In this week’s blog, Costume Society member Maggi Garfield reviews the Kunstgewerbemuseum’s new exhibition, Fashion from Paris: A donation of Erika Hoffmann.
A compact but eloquent selection of 1980s avant-garde power dressing is on display at the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) in Berlin in the exhibition Fashion from Paris: A Donation of Erika Hoffmann. Curated by Dr Katrin Lindemann, fashion and textile curator at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, the exhibition celebrates a recent donation from renowned art collector Hoffmann’s personal archive dating from the late seventies into the nineties. The 22 items on display are not only emblematic of the era they were designed and worn, but have further fascinating and rich connections derived through their owner. Within the art world Erika Hoffmann, now 85, occupies a unique position. She is widely recognised as more a collaborator and facilitator than just an acquirer or investor; particularly in her relationships with female artists. Hoffmann studied art history in Freiburg, Vienna and Bonn from 1958 – 1963 and worked as a research fellow at Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. In 1963 she married Rolf Hoffmann, owner of luxury garment brand Van Laack, where Erika incorporated her art background into designing for the brand and introduced and helmed the ‘Lady Van Laack’ department for over 20 years.
Fotosession Erika Hoffmann u. Andy Warhol, Fotografie (Fotograf unbekannt), Privatbesitz
Instigated by Erika, purchasing a work in 1968 by the Greek artist Vlassilakis Takis was the start of the Hoffmann’s lifetime shared passion for artistic endeavours. The Hoffmans were early adopters in incorporating art into their garment production. Taking inspiration from works in their collection they did a run of Van Laack prints based on designs by the Russian Constructivists, ran an ad campaign featuring the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers and ran an informal t-shirt design competition in the Van Laack corporate office. After Rolf died in 2001 Erika continued collecting, eventually donating 1200 works of art to Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in 2018. The upper two floors of her home in Berlin currently serve as a gallery open to the public every Saturday. Although Erika has been a patron, collector, curator and collaborator within the art world for over sixty years this is the first exhibition to focus on her personally. As the exhibition title suggests the display is mainly drawn from French designers and includes groundbreaking designer Manfred ‘Thierry’ Mugler, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Jean-Paul Gaultier; described at the time as the Jeunes Createurs, a group working at the forefront of the fashion avant-garde. An exception is a painted paper vest from the 1994 Spring Summer collection by Belgian Martin Margiela, which according to curator Dr Lindemann, she never wore. ‘Her love of contemporary art was probably the deciding factor in her purchase, as Margiela‘s design straddles the boundary between art and fashion.’
The exhibition is a collaboration between Erika’s daughter and the museum with discussions first starting 14 months prior to the exhibition’s opening in February 2025. In December 2023 Erika Hoffmann's daughter contacted the museum to ask if they’d be interested in the Mugler, Gaultier and de Castelbajac garments. Dr Lindemann and the director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Sibylle Hoiman met Erika at her loft where they were greeted with rows of neatly hung fashion history. ‘We wanted to display them as soon as possible…For her, the jumpsuits and suits, day dresses and coats were her everyday (work) wardrobe. She has a great appreciation for her contemporary art collection, but couldn't imagine that we would have the same appreciation for her ‘everyday clothes’. Whenever we talked about the collection and I burst into raptures of enthusiasm, she found it a little amusing.’
Although the exhibition is well advertised, it’s tucked away in a back corner of the museum and takes perseverance to locate, but there’s plenty to see. The Kunstgewerbemuseum is well worth visiting for its vast collection of design in general and fashion in particular, with a comprehensive and beautifully displayed collection of modern fashion. Founded in 1867 and based on the Victoria and Albert Museum; the original site and most of its collection were decimated during WW11. Over the past fifty years the museum has steadily rebuilt its collection and in 2014 a redesign included a dedicated fashion wing built to look like a series of shopping arcades. Walter Benjamin would be right at home here with a display that includes English court dress and European couture, moving from Worth to the present day. Benjamin’s concept of the tiger’s leap, where the fashion’s present is a palimpsest, also comes to mind when viewing the Fashions From Paris exhibition. The items displayed provide a deeply resonant window not just into Erika Hoffmann and her own life, but also a dynamic era when the very silhouette of a woman was being radically redefined. Occupying a dimly lit single room, the majority of the garments are housed together on white mannequins behind glass cases in a U shape. The exception is a glass case in the centre housing the Margiela paper vest and accompanying press material. The central placement of the unworn Margiela garment suggests a perceived value over the other garments, some of which were worn for notable occasions, including a Thierry Mugler dress Erika worn for a Warhol silkscreen.
After crossing art world paths with Andy Warhol the Hoffmanns’ commissioned a double silk screen portrait in 1980. The portrait is one of the rarer silk screens coated in ‘diamond dust’; putting the Hoffmanns in the company of Grace Kelly and Mickey Mouse. Warhol walked in a 1981 New York fashion show for Van Laack and was photographed for the brand, later featuring in an advertisement in the influential art periodical Kunstforum in 1989. Erika was also interviewed and featured in Warhol’s Interview.
The Thierry Mugler dress and coordinating shoes that Erika wore during the Warhol portrait sitting are featured, alongside behind the scenes photos and Erika’s personal account of the day. This inclusion of personal storytelling was really the strongest aspect of the show. One of the most exciting possibilities of a wardrobe donated by a living donor is exploring the life lived in the clothing; the experiences and sensations they created in the wearer and the interwoven threads of experience that constitute the fabric of a life. As part of her donation Hoffman also donated 21 other pieces of clothing produced from designs based on the Russian Constructivists, a short lived avant-garde art movement. Having seen the Van Laack designs influenced by the Constructivists Cologne gallerist Krystyna Gmurzynska asked Erika in 1979 to participate in her seminal exhibition Women-Artists of the Russian Avant- Garde 1910-1930 (December 1979-April 1980). Gmurzynska asked Hoffman to reproduce garments designs initially created by female artist Liubov Popova which were never produced. The garments Hoffmann created would later feature in three major exhibitions of Russian Constructivism. Looking at the items in the compact display in Berlin it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between the Paris fashions of Erika Hoffmann and the Soviet inspired garments she helped realise.
Dr Lindemann confirms these connections,’There are many links between them. Mugler's fashion in 1979/80 corresponded exactly to the themes she was dealing with at the time. She could hardly say anything about her motives for acquiring a particular piece. But the connection between Mugler's designs and her own artistic approaches to reconstructing constructivist fashion designs is striking.’ Further reinforcing these links is a photo of Erika fitting a model for the Los Angeles show where she is seen wearing her Mugler beige dress. A future presentation of the Russian inspired items is planned but the salient and powerful links between the two sets of garments is a missed opportunity to explore the discourse between Hoffman’s everyday wardrobe and her active professional life. Although it seems Hoffmann herself was bemused by the exhibition’s concept. Dr Lindemann points out. ‘Whenever we talked about the collection and I burst into raptures of enthusiasm, she found it a little amusing. It was only when she saw the finished exhibition for the first time at the opening ceremony and noticed how many people had come just to see her donation that she was able to share my enthusiasm and was delighted with how these pieces now looked in the display case.’
The exhibition runs until June 7th 2026.
To continue your exploration of Berlin exhibitions, revisit Costume Society News Editor Dr Babette Radclyffe Thomas' review of the ongoing Rico Pullman retrospective on our blog.
