Consumer Culture in Modern Europe - Term Paper Example

Consumer Culture in Modern Europe Review of Nazi Chic in Relation to Consumer Culture Nazi Chic is a book that deals comprehensively with fashion design in Germany during the World War 1 through World War 2 to Third Reich. This book looks at the attempts and failures Nazi state to come up with female figure that would display official gender policies. In addition, the book explores designing of female image that will instill feeling of national vanity and promote victory to German on fashion runways in Europe. This was in support of Nazi who controlled European fashion. The book depicts that fashion was one of the Germany’s leading industries through out the war and interwar times. German women topped in the list of most stylishly dressed in the whole continent of Europe. This paper explores consumer culture in Nazi Germany. The author of Nazi Chic investigates the cultural stereotypes of women in Germany who Nazi official classified them as Brunhilde in uniforms or flabby wives of farmers. There was a high-heated debate over the issue of image of women and clothing. Moreover, there was souring relationship between the propaganda of Nazi officials and reality of daily lives of women during the world wars and interwar periods. Hitler did not acknowledge publicly the issue of fashion industry in Germany. However, government of Germany supported fashion institutes and established organizations to streamline German fashion industry. Nazi Chic connects cultural triumph of 19th century with political affliction of 20th century. The author looks at the way in which Third Reich regime attempted to prevent women from engaging in fashion industry. The regime under Hitler wanted to control the power of female appearance. Women in Germany wanted to out-win France who had been leading in fashion industry since the time Louis XIV. Guenther portrays historical assumptions that prompted rash of satiric French cartoons during the World War 1. These cartoons involved dowdy, dumpy, and jaunty German women contrasted to chic and smooth French ones (Guenther 27-35). This tongue-in-cheek cartoon was an assertion of French fashion supremacy. France wanted to warn her competitors that it would not surrender her powerful and leading role in international fashion capital. The author reveals that German press insisted that French women adopted in Germany were a disguise to German female morals. This was a very unethical way of treating women in Germany because there is freedom of dressing all over the globe. Consumer culture that involves buying and selling existed in Berlin. Berlin was a heart of profitable garment business and Frankfurt wanted to emulate it. Berlin sold expertly tailored finished clothing and accessories for all sexes in Europe. On top of this, Berlin housed some of successful fashion ventures such as saloons and luxurious shops. German fashion industry wanted to surpass the French one when the World War 2 was over. This was a move to dominate the world of fashion with stylish, noble, and self-respecting outfits. Germany kept the move to dominate fashion industry as a secret. Fashion industry in Germany did not disclose any information about the shapes, textures, colors, and method of making their clothes. In order to achieve this noble step towards dominance in fashion industry, Germany founded organizations that to united fashion businesses. The aim of unification of fashion business was to give German a winning force in its endeavor to dominate stylish industry (Guenther 290). Some groups wanted Germany to utilize art academies, which to offer training in fashion designing. In order to win domestic purchasing power, German forced violently Jews out of their fashion industry. Likewise, Nazi occupiers’ restricted French fashion exports in the international markets although few exceptions made. Germany’s rivals, who were real and imagined, in the fashion world eventually vanquished (Guenther 162-166). Although German rivals had gone, Nazi government made little advancement in developing a unique German fashion. This is because there was no meaningful success in trying to influence German women to adopt a proposed refashioning. The idea of dressing German women in dirndls was impractical and inadaptable right from inception. This idea disappeared with the war. After the world wars, the trends of consumption of consumers changed. The New woman that emerged in Nazi Germany after the First World War became instruments of social change. These women manipulated consumer culture through encouraging women to purchase fashionable clothes. Women were ready to buy mass-marketed clothes. Fashion industry in Nazi Germany increased its trading activities in fashion to prosperous countries. This not only liberated women in Nazi Germany, but also in the many countries such as United States. The emancipated women became great challengers of dissatisfaction of antiquated status quo. These were efforts to resist state-propagated guidelines for appearance, conduct, and performance (Guenther 120-137). Women bought clothes that were in consistent with their identity and what they believed accommodated them. Despite Nazi economic policies that had a key interest in market, professionals and business elites went buying and selling under dictatorship. Hitler’s crimes got support from active Germany fashion industries. These companies supported the regime’s racists and genocidal aims and engaged in manufacturing and selling of targeted customer base (Guenther 140-150). Hitler benefited from cyclical upswing and did not hesitate to take advantage of these improvements. Despite Nazi’s pronouncement against capitalism, many companies and their managers fared well financially during the Third Reich. This depended on whether one was a small-scale entrepreneur or a large-scale industrial manufacturer. Big manufactures found rich economic opportunities with expansion and rearmament of Germany. The Nazi officials treated fashion as something wasteful, trivial, morally inappropriate, and encouraged superficial and unproductive tendencies of men and women to be vulnerable to enticement of something as frolicsome as dress. Consumption of fashion made German women exquisite slaves and cultural dupes for moronically following seasonal changes in lines and shapes (Guenther 138). However, this has changed consumption of fashion products and women now view it as expression of identity. People cannot abstract consumption from social practices because of its interrelation between its practices and production, and retailing. Production and consumption play a crucial role in structuring consumption. Organization of labor within industries that deal with fashion design is paramount in order to meet increasing demands and changing consumer culture in modern Europe. In Nazi Germany, there was no organized system of production, which made it difficult to understand how fashion industry worked during World War 1 and 2, and the interwar period (Guenther 398-412). The disorganized system in the clothing industry could not account for inter-relations between consumption and production. This failed to capture intervening practices of fashion distribution and dissemination. Distribution and dissemination of fashion products is very important link that connects producers to consumers. Nazi Germany did not implement successfully cohesive and strong national fashion program despite the attempts of some of its officials. There were major obstacles that existed in German fashion industry. This included competing interest within Nazi Party, class hatred, reluctance and refusal of women to wear official clothes, and conflicting laws. However, consumer culture was very strong in Nazi Germany despite the dictatorial leadership of Hitler. The shortage and declining of quality goods that Germany experienced in the eve of Second World War depicts that consumers had a huge purchasing power. After the Second World War, there is great transformation in consumer culture. The suppression and inferiority complex in Nazi Germany’s fashion industry changes. The state was ready to support fashion and design industry, and eliminate anti-Semitism in this lucrative sector (Guenther 254). Nazi government encouraged consumers in Germany to purchase only German clothing especially the Aryan-designed and manufactured. The government viewed that this was very suitable for women in the Third Reich. This is an indication that Nazi Germany wanted to promote consumption of its locally made clothes. Germany eliminated French and Jewish control in German fashion industry. Many German producers and manufactures of clothing formed Aryanization organization (Adefa) to eradicate Jews from fashion industry (Guenther 133). This organization used several strategies such as boycotts, economic sanctions, forced liquidations, and systematic elimination of many Jews. This mission of this move was to attain independence in fashion industry through unification of various factions of fashion production and creation in German clothing industry. These were attempts to attract a strong base of customers not only in German, but also from many parts of the globe. The efforts of Adefa paid when Russians started buying ready-made-to-wear uniforms from German retailers. In conclusion, cultural perception and dictation influenced consumers’ culture in Nazi Germany. For instance, farmer’s wife wore traditional dresses to indicate untarnished and mythical Germany past. Rural women dressed in Trachtenkleidung. This was a folk costume that replicated cultural heritage of Germany. Similarly, the culture of consumption of fashion products in urban areas required women to dress in uniforms (Guenther 110-112). This reflected loyalty to Nazi Party and rejection of individuality and international trends of dressing. Although this restriction of consumers to purchase certain type of clothes was limited the type of fashion product consumers would buy, it promoted cultural heritage of Germany. Dictation of German women on whatever they were to wear affected the freedom of consumption of fashion products. Nazi Germany’s interruption and control of dressing of Germany women was out of fear of losing females’ support in the lucrative fashion industry. This was unsuccessful move in defining German citizenship and womanhood through clothing and appearance. Consumers in Nazi Germany continued to buy clothes from the fashion industry despite restrictions from Nazi government. Work Cited Guenther, Irene. Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich. Oxford: Berg, 2004. Print. Read More