DIE GESELLSCHAFT FÜR MONDÄNE UNTERHALTUNG
presents
AN HOMAGE TO THE NIGHTLIFE OF THE 1920'S
depuis 2006
LeJournal
Magazine for Sophisticated Entertainment
Edition No. 7
German version of selected articles
1920
CONTENT
ON OUR OWN CONDITION
Greetings from the Editor by Else Edelstahl
Celebrate in Style by Tilda Knopf
FEUILLETON & TRAVEL
A Film Cathedral for Berlin by Don Esteban Álvarez de Toledo
Be Dada! by Ferdinand Sturm
Independent Art and "Chaplinitis" by Herodotus Morris
THE GOOD STYLE
Ladies Fashion of the Season by Lady Daisy Ashton
Seduction of the Nose - new Fragrances by Ferdinand Sturm
Men's Fashion of the Season by Vintagebursche
SOCIETY & PROGRESS
Telephony to the Stars by Dominique di Gerano
Nude Climbing with Hermann Hesse by Marie de Winter
Letters from the Bauhaus by Liena Berin
DO IT YOURSELF
Helmut beautifies by Helmut Hellmund
Cocktail of the Year 1919 by Marie de Winter
Mrs. Tapmore's Madeira Cake by Marie de Winter
SHOW CASE - A VIEW INTO THE WORLD
Briefly noted by Marie de Winter & Ferdinand Sturm
EDITORIAL WHISPERING
News from the sophisticated Provinces by Marie de Winter & Ferdinand Sturm
The precluded Editor by Friedrich Heinrich Findeklee
the crew
CREDITS
Picture credits
post edit
Chief Edition and Layout
GREETING FROM THE EDITOR
Dear friends and supporters of the Society for Sophisticated Entertainment, dear readers!
The Ufa Palast in Berlin opens its doors with a grand gala and the film premiere of "Madame DuBarry", in Weimar the young BAUHAUS enthusiastically searches for new ways in art and architecture, the artists of the DADA perform their practical jokes with traditional convictions. .. E
ven though the gunpowder of the Great War has barely blown away and the Reds and the Kaiser's faithful continue to engage in skirmishes on our streets: the signs of the dawn for our young democracy are everywhere. The Journal no. 7, which we are proud to present to you on this glittering New Year's Eve, reports on these signs of the new era, with which we are plunging into the "Twenties"!
Our esteemed long-time editor-in-chief Carl Friedrich von Lagerfeld has also set out to pastures new but will continue to promote Berlin's cultural and nightlife. In his stead, the "Redaktion WinterSturm" is responsible for the fate of our little gazette for the first time. With Marie de Winter and Ferdinand Sturm, the idea blew into the editorial offices to design the Journal as a yearbook of the coming "Twenties". From now on, in each issue, an enthusiastic team of experienced and new literary talents will look back together on the highlights of the past season and report on outstanding events for the coming year.
Whether the chroniclers will one day call our coming decade "golden", history will prove, "wild" will it be in any case, I can promise you that!
Your Else stainless steel
CELEBRATE IN STYLE
by Tilda Knopf
Be a part of the action and leave your modern telephone buried deep in your pocket!
This is a celebration of society and class - not a safari. Leave any kind of photography to our official photographers. Please make telephone calls only in an emergency! Nothing destroys the unique atmosphere of a sophisticated society more than pulling out a modern telephone set. And all the important people are already here!
Be polite and courteous!
Show yourself from your best side, apologise, if you bump into someone in the crowd. Let especially the ladies and elderly gentlemen go first.
Ask them to dance!
Impress the ladies with the right steps and dance moves - and not with stale flattery.
Show style and don't be cheap!
Enter the Bohemian Sauvage in the dress style of the 1920s; it may vary a little with a nod to the previous or coming decade - so please no polkadots, ribbons, cherries or the like. This also applies to the hairstyles, of course. You should also avoid almost anything you can buy in a carnival shop.
Do not wear underwear on display!
We don't care if you don't wear panties so that you can get to the action more quickly on a possible rendezvous. However, if you are one of those ladies who insists on wearing a corset for figure-shaping reasons, consider it as underwear and do not display it.
Please do not wear new fur!
The hostess expressly does not want you to buy a new fur for the Bohème Sauvage. If you absolutely want to wear fur for aesthetic reasons, please wear your grandmother's fur.
As a gentleman you should know how to wear the correct suit!
If you consider wearing tails, please combine it with white tie. A tuxedo should be worn with a black bow tie of velvet or silk. A gentleman of style you won't even consider wearing your hat indoors!
Celebrate the wild life!
Celebrate as if there is no tomorrow! Live in exuberance, enjoy excess. Whatever your chosen vice, nurture it with style and devotion.
A FILM CATHEDRAL FOR BERLIN
Rendezvous with the stars and love
by Don Esteban Alvarez de Toledo
Living on the outskirts of the city away from the amusement districts has its advantages and disadvantages. It is true that you can lead a pleasant life, take care of your garden or go for long walks, but when you receive an invitation to a party, a sophisticated society or to go out for a drink, things get complicated. This is what happened last September when I picked up my mail and found the invitation to the premiere of "Madame DuBarry" by Ernst Lubitsch in it.
Time was running out, so I opened my wardrobe, got an overview and decided not to wear a tailcoat. The times we live in are not for boasting, all the more so when you have to travel the distance between Pankow and Schöneberg on a velociped. A well-cut black suit was my choice, and it was the best way to avoid attracting curious glances.
During the ride I slowly left the beautiful villas of the Grabbeallee behind me. Then, passing Bürgerpark, I turned into Wollankstraße to enter Wedding ... Prinzenallee ... "Time seems to run backwards in this part of the city", I thought. The faces of the workers gathered in the bar reflected the tiredness of the last days of the strike, exhausted from having to fight for the right to a better wage, against humiliation, misery and precarious living conditions - they shared a miserable room with 9 others people. The demonstrations and the confrontations with the police had left a taste of sadness and sorrow in the air and in their faces the despair of those who saw the impossibility of change. Relieved, I crossed the canal bordering the Charité, reached the Tiergarten and thought about how anachronistic everything seemed to me. In short: me, my journey through Wedding, the premiere...
Arriving at my destination, the guests had already crowded into the large foyer of the new Ufa-Palast cinema at the zoo. Many men wore tailcoats, uniformed as if they were a small battalion of starched white shirts. The ladies, in an abundance of elegance, shone in "Robes de Style", moving slowly in brocade or heavy velvet embroidered with gold thread, while others seemed to float in the air in their organza dresses decorated with appliqués of small glass stones and feathers .
Klaus stood out from the crowd. When he saw me, he jumped over the three steps of the large staircase on which he was standing and pounced on me to hold me in his arms with the agility of his 17 years, while pretending to ignore my inappropriate clothing for such an occasion. We rubbed our cheeks and for a moment his gaze rested on mine; we were so close that I could feel the warmth of his lips. Klaus is one of those exquisite creatures that exist by a divine gift, only to be admired. Beautiful and unattainable.
Blackmail has its charm when a young man shamelessly puts a few bills into the hands of ushers, all the more so because the censorship has banned the film for those who are under age. Settled in our seats, I discovered among the guests some familiar faces and others who still had to be met. The room was magnificent and colossal, I cannot describe it any other way. Next to me, Klaus compared it with the giant size of the gothic churches. The Metropolis Orchestra was already in the orchestra pit, tuning its instruments with this mixture of sounds and chords that promised a wonderful night. For once we would not see a dance group before the film as usual, but the newsreel.
The lights were turned off to open up the space of intimacy so necessary in these cases, and what we already knew from the press we now observed in images; a new form of journalism that was just developing. Weimar, a collapsed city, political personalities, policemen, journalists, typists - but above all, the 37 women in the National Assembly were a novelty in politics since they had gained the right to vote. And the protagonist of this evening was also a woman; "Madame DuBarry", interpreted by the beautiful and already legendary Pola Negri. Ernst Lubitsch had always liked to stage women with strong personalities, which could already be seen in "Carmen" - and Negri convinced us in her characterization of Jeanne, the hat seller. In the big mass scenes Lubitsch was simply a master.
The interval gave us the opportunity to stroll among the guests and - to be honest, this is something that bores me a little... Klaus, aware of my impatience, took me to a group of gentlemen who surrounded a woman with a striking red man. She mischievously whispered something into his ear, then she turned around to drill her gaze deep into my eyes. She surprised me with the question: "What is movement?" Me, uncertainly stammering something stupid: "Devotion and passion"... She smiles sweetly and continues her conversation. "That's her, Mary Wigman," Klaus warned me as we returned to our seats.
The drama went on and, although Lubitsch allowed himself certain historical liberties with history, the fate of Madame DuBarry moved us nevertheless; when she climbs the scaffold in the last scene, in the midst of the angry crowd that tears off her clothes and leaves her almost naked. The last chords of the orchestra sound as Madame lets her gaze rest on the audience. The applause was prompt, and later even the French critics proved to be generous to the director.
Back in the foyer, the audience was exuberant and exchanged impressions. I could observe how the Wigman comforted the dancers who could not show themselves on stage at this occasion and thought: "How fleeting the art of a dancer is after all". Then Wigman invited us with a good laugh to her apartment on Pariser Strasse, right on Olivaer Platz. In small groups, we left the movie theater to go out into the beautiful autumn night. As we walked forward, Klaus reflected on the similarities between the background theme of "Madame DuBarry" and the big demonstrations of last November, and it seemed that with each further step his eyes were burning with increasing revolutionary passion. He spoke of equal opportunities, of a better future for the workers' children, of ending unhealthy housing, of dignity, and ended with the words: "History is written by the people. We walked on in silence, me with the bicycle by my side, while tears ran down my cheeks.
Once in Wigman's apartment, the guests split up between the kitchen and two rooms. The decoration was simple, and although everything was reduced to the essential, I was surprised by an impressive collection of African masks arranged on a wall. Surrounded by admirers, the Wigman smoked light-heartedly, an elbow resting on the couch covered with a Persian carpet. Music unknown to me sounded from the gramophone and Klaus did not hesitate, like the other young people, to jump into the middle of the dance floor to experiment with the new fashion dances he had learned in London after the Great War. After a while and to my surprise, the dance turned into a series of archaic and grotesque movements, the dancers retreated and moved forward as if they wanted to catch each other, lifting their arms, opening their hands as if they were the claws of a big bear or those of a graceful flamingo. I watched in fascination as a voice next to me said, "It's a zoomorphic dance."
Conrad Veidt bowed his head in a solemn greeting, and I imitated that gesture. Still surprised, I asked him why he was interested in these dances. He answered that he was preparing for his new role in "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari" by teaching at Mary Wigman's dance school in Dresden. Then we came to a conversation about the dances of the ancestors, in which we talked about the divine, the magical and the human of rituals. I told him that the inhabitants of the South of my homeland performed rituals to imitate animals, as in the case of Choyke Pürun or Ñandú dance, and with a tablecloth that I pulled off the table to put over my shoulders, I began to take small Steps and wave my arms like wings, while telling Veidt that these inhabitants of Chile formed the Mapuche people.
Later, when the music was over, I caught Klaus watching me. He walked resolutely through the hall, took me by the arm in an unusual gesture of intimacy and pulled me along to surprise me with the following sentence: "Let us experience an extraordinary and unforgettable moment tonight" and at the same time forced me to walk down the stairs behind him... He took a bicycle from the courtyard and I took mine. In the empty streets, the night wrapped us in her accomplice's coat... Early in the morning, the smell of freshly ground coffee spread through the small room and the light, shyly stepping through a window, slowly lit up Klaus' body. My gaze followed the line of his shoulders, the elegance of his hands resting calmly on the folds of the sheet. A soulful shiver ran through my body.
I approached the cold window, outside it drizzled and as far as I could see the sky was covered with gray clouds... Then I thought, somewhere between nostalgia and sadness, the memory of this moment will be lost, like tears in the rain ...
Be DADA!
Ferdinand Sturm in search of the sense of nonsense
Recently I was strolling through Hanover. Well, dear contemporaries, it may seem unusual to you, but Hanover is an excellent place to stroll around! And so I strolled unthinkingly and unsuspectingly past an advertising pillar. Instead of the latest tobacco ad or the newest automobile ... there was a poem. "Well," I thought to myself, "who came up with the idea of exposing this noble art to the stench of the street?" Under the noise of the roaring lorries that circled me, I began to read... and read... and read... And the longer I read, the more I lost myself in it, sinking into the confusing beauty of the words , strange, new and outrageous..:
To Anna Blume
Oh you, beloved of my 27 senses, I love you!
You, yours, you, you, me, you, me, us?
This doesn't belong here casually.
Who are you, countless women?
(...)
Do you know Anna? Do you already know?
You can also be read from the back.
And you, most glorious of all,
You're from behind, like from the front:
ANNA.
(...)
anna flower,
You drippy animal,
Ich liebe dich!
"It's outrageous what this Mr. Schwitters allows himself! To openly expose this nefarious scam! There's no art in it! And you're enjoying this dilledance? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" a gentleman bumped into me, looking like a professor of the local university.
"Oh, Mr. Philistine, you say art is in danger? Yes, don't you know that art is a beautiful female, without clothes, who expects to be taken to bed? No, gentlemen, art is not in danger - art no longer exists! It is dead", I hurled a realization of today at the head teacher of yesterday, which I had stolen from Raoul Hausmann`s last issue of his Berlin magazine "Der Dada".
"Oh, are you one of those too?" the gentleman with the starched collar ran at me so hard that his monocle fell out of his eye. "Search a...??". "DADA?", I helped out and followed up: "Dadada...dadada...DADADADADA!" I involuntarily gave the fluttering letters the sound of machine gun fire, which was still all too present for me, and put the academician of the old order to flight. I paused and held my head. It was from this sound that they had fled to Switzerland at the time, those artists who had founded Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916, in the midst of the Great War, which they now denounced in their own way, destroying the language that had produced it. And it was there that Hugo Ball had first recited his sound poem "Gagji beri bimba", which I am sure will one day be called the "cradle of Dadaism". I also recommend to you, dear readers, to declaim it aloud, in case of doubt in your own sanitary room - if you are lucky to have one:
gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori
gadjama gramma berida bimbala glandri galassassa laulitalomini
gadji beri bin pale glassala laula lonni cadorsu sassala bim
gadjama tuffm in cimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban
o katalominai rhinocerossola hop seeds laulitalomini hoooo
gadjama rhinocerossola hop seed
bluku terullala blue lala loooo
(...)
gaga di bling blong
gaga blung
You have managed to perform these sounds without falling into trembling laughter? Then you are already a little bit DADA! Because it was the aforementioned Hugo Ball who stabbed a Franco-German dictionary with a penknife in search of a name for this "new art" and accidentally caught the word DADA. "Hobbyhorse" is the word en francais, "jaja" in Russian - and DADA are usually the very first sounds of a new citizen of the earth. So it's all childish? It's all bullshit? Yes, but with a twist! "You have to free yourself from everything you already know." summarizes Raoul Hausman in his "Manifesto Dawn". "What we know was yesterday. What will be is necessary, what is will be useless. Yesterday was, is over. Today is just, will pass. Tomorrow is the present of now".
With such a rejection of what was still valid yesterday, it is surprising that this new way of thinking and creating is hated, persecuted and censored by the above-mentioned guardians of the old orders - and yet (or precisely because of this?) it is spreading from Zurich into the world like wildfire during these months: New York, Paris, Berlin, Hannover - and Cologne!
Yes, you have heard correctly, dear readers, in April 1920 you will feel the anarchic power of DADA in the Rhineland metropolis at first hand! I learned from Max Ernst and Hans Arp that, after an indignant refusal by the director of the Museum of Decorative Arts on Hansaring, they would present their "works" without further ado in the courtyard of the brewery house "Winter" in Schildergasse. This completely unacademic place can only be entered through the men's toilet! Both of them are already laughing up their sleeves, because they can count on the nailed authorities to confuse their exhibition DADA-PREFRINGING with an advertising event of a gay establishment. We are finally in Cologne! Moreover, Max Ernst will hang an ax on a sculpture and add the request to beat the work in two. "The works destroyed by the audience in outbursts of rage are regularly replaced by new ones," Ernst announced to me with pleasure.
As you can see, the Dadaists are not only constantly inventing a new art during these months, but also the right scandal to make it known. I would not be surprised if such a process would one day go down in the annals of art history as the first "happening"! And I am certain that DADA, with their immense, provocative and enjoyable creative power, will invent many things that will still be around in fifty or even a hundred years: Photomontage, for example, or creative writing. Oh, you can't do that? Of course you can! Tristan Tzara, a Dadaist of the first hour in Zurich, will tell you how it works:
"Take a newspaper. Take scissors. In this newspaper, choose an article of the length you intend to give your poem. Then carefully cut out every word of that article and put it in a bag. Shake gently. Then take out one snippet at a time. Carefully copy in the order in which they came out of the bag. The poem will resemble you. And you will be an infinitely original writer with a charming sensibility, though misunderstood by the people!"
So, get fresh at the start! Bring disorder in the order! Irritate the old bourgeoisie - whether in Hanover or elsewhere! Be DADA!
INDEPENDENT ART AND "CHAPLINITIS"
Herodotus Morris in conversation with Mr. Charles Chaplin
Can the art of film be saved? A superfluous question, you might think, because the film industry is flourishing - despite or perhaps because of the past war. In 1916, there were already over 28,000 movie theaters in the United States of America! Yet it was only 20 years ago that pictures began to walk. And today, film is an ubiquitous form of entertainment of such enormous dimensions that we have to talk about an industry - and thus also about the economic profit of this art!
Again and again art tried to free itself from the gods of financial power. Occasionally even a Prometheus appeared with the aim of stealing this fire of creativity from the gods of power. Mostly in vain. The fire remained tied up and reserved for mammon, whose power grew ever greater and more monstrous. Also the movie had only a few gods from the beginning. The biggest of the production companies had almost unlimited power to decide the fate of the art of film and its stars.
Four intrepid artists set out last year to wrest this monopoly from the production companies! On April 17, 1919, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and David W. Griffith founded a new and independent film distribution company with a handshake: The United Artists! I had the great good fortune to meet audience favorite Charlie Chaplin and to be able to talk to him about current events and his own film career.
Morris: Mr. Chaplin, you are one of the shareholders of the new, independent film production company United Artists. How did you come up with this groundbreaking idea?
Chaplin: The initial impetus for a new film company came from Oscar Price, a press agent I met together with my colleagues and friends Pickford and Fairbanks. Talking about our current film contracts, Mr. Price suggested: why not get together and simply distribute your own films. At the time the suggestion sounded naive, but due to recent events in the film industry it turned out to be an excellent idea.
Morris: What was the trigger for the foundation of United Artists? I heard you suspected that something was going on behind your back at the big production companies?
Chaplin: My fellow actors had problems along the same lines when it came to film contracts: Paramount showed no interest in renewing the Pickford and Fairbanks contracts, and First National refused just as stubbornly to improve my own contract. So Fairbanks and I decided to hire private detectives to spy on the delegates of the production company conference at the Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles. I am not allowed to go into all the details here, but our detectives managed to extract all the information we needed, partly with charm, partly with guile. We immediately decided to hold a press conference on January 15th to announce the foundation of our own production company United Artists.
Morris: What would "United Artists" like to do better than the well-known production companies?
Chaplin: Our goal is to set new standards in film distribution. We want to improve the profit-sharing for the actors, get more independence and express our artistic freedom with new material. In addition, our goal is to attract other well-known actors to better protect our artistic rights. Until now, producers and distributors have been the employers, the stars only the salaried employees. With United Artists, the stars become their own employers, which is a big, revolutionary news in film distribution!
Morris: You are known as an actor who has directed every film almost from the beginning of his acting career. Allegedly you don't work with the script or a script girl; you develop the scenes as you work. There is no fixed order, usually nothing on paper. You always have to be on your toes, they say. But where do you get your ideas from?
Chaplin: I find them everywhere, mostly in everyday life. Once I spent almost three weeks traveling around New York, between breakfast at the Plaza and dinner, all over the city. One day, when time was terribly pressing, I was walking down Sixth Avenue at the height of 31st Street when a poor pedestrian slipped and slid down the escalator leading to the elevated train station. Everyone apart from me laughed, only my eyes were flashing. It was at this moment that my film The Floorwalker was born, in 1916, an event typical of the making of one of my comedies.
Morris: Mr. Chaplin, you have created a kind of cinema addiction in the audience with your films. Some even call them "Chaplinitis." A few years ago I read in Photoplay News that after two weeks of your comedies, several cinema owners had to tighten the screws on the seating because the audience was laughing so hard that the vibrations loosened them. Beyond this recognition from the audience, many intelligent people are now beginning to analyze your performances to find out how you manage to turn the raw material of everyday life into entertainment.
Chaplin: Comedy is just one of many other forms of entertainment in our world. But the thing is, comedy is still something for the common people. I get hundreds of letters every day from all over the world, from children and adults alike. I heard that during the great war in Europe, soldiers wounded in some hospitals watched my films and laughed so hard that, at least as long as a film lasted, they forgot their suffering. Similar stories can also be heard from prisons. I am convinced that film comedy serves a good cause, makes the world brighter and spreads optimism.
Morris: It has become a phenomenon that your audience imitates you everywhere. The other day in Cincinnati, a robber used the Chaplin costume as a disguise. For your "waddle walk," you remembered a "rummy," a crippled old man you had imitated as a child in London. But what about the other utensils: the baggy trousers, a bowler hat that is too small, a walking stick, big shoes, your mustache. Is that all that makes up your comedies?
Chaplin: You may not believe it, but my "Tramp" costume developed quite spontaneously, without any firm resolution. On the way to the dressing room, I was laying out what my costume might look like. All my films are designed in such a way that my character gets into trouble while at the same time I constantly try to appear as a normal little gentleman. But I try not only to get myself into embarrassing situations, but also to involve the other characters in the film.
Morris: How do you manage that?
Chaplin: In my film The Adventurer, for example, I achieve this by sitting on a balcony and eating ice cream with a girl. Right under the balcony, a wealthy, well-dressed lady sits at a table. While eating ice cream, a piece of ice cream falls from my spoon and slides through my wide trousers from the balcony down onto the neck of this lady below. The first laugh is at my own embarrassment over my own misfortune, and the second comes when the ice cream lands on the lady's neck and she screams and starts jumping around. As simple as this trick may seem, it makes use of two basic features of human nature. On the one hand, the human being has the tendency to directly experience what he sees on stage or on screen. On the other hand, the average person always enjoys it when wealth and luxury get into trouble. You must remember that nine tenths of the people in the world are poor and secretly envy the wealth of the remaining tenth.
Morris: Mr. Chaplin, what comes next? May I point out that you have produced fewer films of late?
Chaplin: Attentive observers will certainly have noticed that the quality of my films has improved considerably recently. I made a decision last year to spend as much time and money on all my new films as I need to produce the films according to my ideas. We are now focusing on quality, not quantity. You should also have noticed that the films no longer consist of a series of comic numbers or situations, but have a coherent story, with a beginning, a climax and of course an end that ends in a catastrophe.
Morris: Will you continue to work only in this field, or will we see another, new Charles Chaplin in the future?
Chaplin: I am a dreamer who is constantly trying to improve in all sorts of areas. Nor do I want to remain the funny man of cinema all my life. No one should be satisfied with gaining wealth or fame in just one particular field of activity. The field is vast, and there are opportunities everywhere for the young man of today. But he must work if he wants to reach the top. Otherwise, I fear there is little hope for him.
Morris: Thank you for the interview and the time you've taken.
ChaplinYou are welcome!
MORE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
Ladies fashion of the 1920 season
by Lady Daisy Ashton
In the last years of the Great War, women were expected to do a lot - we filled painful gaps left by so many by working in factories, delivering mail or driving buses. Clothing had to be adapted, of course, and become more functional: shorter skirts, even trousers, more freedom of movement, fewer and softer corsets.
I was fortunate enough to have been given a preview of the new Sears catalog for the spring of 1920 and I would like to share my first impressions of shoes, cardigans and coats with you, dear readers. Even though we don't have as much as our American friends, we can make the most of what we have and be inspired by what we see in the pages of the catalogue.
By rationing fabric, fashion has become simpler and simpler, the playfulness of pre-war fashion is a thing of the past. The end of crinoline was already apparent in the last year of the war. Simplicity is the word of the hour, and we can achieve a lot with layers. Skirts and dresses will be wider and looser in the coming season. The hips will still be accentuated, but the waist will not be as emphasized as before. The waist moves up, making the body look shorter and more fragile. Skirts with longer hemlines and a tapering towards the ankles turn into so-called "barrel skirts" (see above left).
We may still wear corsets, but the overall appearance is softer and less constricted. Wearing several layers is a novelty, and we could take our cue from the groundbreaking example of our friends in Russia. Farmer's style tunics can do wonders for the shape, and since they were already in fashion before the war, we can use a lot of creativity despite rationed materials (see picture above central).
Of course we also have to talk about outerwear: The coats will be a little shorter than the skirts or dresses, so that the hem lines of the skirts underneath will just be visible. A short lapel flows into a big collar, almost like a cape. Furs will continue to adorn us women in the coming season - as far as you can afford them. But let's face it, most of us won't be in the lucky position to own any. So let's just dream about that luxury for now.
Let's not forget hats and shoes - hats with big brims, pointed Oxford-style shoes with buttons or laces and simple block heels. In the first half of the new season the colors black and brown set the tone.
Hairstyles will also be simpler than before the war: a simple knot during the day, but for unique and special events - such as New Year's Eve or a Boheme Sauvage - a more elaborate pinned-up hairstyle is always welcome. Looking into my crystal ball, I believe that we will see many new styles in hairstyles in the years to come. Perhaps, - oh my God! - Even short haircuts. But that's a topic for another day.
One more thing, my dear readers, don't overdo it with make-up during the day! Naturalness is the mot-de-jour, a bit of rouge and a light lipstick is all you need. Too much make-up can quickly create a wrong and slightly disreputable impression.
Hollywood is always glamorous and we look to the American sweetheart Mary Pickford (see above right) for inspiration. Since the foundation of a new film studio with DW Griffiths, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, she is more famous than ever, even here in Europe.
SEDUCTION OF THE NOSE - THE PERFUMES OF THE 1919/1920 SEASON
Ferdinand Sturm's olfactory notes on the latest Parisian fragrance creations from the houses of Guerlain and Caron
"Mitsouko" - The scent of melancholy
A fine mist slowly settles on her skin... light citrus fruits and friendly bergamot of natural freshness meet with well-disposed jasmine and fragile-looking lilac... then an intoxicating appearance of peach, awaiting the development of its full sweetness, still tender, still young... a dream followed by an even more beautiful awakening... the almost shy blossoms and subtle fruits gently give way to a warm note of cinnamon, which gives "Mitsouko" a golden, soft, quiet shimmer.. - I reluctantly remove my nose from Marie de Winter's skin to put these notes on paper - trying to do justice to Jacques Guerlain's new masterpiece, which the delicate ladies immediately took to their melancholy heart after its appearance last year.
As melancholic as this fragrance is the story that inspired the olfactory grandmaster of the traditional Parisian house of Guerlain: Claude Farère's novel entitled "The Battle" is about the forbidden ménage à trois between the fleet commander Herbert Fergan, Baron Haihashiro Togo and his enchanting wife . When both gentlemen go to the Battle of Tsushima, the beauty vows to spend the rest of her life with the man who returns from battle unharmed. Both fall; love and guilt are killed in the battle of Korea, leaving behind a lonely widow. Her name: Mitsouko - Japanese for "child of light".
And just as Jacques Guerlain was inspired by Farèrres, so his scent inspires other artists, Sergei Diaghilev par example who revived the Russian Ballet and who instructs the stage hands of the "Theatre Champs Elysees" every evening to lavishly scent the hall with "Mitsouko" as to give an exotic touch to his company's performance. And also the great light designer Charles Chaplin, already mentioned in this journal, wears "Mitsouko" and is thus inspired by the "Child of Light"...
"Tabac Blanc" - The smell of new freedom
Lady, I see you strolling down the boulevard smoking? How scandalous for the guardians of the traditional order of the sexes, how wicked for those who welcome the era of new freedom with open arms. As our eyes meet in the crowd for a tiny moment, I see by the mischievous cigarette dancing in the corner of your mouth that you have recognized whose spirit I am. But it is not only the look in your eyes that captivates me... it is the smell that emanates from your skin when you pass me in the hustle and bustle... the scent of a carnation in your leather gloved hand that slowly and delicately turns into an iris, which reveals your feminine side warmly and softly.. .later surrounded by notes of dry sandalwood, elegant and luxurious amber... until I finally lose sight of you and only a masculine touch of musk and cedar follows you...
Let me guess: you're wearing "Tabac Blond", the latest perfume from the venerable Caron Manufacture, created by perfumer Ernest Daltroff in 1919 for today's woman? Initially conceived as an odeur for the stronger sex, Daltroff finally dedicated it to you, dear lady, the woman one can met in those turbulent years after the war in Paris (and also in Berlin!): independent, self-confident, freeing herself from bourgeois conventions as well as the traditional fashion dictates, devoting herself with pleasure to the interplay between male and female identity... and challenging us men in a way to which - I must confess - we still have to get used to! Daltroff has done well with it, because it suits you very well, dear lady - and leaves behind the faint hope that perhaps only its outer shell is rough and you are soft and warm inside? I won't find out, because you have long since disappeared into the crowd, leaving behind a touch of mysticism and uncertainty...
In the nearest bistro I treat myself to a café - and nobody notices my quiet smile as I thoughtfully note down the impressions of this quiet rendezvous with my nose, inwardly jubilant in anticipation of the many unheard-of scents that the coming decade will undoubtedly bring us...
THE NUANCE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
Men's fashion of the 1920 season
by vintage boy
Even more than a year after the end of the Great War, we still have to manage the shortage in the tailoring trade. The trade blockades have fallen, but the fabric supplies from England are nowhere near the same quality as before - and at higher prices. The order situation is just as bad, in line with the overall economic mood. People are still waiting with new commissions in the hope that prices will fall soon.
This tense situation requires smart solutions, so domestic sewing is back on the agenda. Now old pieces from the family or from the own wardrobe are being reworked. With a few cleverly placed seams, the suit jacket of the well-fed grandfather is adapted to his own measurements. If the trousers turn out to be too roomy, at least a newsboy cap can be made from the good cloth.
The coarse fabrics from the army's stocks or from the local flea market are necessarily used for new sets. After all, the money saved here is huge! The cloths of the now restarted domestic production are extremely fashionable, but the inadequate quality does not yet justify the high price. This development is reflected in the streetscape of the German cities. You wear what you have - and that are mainly outdated pieces and uniforms.
Let's take a closer look at the most sought-after pieces of the upcoming season. The spring coat has a waisted cut with a narrow back, the middle seam with a long hook slit, as already can be seen on some garments at the beginning of the season (see above left).
The lapel remains short and with the double-breasted suit the pointed version dominates. There are no changes in the shape of the sport overcoat. The straight falling form, the length of about 96 centimetres, the topstitched seams and the stitched pockets, which, however, according to the new fashion, are regularly worked in, and the stitched pocket only faked by an attached strap, are the usual.
With the street coats, the Ulster remains predominant, sometimes with a concealed strip or high-necked, but usually without a belt. This is only strapped on the travel coat as a special component.
Of the skirt suits, the suit made of uniform fabric in light colours, also with a small pattern, is the most popular. It has a smart cut with a short waist, a not too low neckline and a two-button front. Usually the skirt is worn closed only on the lowest button.
The waistcoats in stand-up chest form are also higher. With the new large checkered fabrics, also with herringbone pattern and homespun, the leg dress requires a turned-up hem. The wide fell seam also remains modern.
The jaunty day suit that was common before the war has been replaced by variations of the sports suit. The modern sack has an integrated belt and stitched pockets. Wrap-around gaiters are often worn with it (see above right). Combinations are applied that were previously unthinkable for strolling around the city. A wildness of the good fashion customs sets in. The connoisseur knows: Men's fashion is only big in small details, the nuance makes the difference!
But don't be despondent, gentlemen, because: Do it yourself!
TELEPHONE TO THE STARS
The lady from the office is about to connect to Mars
by Dominique di Gerano
When the clocks rang in the New Year once again, did you pull out your notebook and write down your small and big resolutions, which were forgotten after a few days?
It is worthwhile, however, to allow the author of these lines to make the observation, to persevere in contemplating what lies ahead of us and how we can change it for the better compared to what remains behind, all the more so at the beginning of this year. And what a new year it is: a whole new decade began, an old one is behind us. But before the particularly clever ones of our readers tell me with pleasure that a decade always begins with the year 1 and not with zero, I would like to counter that when one day there will be talk of the "twenties", everyone will certainly count this "zero" year among them. Similarly, the preceding nineteenth year of the century will be seen as the end of the decade. Quite right, I say; even if something new has already begun in it. The inclined reader will certainly be familiar with the greatest upheavals, for how could one have failed to notice what was happening on the world stage? So I rather take the liberty of taking a look at the smaller things, the lesser known, in order to look into the future from there:
Just a few weeks ago I was standing in the entrance area of the newly founded State Bauhaus Weimar with its expansive, almost floating staircase, and while I was still looking around in amazement, the extremely charismatic director of this special institution approached me. Mr. Walter Gropius, whose hair, already thinning at a young age, makes him appear older than his thirty-seven years at first glance, granted me the special honor of a small tour. The guiding principle here was above all the maxim that every sufficiently talented and educated person should be accepted as an apprentice, regardless of age and sex. So 84 female students already signed up eagerly, following the forward-looking proclamation. (On this topic you will find explanations elsewhere in this booklet, which are herewith highly recommended).
On the train journey back to Berlin I had the unexpected good fortune to share my compartment with the engineer Johann Grottrup. Probably also in order to make the desolate journey more enjoyable, he gave me his thoughts on the development of technology. He certainly has a lot of hope for the future; for his little son Helmut, for whom he foresees great things and possibilities, at least if his son takes after his father and the world changes for the better. The aristocracy of the future rests in the technician; he must become the steward, the guiding spirit; Hey explained. A song of praise for technology relaxed, criticizing the inglorious handling of it in recent times and yet looking hopefully to its possibilities. Like Gropius, Gröttrup criticized the fact that man is torn into specialization and sees as a possibility of unification the application of the technical sense of order "in the whole of economic and cultural life. He looked at me with flashing eyes: "It is precisely embodied in the locomotive on the endlessly long railway line that the essence of our culture seems to us to be best. It takes a step into space to get an idea of the enormousity of our economy today."
Spurned on by such thoughts and spinning this thinking further, I set out to find out what the journey to the stars, or at least to the moon, what like. A generous expense account of the WinterSturm editorial office enabled me to get to grips with a technical achievement that still seems futuristic, but which is nevertheless available in the capital city with almost frightening normality: With the bakelite telphone receiver in hand, I exchanged a few words with a charming lady from the office and shortly afterwards I was magically connected to Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania via the audio track. There, a young man by the name of Hermann Oberth is studying, who is literally being driven by far-reaching thoughts for our journey to the stars. Mr. Oberth's beautiful baritone was truly only insufficiently reproduced by the telephone, and at first the student seemed distracted; I shouldn't be surprised, since he had become a young father only a few weeks ago. But I had hardly asked him about leaving the round earth, when he turned completely to me, as far as possible through that enormous cable between us.
"The conquest of space is a very strange thing", he began, after he explained to me that the first parts of a possible dissertation would not let go of him (which he had precautionary already once called "The Rocket to Planetary Spaces") . He continued: "In theory, we already know exactly how the journey will go on, how long it will take, what kind of machines we will need for it, how strong they will have to be, on the basis of which laws of nature they will have to work".
Through the heavy receiver, no small amount of enthusiasm seemed to mingle in his voice when he shouted: "This thing can be done with rockets, and we can demonstrably build these rockets in such a way that they can finally reach quite fantastic speeds. Furthermore : We already know today how big and heavy such a spaceship has to be, we know that we cannot use the powder rockets commonly used so far for propulsion, but that we will only make progress if we take liquid oxygen and let something like hydrogen liquefied by cold burn together with the oxygen Such a rocket would not yet reach a speed of 11⅔ kilometers per second, but it will be necessary to put several rockets on top of each other, so that the lowest one always works and is dropped when its fuel is exhausted.
At this point the lady from the office reported the end of my telephone money, which I had previously considered to be so princely, and I had to regretfully end the conversation - but not without noting Mr. Oberth's closing words: "Meanwhile we have very little practical experience with all these things. They will believe me that there is still a very long way to go until then".
I, in turn, will be believed when I say that my ears and head were ringing after this phone call. Pictures of steel colossuses riding on a beam of heat and fire came to my mind and should haunt me for days. Just at this time a businessman friend handed me a magazine which he had bought on the other side of the Atlantic and brought back with his ship's passage. The Americans, no strangers to grand gestures, truly believe there to be a whole race of rational beings on Mars and are planning to make contact.
How small my dreams of the journey to the moon had been! As I read in the Popular Science Monthly, "the more resourceful modern astronomers are inclined to believe that Mars is inhabited. But if that were the case, how would we talk to the Martians? A cable like the one that connected me to Transylvania will probably not be carried into the sky by one of Mr Oberth's rockets any time soon.
No, the American scientists dream even bigger dreams: they want to build a gigantic reflecting telegraph to tell Mars about us. To illustrate their bold ideas, a cinematographic treatise called "Hello Mars" was even produced under the aegis of Mr. Max Fleischer, which will be shown this year in American movie theaters and which explains the connection to Mars in several variations. For example, in order to be able to send large flashes of light, it is proposed "to cover a not inconsiderable part of the earth's surface with lights". This idea actually originates from the French astronomer Prof. Camille Flammarion, who wants to equip a large part of the Sahara desert with such lamps. Just imagine the electricity needed for such a colossal undertaking, not to mention the cost of construction! There are probably many who will speak of a madness, but what a lovely madness it would be if Mars were to respond! The American colleague writes: "Who knows, one day we may tell the Martians all about the great war, all about the fight for democratic ideals, all about the terrible upheavals we have just gone through! Perhaps then we will learn from a more mature and wiser planet how we should lead the Earth.
Once again I had to think of my railway acquaintance, who thought that technology would also conquer people's souls. And so I raise my glass not only to all of us who are starting into a new, possibly - hopefully - golden decade; I also drink to that undiscovered country, into which we move with every step we take: To the future!
NUDE CLIMBING WITH HERMANN HESSE
Marie de Winter visits the nature people at Monte Verità
Question upon question
Have you ever satisfied your hunger with nothing but berries, grains and nuts? Tilled your garden in a loincloth... or even climbed a rock face - completely unveiled?
Another nudist hoax of our time? And shamelessly so, you may think. Who would be prepared for such escapades - in one's birthday suit? And: why?
Well, I asked myself the same when I heard about the existence of these idealists. Where are they to be found? On a mountain in beautiful Ticino, called Monte Verità. In a spiritual colony of artists and a natural sanatorium, founded by alternative life reformers like the pianist Ida Hofmann and the nature lover Gusto Gräser. And - "hardly believeable" you may probably exclaim - Hermann Hesse, the great writer himself, has already lived through these experiences!
And no one less than him is who will stand by my side in this daring investigative self-experiment - descending into the depths of my soul in search of true knowledge! With an alert mind and an inquiring eye, I will go to Monte Verità to face the bare facts, and last but not least, I will dedicate myself to the question: WHAT DOES IT DO TO ME?
More hill than mountain, Monte Verità rises above the fishing village of Ascona, whose inhabitants have been talking about this place for 19 years now with the same mixture of curiosity and irony that only sensational states are able to evoke.
On their journey through anarchism, theosophy, Buddhism, feminism, esotericism, Satanism, sexual bolshevism, parapsychology - phew - and not to forget art - countless followers of these currents and practices are said to have experienced purification, healing and deep inspiration on the mountain . More or less socially well-accepted personalities - such as Else Lasker-Schüler, Franz Arp, Oskar Schlemmer or Paul Klee - already dreamed there, naked and hungry, of free love, veganism and a better world, celebrated their very personal asceticism and lived this alternative to materialism, chauvinism, church and state. Come along with me!
confabulation
During our one-hour walk to the "nudist settlement", however, Hesse, who moved into his new home in nearby Montagnola last May, never tires of emphasizing, how he feels about the behavior on Monte Verità after his "encounter with himself" half a decade ago. He even speaks of "kohlrabi apostles", "grain-eaters" and "barefoot prophets". So I am surprised, how light-footed and carefree he is willing to walk with me on the paths of the past. In his recently published novel "Demian" under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair, he openly reveals - in a frenzy of only three weeks of inspiration, as he points out - his inner insights, even persons and places from "Mountain of Truth". Now he wants to pay his last respects to the mountain. An end shall soon be put to the colorful hustle and bustle. It shall be over and done with the "Republic of the Homeless", as the writer Erich Mühsam likes to call this place. It will close its doors in January until further notice.
"I went seven days without food. During this time, my skin peeled and renewed, I got used to being naked, to lying on hard ground, to the heat of the sun and the cold night wind", reports Hesse as we approach the fenced-in area of the commune - probably to gently prepare me for what was to come... "Often, I laid half-conscious for hours, watching the light and shade changing, listening to the small sounds of the wasteland, disregarding them and not giving myself an account of what I saw and heard", he continues, as we climb the steps out of the now deep blue night to the brightly lit "Casa Anatta, the commune's residential and representative building. There I move into a small , simple chamber, note down the events of the day in my little book and fall into a restless sleep…
The early bird
The night was short and the sleeping berth was uncomfortable. Any more inconveniences awaiting me today?
Every single berry, every nut of the "sumptuous" morning meal promises ascetic purification. Hesse, acknowledging my expression of suffering, pats my slender little arm in an encouraging manner, and explains, obviously amused: "Apart from the fasting fanatics, there are true vegetarian gourmands, who really feast. Vegetarians, too [...] frugivores and mixed diets". Ida Hofmann, the foundress of the community, looking daggers at Hesse, indignantly admonishes me: "You women do not need to live with torment or suffering! Through a plant-based diet, women can free themselves and shake off the yoke of men and develop into higher beings. Let's burn the rotten, the dead in humans and in their sphere of influence!"
I pause in amazement as I crush the grains - such a view on female self-liberation was previously completely unknown to me. As I want to find out more about the reasons for the closure of the settlement, I take the opportunity: "A conversation over a cup of tea?" Ida Hofmann nods, tomorrow she'll receive me. I'm politically beginning my retreat now - in joyful expectation, before long, climbing cheerfully, in the altogeher, towards self-liberation on a nasty rock face.Having a stunning view on the glittering surface of Lake Maggiore, rippling in the rising midday sun...
Strange things
As we climb out onto the first, jagged rocky plateau, all of a sudden, I am deeply torn between an almost overpowering investigative curiosity and a natural flight instinct. Hesse's encouraging words immediately soothe my hesitation: "Between man and mountain there can develop an almost erotic relationship." This is supposed to be the female nature as well... Ok then, that's convincing... Surrounded by warm air and the blue sky, this incredibly daring little interlude with the cool rock turns out to be an exceptionally sensual moment of glory for my female contemplation…
It does not take an extrasensory nature to guess, whom once served as a shelter the hidden rock grotto, whose gorge now opens up before us, after our descent into the valley: the prophetic visionary Gusto Gräser! "Be yourself." Hesse, in a pensive and melancholic mood, cites his old friend... "Our only obligation and destiny was, that each of us should become completely ourselves", I add from my memory of "Demian", while the pieces of the past come together to form a whole...
So we sit for many hours in Gräser's abandoned, savaged "forest garden world" – Gräser himself had been expelled from Switzerland last year. We philosophize until twilight begins to surround us... when the mountain – all of a sudden - seems to melt a polymorphic wave of naked bodies onto the plateau in front of the grotto! I can hardly believe my eyes when, in the light of the rising full moon, I recognize some familiar faces among them: the Dadaists Hugo Ball, Käthe Kruse, the painter Paul Klee, Mary Wigman... and her master Rudolf von Laban! It's incredible: All of them came to honor Gusto Grass one last time, to remember better times, to invoke the spirit of long gone days in this familiar place. To move now their naked bodies ecstatically in the moonlight, one last time, under the guidance of the dancer from Laban... The "Balabiott", the naked dancers! Legendary!
discipline
Still completely caught up in the deep, Dionysian impressions of the previous night, I am strolling - almost somnambulistically to the "Parsival meadows" - passing wooden "light-air huts", lightly dressed sun worshipers with flowing beards and wild hair and a group of peaceful meditators. Ida Hofmann is already waiting for me in the shade of an old, gnarled tree. She smiles, but at the same time she seems a little depressed. She tells me about the beginnings and the noble goal pursued by the founders of the community, but also about the infighting, conflicts and intrigues between the artists and "new gurus" who resided on the mountain in the past few years. Too many different ideologies... In 1907, the need for money made matters worse: "This was the beginning of the end of our dream." Although making the necessary changes to the food menu brought back to guests, who had been thought lost, her husband Henri Oedenkoven literally had his hands full tracking down forbidden things - such as salami or wine - in the hiding places: "He carried the accusatory signs between his fingers like poison and presented them [...] to the attendant crowd. He always hoped, that the poor sinners would confess. A pious hope [...]." And at the same time Ida's great hope faded away: the women's self-liberation by a strict "Vegetabilism! Vegetarianism!". "We will emigrate - but who knows? Perhaps one day our dream will be dreamed by others..."
While Mrs. Hofmann is trying to forget her sorrow, playing heart-rending piano sonatas, I am preparing myself for my departure next day, lost in thoughts.
Farewell
Reflecting on my journalistic boldness, which - only a few days ago - had led me to the nature people, I am sitting on the train and begin to browse in Hesse's ancient notes on Ascona - his parting gift - which fascinates me for many hours. A really strangely enchanted place, this mountain! After Gräser, Hofmann and Oedenkoven, there will probably be others trying their luck and finding happiness one day... As we come to a stop with squeaking wheels in the home station, my thoughts stop all at once. Loudly I am reading Gusto Gräser´s words now:
"Ascona was, was fine, good its variety of delight and pain -
a repetition would be nothing but sadness.
Gone!
Newly we must live our life! Anew!”
Stepping out of my train compartment, the pulsating life is embracing me invitingly and lovingly...
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UNHOOK THE CORSET - LETTERS FROM THE BAUHAUS
by Liena Berin
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Weimar, April 2, 1919
My dearest Berthe!
Greetings from Weimar! It's the beginning of the semester! It's true, Berthe, I'm really here!
All the time my heart was beating like mad. Remember how every academy had rejected me? I painfully remember how they devalued me... You can go to vocational school to teach! Women don't get into art school, and if they do, they have to be exceptional. I cried for days. But here, Berthe, there are lots of young women, on the stairs, in the corridors, everywhere. All my fellow students are so young, full of life (I also took the liberty of looking at the boys), rosy cheeks from all the excitement. It's just like you said! The time for women has come. It's good that my Bauhaus, state academy in Weimar, has opened its doors for the first time. Ah, Mr. Gropius and his opening speech. Berthi, you should have been there. What encourage words and what a cheerful Mr. Director who wants our best. Even helped by the students are women, he stressed. This is our chance.
The whole day was at least as exciting as the first time we went to vote. Remember three months ago when we went to City Hall? Our right to vote! I couldn't sleep all night, so I questioned dad so I wouldn't do anything wrong. I know how long our mothers fought for this moment and for us.
I'm so glad, dear Berthe, that we're no longer invisible. I'm so confident that art will become feminine.
In case you are wondering, yes, I was wearing the beautiful new dress, the yellow one with the corset and of course with a hat. I could have burst with pride, and with excitement... When I held the study plan in my hands, my soul trembled, and small waves of joy flowed through my body in a disorderly fashion. Only the corset suddenly disturbed me, I could hardly breathe, had probably laced it too tight. With all the excitement.
But enough of that, Walter Gropius introduced us to the concept of the new school and also to our form masters Johannes Itten, Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee. His Bauhaus manifesto, the ideology of all students is to be part of the whole and of the building. Architects, sculptors, painters, they all have to return to the craft, he said, his plan is to build all the houses from one source. A long way. We are to fill the vacuum, he said, we are to be one in spirit and matter. The students form the Bauhaus, we are the Bauhaus.
You ask what other subjects there are, ie architecture, carpentry, sculpture, mural painting, metal and ceramic workshops. There is a lot of freedom for development here. There is a theater stage, dance and music. Of course, we also have a printing shop, where I am often, and we make postcards and woodcuts.
Everything has to be conquered, because there are no lone fighters. Everybody tries to realize his ideas for furniture and utensils, even toys on paper.
We draw, design, sketch all day long, often at night, and we fill the idea with life. Side by side with the men. We are in no way inferior to them, I have already seen some designs from all my fellow students and have also made some myself. I'm getting better.
At Mrs. Grunow's we have concentration and movement exercises accompanied by the piano. She wants to teach us harmonization theory, because only the harmonious human being can be creative. She is convinced of this.
I share a studio with Gunta. She is from Bavaria. And really nice. You'd like her. First I have to go to the weaving mill. I hope to get out of there soon. It's not my thing. The looms rattle all day long. I'd much rather switch to mural painting. I'm good at woodcuts, too. I do them in the breaks. Well, I'll show the old men. Just be patient. I'll tell you about it.
Now I have to go to class. your dear d
hp Write to me real soon too.
Weimar, July 20, 1919
Dearest Berthe,
thanks for your lovely letter and the news from home. It was very nice to meet you and I hope you like my dress. I couldn't use it anymore, this dress and the corset. It's not practical, it takes away my air and freedom of movement. Life at the Bauhaus is hard work. Our day consists of twelve hours. Drawing, color and form studies, kitchen, workshops. Everything is meagerly furnished and dusty. We till the field ourselves. I love being here, not a day goes by without feeling the glory of the promised independence. Now we are new, surviving and ready for anything, white leaves written by the wind of the new age. But imagine: Women pay higher tuition fees than men! It's unfair. Besides, they give us more work, you know, women's work in the canteen, but who cares?! Colors flow in our veins. When we're too hungry, we move the tables aside and dance. We study the theory of forms and the construction reduced to the essential, to which everything must be subordinated. Only the essence of everything should remain, the necessary. Circle. Rectangle. triangle no more No curved lines, no yielding. Towards a clear mind, away from nature.
We live without a given style and work in a way that is appropriate for the purpose. Away with historicism, on to modernity! That is our aspiration. I still don't really know what to think of reduction. Marcel Breuer, our friend, is enthusiastic. He works at night in the wood workshop. The men make chairs, with straight, high backs. Colorful. Simple. The African chair. There is no master weaver. Gunta has already completed an apprenticeship at the trade school, she can now develop and apply all her knowledge. Schlemmer says: "Where there's wool, there's a woman, if only to pass the time". Well wait, old man, we will prove to you that the women's class weaving will be successful. Gropius swears that we are the avant-garde to overthrow the monopoly of the academies and the old taste in art. The distance to the traditional bourgeoisie and the discarded ideas leads us into the new age. Except for the masters, we are not hierarchically organized, but wild and non-conformist. We are planning the first kite festival. I build a house that flies, as a symbol of the Bauhaus. We're certainly not savages. But we use leftovers we find broken glass, clay or wood from the forest. Material is scarce, but art is everywhere.
Purism. Saving, in materials, forms, effort, Gropius says again and again. He has convinced us. We young people have settled in quickly, and our way of dealing with each other is also slowly changing. I feel more at home here than anywhere else. As if there were no other place in the world.
your d
Weimar, December 1, 1919
Dearest Mother!
Thank you for asking, I am very well. No, I took off the corset a long time ago, no work is possible with it. In the workshop I couldn't even bend over the tables properly. My friend Gunta did that in the summer, with the loose dresses. Yes, of course, with undergarments. No, mother I wasn't there when the Bauhaus people bathed naked in the river. Rumors! You don't think we're good? You can! You bet I do!
I'm not on good terms with Master Itten. I think he's crazy. He never lets us work in peace. He disturbs us on purpose. Yes, I know, his color theory is revolutionary. But I don't understand the master, and he thinks I'm a bad student. But that's not true. He demands too much and provokes wherever he can. And he follows a strange denomination, tries to convince us to follow, but I don't intend to.
Recently, a preliminary course was introduced which everyone has to go through, regardless of their educational background. The older students growl. Gunta always laughs about it, "Men, thinking they are undisputed geniuses, they don't need that, an introduction." She has a good laugh anyway, she found her passion in weaving. I'll keep looking for it.
Mother, did you hear: According to a decree of the Prussian Minister of the Interior, now unmarried women are also allowed to use the official title "Woman". I can determine my own life, I am independent and full-fledged, no father, no husband, no guardian!
Dear Mother, see you soon
Love and greetings
your d
Weimar, December 5, 1919
berthe,
at the moment everything bothers me, I would like to argue with Master Itten, I do not share his opinion, and he acts as if he himself had reinvented the wheel.
I know that the master hath greater things on his mind, he experiences this world in a supernatural way. Gunta said it's esoteric. I'm not sure what that means. The Far East, maybe? His disciples are running around in their home-made "Itten" cloaks, their heads shaved and their bodies clean. They're idols, images of their master. But when I begin to see him with different eyes, to finally understand his teachings and also his praise slowly reaches me, I can hardly escape. His intensive teachings, the waves that emanate from him in a palpable circular shape, all this draws me more and more under his spell. The physical exercises alone, which he practices with the disciples, are said to be good to open the souls. Itten knows how to intensify the experience of colour, and I can feel colours. This is how he explains colours, out of pain, heat, purity. desire The basic colors of the color circle, red. Yellow. Blue. That's all it takes. I understood it too, and I've become much freer. I know that mural painting will be my field of study. I have to enforce that.
He explains the complementary colors and the different effects. I am a part of the teaching, I am one with the material, one with the material that I form, that I hold and change. It does not always bend to my will, but it must. I make the material subject to me. I move to the rhythm of the school, to the rhythm of the bodies that hum in the same rhythm. Wood is singing. Fabrics groan under the looms.
We plan to sell our own designs and objects soon, especially from the wood and textile workshop. Then we will finally have money and can improve our finances. Under Gunta's hands the textiles find unseen patterns. The whole class is enthusiastic.
hugs, d
Weimar, December 23, 1919
My dear Berthe,
you asking if I have found a darling here?
Oh, it's not easy. Whatever a woman starts, she has to work twice as hard until the men accept her. What are men like? They're the navel of the world, only our world no longer revolves entirely around them. I wonder how the relationship between man and woman will change when the dissolution of the bourgeois type of woman leads to sexually liberated women. Could they cope with this, our male geniuses who are used to setting the tone? Could they get over it when women are their equals and are free to pursue their work and even their lust? Or do they feel emasculated when we demand our rights?
The woman I want to be is a person who makes her own decisions. Can I love without becoming unfree? Only here I am free from foreign ideas, follow my own ideas.
Yes, I already have admirers, we dance at the "Ball verkehrt", in swapped roles. That's a lot of fun... Gunta told me about newfangled stuff from the pharmacy, I'll try it out... and tell you about it.
But then what about love, what about love between two people? Does that mean anyone can be promiscuous, act freely in both directions? Will love endure that? Or will it wither away, like the war wounded? Did it die, on the battlefields? Then freedom would have become anarchy.
Yes, Christmas makes me too sad. I wish you a merry Christmas, my dear Berthe. I'm staying here.
your dear d
PS I cut my hair short, it always got stuck in the workbench and got in the way of my drawing...
Weimar New Year's Eve 1919 / New Year 1920
Dear Mom!
Man is the center of all things, every house should be built according to human proportions. Gropius says this is the measure.
We sit on the bare concrete floor. In a moment the year will be over. We are caught in a wild stupor. The wine that has just been exchanged at the wine growers is flowing in torrents. Our costumes are homemade, made of papier-mâché and old fabrics, the imagination knew no bounds. Our ensemble plays frolicsomely, hour after hour without tiring. I am wearing a suit and have only painted a beard again. Anyway, I wear trousers these days. A few Dadaists mingle with the dancers. I knew it, the crazy ones are among us.
You asked if I was in love. Oh yes, mom, totally: with life! Art, craftsmanship, making the world a better place. We're always productive, but often more fun than it seems. We make our own kites and let them fly, before the eyes of bourgeois society, which can only shake its head above us. We outdo ourselves in imagining the beautiful future and plan how we can still make money.
Equality is a very difficult word. As I stood with Gunta in the corner of the auditorium, looking over to Friedl, who can't keep her hands off Mr. Singer - they kiss and smack as if they were tasting the sweetness for the first time - we talk about the fact that they will probably have to get married. We giggle. Gunta only has eyes for Marcel. "Can you imagine becoming the future wife of your colleague?" An awkward silence comes between us. Being his wife... just being the wife. That means giving up the profession of an artist and raising his children and supporting him in fulfilling his dreams. From the workbench to the stove. Weren't we going to be free? Didn't we want to earn our own money, have a say in art? I know Gunta's not getting married. The man isn't the center of her attention. She's going to live her own life, now that she holds the scepter. She's kissing Marcel. It's New Year's Eve.
Being free from the choices of men is important to me. I go out, look up at the starry sky and know that this is the only possibility. What happiness it is to serve the new architecture. It is said that Kandinsky is coming to the Bauhaus as the new master of form. I wouldn't miss that for the world. I throw myself into the swarm of dancers.
Gropius has given in, I'm going to switch to mural painting, no matter what Schlemmer says. I'm happy.
The new era is dawning: 1920. I can feel it! Up, ladies, to the workbenches, the looms, the paint pots and the drawing board, the printing presses. Let's throw ourselves into the new media, photography first!
The corset is finally unhooked, the sleeves are rolled up! Let's design them according to our ideas, this wonderful future!
Your loving D
HELMUT BEAUTIFIES
Curly hair, hot air shower - and what color would you like?
by Helmut Hellmund
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
times are restless, we are just recovering from the last fateful events after 1918. A new decade lies ahead of us, and I at least thirst for the beauty and richness of the pre-war period. I want to talk about hair: there is much we have to do without but some we still have. Electricity provided us with the progress to finally dry our hair faster. In 1890, the first hot air shower was already available in France and around 1900, AEG introduced the first hair dryers to the market. Surely you have already noticed the chrome-designed models in the shops. And even if not everyone has electricity in their own home, I hope that times change faster than the war has lasted. I have a good feeling about this.
Accelerating the drying process is one thing - but what if straight hair was Mother Nature's gift? What if more volume or even curls are desired? A change? If you have the necessary liquidity, go to the hair salon and get a permanent wave. In 1906 the German hairdresser Karl Nessler invented the system of the permanent wave. The hair is rolled up vertically and brought into shape with spiral rollers heated by electricity and it will last until you next wash your hair. The rest, unfortunately, will have to make do with the corrugating, creping, and crimping iron, just like grandmother did. Heated in the oven or in the fire on the stove and then the hair is brought into shape. And please, always take care: too hot does not only harm the hair. It also requires a little practice and experience. But I think you could learn all from your grandmothers. Love the snail-like, gently springy curls, use the crimping tool. No volume? You'll be fascinated by what a crepe iron can get out of fine hair. But even then, my feeling is that these irons will soon be a thing of the past. Progress, progress. Because there is such a thing as the electric curling iron. It's a pleasure. I've had the opportunity to try it out for myself. Quick and easy, strands of hair are wound onto the rod, clamped briefly, heated, and the splendor of the curls unfolds on the head. You may have noticed that even I as a gentleman step out into the Berlin nightlife sporting a gentle curl.
The first signs of maturity announce themselves, or the mood calls for a different hair colour? Help has been at hand for this since ancient times. Nature has a lot to offer, you surely know henna and reng, it makes your hair chestnut-coloured or strawberry blonde to black. Camomile also changes the color of the hair, some say it turns yellow, I, of course say it becomes blonder than ever before, and with a little lemon juice and sunlight, you will enjoy a beautiful result. To work with Rastik again requires some practice, it is a mixture of pyrogallol with iron and copper salts. Pyrogallol is obtained by roasting gallnuts. Your hair will be a deep black after the application. These dyes have been on the market since 1895, for example "Chenie's Hair Color Fo" or "Aureole" by Eugène Schueller since 1907. Ask in the big department stores - Wertheim or in the Kaufhaus des Westens. I have it on good authority from a reliable source that some goods have survived the war and are hidden in the depths of the basement.
And yet fashion is like progress, it changes in a short time. The old plaits are cut off. Let us look across the Atlantic to America, the hair is worn chin-length and straight, with bangs or side parting. The latest trend: the pageboy or Eton cut, short at the back of the head like men's. Louise Brooks, the celebrated Hollywood star, shows us, and who wouldn't want to be like her?
I am looking forward to the coming decade with all the surprises of progress and fashion, and above all, I look forward to continuing to help you discover your beauty!
COCKTAIL OF THE YEAR 1919
picked up by Marie de Winter
"Un poco più forte?"
- The NEGRONI -
Buona sera, Signore e Signori, may I introduce myself? Conte Negroni from Milan. My friends call me Camillo. And I love cocktails! Do you love cocktails too? Molto bene - then we already have something in common! Before the meal, after the meal and also in the company of friends in between... and I have a lot of friends, you know...
What? You prefer Campari and Vermouth? But the Americano isn't strong enough for you? Mamma mia, hard to believe - another common ground! Then come and visit me at the Caffé Casoni in Firenze, and let my barista, good old Fosco Scarselli, serve us an aperitivo that is really something: the Negroni. An Americano "un poco più forte" - with a strong shot of gin, named after yours truly. By the Virgin Mary, I promise you: This cocktail will knock your socks off!
Do you want to try it yourself? Va bene! Of course, I'll tell you the recipe. After all, why have friends...
Ingredients:
3cl Red Vermouth
3cl dry gin
3cl Campari
1 orange zest
ice cube
Now pour the ingredients together with some ice cubes into a tumbler and garnish with some fine orange zest. Your Negroni is ready to drink!
Salute!
Your Conte Camillo Negroni
mrs. TAPMORE'S MADEIRA CAKE
noted by Marie de Winter
Recently we were lucky enough to be guests of a well-known British landed gentry family for afternoon tea. The Madeira Cake that was served to us was so delicious that we decided to get their cook Mrs. Tapmore to give us her strictly guarded recipe, which - as the name already suggests - harmonizes perfectly with a glass of Madeira. We know that many of the ingredients are currently only available for us at inflated prices on the black market. Nevertheless, with a view to better times, we do not want to withhold the recipe from you:
You need:
For the dough:
1 cup soft butter
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
Grated zest of 2 lemons
1 cup sour cream
1 1/4 cups wheat flour
1/4 cup wholemeal wheat or spelled flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
For decoration with candied lemons:
2 lemons (thinly sliced)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
For the glaze
2 cups of icing sugar
The preparation:
Preheat the oven to 335° Fahrenheit (170°C). Line two 8 inch (20 cm) springform tins with parchment paper and grease the paper. Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Stir at medium speed until a good consistency is achieved. Then add the eggs, one by one. Add the grated lemon zest, sour cream, baking powder and salt and mix together. Now add the flour little by little, but mix it only briefly with the remaining mixture in the mixing bowl. Divide the dough between the two cake tins, bake for 30-35 minutes and then let the two cake halves cool on a wire rack.
While the cakes are baking, prepare the candied lemon. Put sugar and water in a large pan and heat it at medium temperature until the sugar is dissolved. Then add the lemon slices and cook them for about 8 to 10 minutes until they are transparent. Place the lemon slices on a wire rack and keep the warm lemon sugar syrup.
When the cakes have cooled down, take them out of the mould, prick a few holes with a toothpick and sprinkle them with the prepared lemon-sugar syrup.
Prepare the lemon icing by mixing the lemon juice and icing sugar to the desired consistency. Now place one of the cakes on the serving dish and sprinkle it with half of the lemon icing. Place the other cake on top, pour the rest of the lemon icing over it and garnish it with the candied lemons.
Enjoy with a fine glass of Madeira!
BRIEFLY NOTED
by Marie de Winter & Ferdinand Sturm
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Peace treaty signed!
Paris, June 28, 1919
After difficult negotiations, Germany signs the peace treaty in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.
First Atlantic crossing by airship
Mineola/New York, July 6, 1919
The 196 meter long rigid airship R 34 ("Tiny") under the command of Major George Herbert Scott lands safely in Mineola after its non-stop Atlantic crossing of 108 hours! The voyage started earlier on July 2 at East Lothian/Scotland.
Sensational aerobics!
Paris, August 7, 1919
Unbelievable: Frenchman Charles Godefroy flies through the Arc de Triomphe in a Nieuport 11 biplane!
The birth of democracy in Germany! Schwarzburg, August 11, 1919
Reich President Friedrich Ebert signs the Weimar Constitution. This came into force on 14 August.
Science revolution!
London, Nov. 6, 1919
Royal Society: New theory of the universe, Newtonian idea overthrown! Einstein's theory of general relativity triumphs
The great Playhouse of Berlin opens!
Berlin, November 28, 1919
The “Großes Schauspielhaus” with 5000 seats in Berlin is ceremonially opened. The director Max Reinhardt is delighted with the great theater he has long been calling for.
First locomotive of the Krupp works
Essen, December 6, 1919
The Krupp works deliver their first self-built locomotive. The company is now in the process of converting to a peacetime economy.
Active women's suffrage introduced in further European countries!
The example of Germany on 19 January 1919 was followed by other countries last year: since then, women have also been allowed to stand for election in Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands.
With the "Tiger Rag" the Homokord offers the first record with jazz in Germany on 5 January 1920.
In the United States , the new decade begins with "Prohibition": production, consumption and distribution of alcoholic beverages are prohibited.
“Reichslichtspielgesetz” planned :. Censorship of dirty and trashy educational films and films critical of society is being considered.
NEWS FROM THE SOPHISTICATED PROVINCES
The WinterSturm editorial team introduces itself
In our glittering capital, the rest of the republic is often derided with a wink as "provincial". Hence it takes the special courage of our esteemed editor Else Edelstahl to place the management of the editorial and design of this journal in the hands of the modest editorial office WinterSturm, whose headquarters are located in the largest village on the Rhine (named after a " little stream" called Düssel). We thank her from the bottom of our hearts for this trust! And also to our dedicated authors, located between Berlin and Limburg ad Lahn, without whose wonderful contributions to this issue would be unthinkable!
Furthermore, it is a special concern of ours not only to accompany the coming decade in a journalistic way, but also to bring together ladies and gentlemen with a predilection for contemporary dress in a personal setting "deep in the West". We kick off the year with the
SOIREE 1920
ON 28 FEBRUARY `20
with 35 selected guests in the sophisticated premises of Wandel Antik Vintage in Düsseldorf. A stylish spring walk as well as a tweed walk (see below) in autumn will follow, to which we would be very happy to welcome you!
With appropriate electronic devices you can find us in the worldwide electronic archive at wintersturm.jimdofree.com . You are also welcome to approach us at the Bohème Sauvage Colonia, where we are regular guests, of course!
Yours Marie de Winter and Ferdinand Sturm
THE PRECLUDED EDITOR
by Friedrich Heinrich Findeklee
Dusseldorf, October `19
Dear Storm,
Dearest Madame de Winter!
You have been gracious enough to offer my humble self complicity in this journal. And I was reckless enough to agree. The desire for fame clouded my senses. Otherwise I would have seen how futile this undertaking is. Several thousand "attacks" you demanded of me - the very word frightens me. I used to only have to think of Chopin, and already the muses were kissing me tenderly. Today, however, in these troubled modern times, this monster on which I am writing to you here actually clatters as if the reds and those frivolous Freikorps are now fighting their battles not only in Bavaria, but right here on my kitchen table!
How did such a machine find its way onto my kitchen table?
You are right to ask that! My reticence about all this modern stuff is well-known. Alas, when I sat down to wrest the lines I had promised from myself, I found my fountain pen dried up, the quills I had given away in a fit of modernism, and when I decided on the pencil, my hand soon hurt so much that I had to stop writing. I marched bravely to the grocer and purchased a Smith Premier, type 10, with a full keyboard. There is also a key for every capital letter, just look: POTZBLITZ! THAT'S PROGRESS! Alone, the rattling of the keys makes me nervous, and after I had only written one page, I found myself so nervous that I had to take a walk. A haze-covered sun soon saw me striving south on the Rhine dyke until I came to a castle. In its park I wandered around and found no exit for a long time. Only when the evening was already dawning did I catch a cab home.
I returned home tired - and again a day of writing had passed. Even today is coming to an end. On top of all that, I'm running out of writing paper, the grocer will be closed tomorrow, and my hand is aching from writing - now both of them. I beg your forgiveness many times, I sincerely pledge to stand by your side faithfully and undauntedly for a later journal, and remain your faithful servant and editor, unfortunately prevented from writing this time.
Friedrich Heinrich Findklee
THE CREW
PICTURE CREDITS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE (DESKTOP VERSION)
uni-marburg.de - creativecommons.org - deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de - moma.org - creativecommons.org - gallica.bnf.fr - loc.gov - gallica.bnf.fr - Lady Daisy Ashton - Lady Daisy Ashton - loc.gov - Vintage boy - Vintage boy - gallica.bnf.fr - gallica.bnf.fr - smithsonianmag.com - de.wikimedia.org - WinterSturm editors - creativecommons.org - loc.gov - WinterSturm editors - bauhaus100.de/Louis Held - gallica.bnf.fr - loc.gov - gallica.bnf.fr - WinterSturm Editorial Team - loc.gov - loc.gov - loc.gov - loc.gov - loc.gov - europeana.eu - europeana.eu - Neil Hennessy-Vass - WinterSturm Editors
POST EDITING
Lady Daisy Ashton (except " Men's fashion of the 1920 season " and "Briefly noted" by Redaktion WinterSturm)
CHIEF EDITION AND LAYOUT (ENGLISH VERSION)
Marie de Winter & Ferdinand Sturm / www.wintersturm.jimdofree.com