The not so innocent history of fashion

It did not all start with Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue from 1988-2025, who was famously portrayed in The Devil Wears Prada films.

But the amorality of fashion has reached its height in the Met meltdown around John Galliano’s antisemitic antics and his cancelled show. In desperation, Wintour, who was involved in curating and championing the show, showered Galliano with a major accolade in her attempt to elevate his status and make him unassailable in the art world, despite his many antisemitic remarks about Jews, whose gassing in the Holocaust he was all too happy to celebrate in a pub.

Galliano’s venality became what can only be described as Wintour’s vulgar cover-up. But cover-ups are part of the stock in trade of the fashion industry and no one was more determined to hide her impoverished beginnings than Coco Chanel. Her rise from street urchin to trendsetter fashion designer in the 1920s took a turn during the Vichy Regime, when she closed her operations and developed a close relationship to the Nazis, living in the Ritz Hotel with a German intelligence officer throughout the war. Her love affair involvement in Nazi spy operations took her, at one point, to Madrid to negotiate an end to the war on behalf of Hitler.

Chanel was also actively anti-Jewish, and shamelessly tried to use Aryan laws to prevent Jews, some of whom were her business partners, from control of her perfume company. In the 1950s, when Chanel returned to the fashion circuit, she was entirely without remorse about her Nazi connections and beliefs, and never apologised for her behaviour. Her biographers suggest that she was ruled by opportunism and a love of power more than any sense of patriotism.

In contrast, Christian Dior, who was a fiercely patriotic Frenchman, continued to work for the Nazis in order to survive, but he used his money to support the French Resistance, in which his younger sister, Catherine, was deeply involved.

The story of her capture by the Gestapo, torture, imprisonment and forced labour almost ended in a death march in April 1945. Catherine became the muse of her designer brother, who paid tribute to her by creating ‘Miss Dior’ perfume, released in 1947. She was also recognised for her bravery and awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Chevaliere of the Legion of Honour.

In the fashion world where a ‘brand’ can turn sweatpants into a designer item, it pays to think about the backstory. Hugo Boss joined the Nazi Party in 1931 as a true believer in National Socialism. According to his biographer, it was not opportunism which prompted his sponsoring of the paramilitary SS by paying a monthly donation, nevertheless, his loyalty earned him the contracts for producing uniforms for the SA and SS, as well as the Wehrmacht.

After the war, Boss was fined for his collaboration with the Nazis and died in 1948. His son-in-law developed the business into a major luxury brand.

A 2011 book on the history of the company prompted a belated apology for its use of forced labour.

A similar history surrounds the global brands of Adidas and Puma, whose founders, the brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler, also joined the Nazi party in 1933. ‘Rudy’ was the ardent believer in Nazi ideology while ‘Adi’ was a sports coach in the Hitler Youth. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin gave the brothers fame and fortune outfitting the athletes, which excluded Jews who were barred from competing under the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935, but ironically the Dasslers shod the African-American sprinter, Jesse Owens.

After the war, when the Dasslers were called to account for their collaboration with the Nazi regime by using their factory to make anti-tank weapons, the brothers blamed each other, each in a bid to hold on to the business. In the end they were let off lightly by the postwar tribunals and were free to continue their shoe business, which split into two after their partnership ended.

In 1948 Adolf founded Adidas and Rudolf founded Puma, combining high performance on the track with fashion in the street. Neither ever apologised or showed remorse for their Nazi involvement, nor have the subsequent companies addressed their dark history. Such is the not so innocent history of fashion.

When appearance is all, then the adage, quoted by Shakespeare and Mark Twain alike, that ‘Clothes maketh the man,’ stands to reason. But we are more than our appearance, and even the most elaborate creations that run the red carpet in New York’s Fashion week cannot hide the naked truth. The ancients knew what our fashion obsessed culture assiduously denies: the inner character of a person and not their appearance is what truly makes the man and the woman. Cicero’s warning, Esse quam videri, ‘to be, rather than to seem to be’ chimes with the Book of Proverbs (11:22) that “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.” Anna Wintour be warned.

Dr Rachael Kohn AO, FRNS is a broadcaster and author.