Queen Of Less”, the queen of leaving things out. On November 27, 2023, Germany’s flagship designer turned 80 years old.
Even little Heidemarie has pants from the start: Heidemarie Jiline Sander from Wesselburen in Schleswig-Holstein. Later she calls herself simply and cosmopolitan Jil. And she has a mission: to redress the entire world. “It was clear to me from the beginning – and that was perhaps the original force – that I wanted to pursue a vision. That was to attract women who didn’t want to dress up like dolls, but on the other hand also wanted to be feminine and attractive. That’s what led to this “That this style has become established worldwide,” Sander looks back.
1967 Boutique opened in Hamburg-Pöseldorf
In 1967 she opened a boutique in the chic Pöseldorf district of Hamburg, where she also sold her own designs. It is the nucleus of their later empire. Sander remembers: “Thank God I was also a bit naive. I couldn’t have foreseen how difficult it was. I was fired up by the idea of how I saw fashion.”
A new situation
Jil Sander hit the nerve of the times with her designs in the 70s.
“Good design for little money” – with this slogan she launched her first collection in the mid-70s. Jil Sander quickly becomes an insider tip for young, elegant women – modern and self-confident. “Everyone says my fashion was emancipated,” says Sander. “That’s because women were entering the workforce when I started doing fashion. It was a completely new situation.”
Retired but unforgettable
Jil Sander never goes to fashion school. She teaches herself everything and only uses the best materials. She became known nationwide when she did perfume advertising with her own face in the late 1970s. At the end of the 90s she sold to Prada: the beginning of a story of suffering. She is in a constant quarrel with the Prada boss. Returns. Works again. Today it has become quiet about Jil Sander, who has always shielded her private life anyway. Maybe she’ll celebrate her birthday in Ibiza, where she owns a finca and even produces her own olive oil. Or at Gut Ruhleben near Plön. Jil Sander created a beautiful garden there with her partner Angelica Mommsen, who died of cancer in 2014. She now lives in seclusion – but never forgotten. When there was a large exhibition about her life’s work in Frankfurt in 2017, more than 100,000 visitors came.
