Heil Hugo: Boss as a famed clothier and flawed human.

When I mention the name Hugo Boss what is the first thing that comes to mind? Hopefully, its the crisp, clean, nearly surgical construction of a quality suit. The basic black suits that are both modern and timeless. The luxe material that drapes just perfectly from the shoulders to enhance a slim silhouette. It's all of the above and much, much more. Boss suits are blessed with the off the rack feeling that they were tailored just for you, and the material has a quality to it that feels like it must be rare and hard to procure.

BOSS Fall jacket from the 2010/11 collection

    The Hugo Boss label has pedigree-something a lot of fashion companies simply don't possess. Hugo Boss was started by its namesake, a specialty master tailor in 1923, in the small town of Mentzingen, Germany. The creation of his own shop in 1923 was a huge risk. Germany was in the midst of an economic depression. Massive unemployment and hyperinflation were rampant after the conclusion of World War One. It is said that the spoils of war go to the victor- and WWI had Germany utterly devastated. The infrastructure was destroyed, the industry was highly regulated or dismantled by the Allies through the Treaty of Versaille, making the currency worth less the paper it was printed on. For a master tailor like Boss, striking out on your own would be virtual suicide. An invitation to starve. Yet he made it work.



An inflationary 5 Billion Mark note.
Stamps could cost as much as 10 million Marks.



     

Boss found a niche and excelled in his specialty. "[he] started out making protective suits for industrial workers and other clothes for men. Other Boss specialties were rain coats and uniforms"*1. He produced large quantities of uniforms for the postal workers and the local police departments. His clothes sold well considering the economy. He put his heart and soul into making the company a success. The durability and quality of his goods were his publicity, and he demanded perfection of himself and his employee's.

Famous "Work and Bread" poster
used by the Nazi's to gain support
after the 1923 recession.
the subtitle says: make Nationalsocialism
priority number one.

    What started out as a small one man storefront operation grew into a small factory mass producing his work wear and uniforms. But as before, Boss continued to focus on high quality and durable designs that wouldn't go out of style.Which remains a cornerstone of the companies continued success. "Hugo Boss implements stringent design and quality standards to produce superior products that deliver value for money...The core brand BOSS stands for clear-cut, contemporary design and high quality details"*2

Hugo Boss' Einstein plaid suit

   Since then, the company's growth has gone through various struggles, but today they are a permanent presence a top the fashion world. Hugo Boss AG has over 4000 permanent employee's, owns their own textile production plants, and has retail stores in over 90 countries. Their financial problems of the 1990's seem long past, and they regularly post sales numbers topping $900 million dollars. Hugo Boss is also the largest manufacturer of men's clothes in Germany, and has branched out into fragrances, licenced accessories, and most recently has created a women's line to their portfolio.

BOSS jacket 2010 season

    But there is one part of Hugo Boss' legacy that both shocked me, and brought enlightenment about their vision of design. In "1997, the Austrian current affairs magazine Profil reported that Hugo Boss's name appeared on a list of dormant Swiss bank accounts, revealing that the company produced uniforms for the Nazi's"*3 Which is not too big a surprise, Boss was after all a businessman, a tailor specializing in work wear, and police uniforms. And Germany in 1939 was led by a young upstart politician named Adolf Hitler who promised a new golden age for German's, by claiming a larger and more profitable share of the European landscape, a third great empire. And what was needed most were: young men, weapons, and uniforms. And as Boss' son said so eloquently, ''Of course my father belonged to the Nazi Party,'' Siegfried Boss, 83, said "But who didn't belong back then? The whole industry worked for the Nazi Army.''*4 And since people who are scared, starving and deceived often make the very radical and unthinkable decisions (think Iraq), it is very difficult to pass judgement on his actions.

Waffen SS Fall/Winter coats

Hugo Boss' modern raincoat design

   

Boss boosted his profile as a tailor among the Nazi faithful. As everyone knows 'the best publicity , is free publicity'. And creating the SS, SA and Hitler Youth uniforms brought Boss notoriety and cache as a master tailor, with an eye for details and a penchant for quality. It put his name in front of many German's who had never heard his name, let alone his sleepy town of Metzingen.



Hitler Youth Uniform

Hitler Youth poster
"the Youth serves the Fuhrer"
Requiring all 10 year olds to report
for membership. 

     The damage done to Boss' reputation with the report was only compounded when the company hired a local historian to look into the claims two month's after the Profil expose. The historian found that not only had Boss made the uniforms, but knowingly used slave labour out of the concentration camps to increase productivity. He was also found to be outsourcing the jobs to camps in France and Poland and having the army bring him skilled tailor and seamstress prisoners to his factory as day-labourers. All the while amassing the huge profits into accounts in Switzerland. Crossing the line from a uniform producer, who happened to create the specialty uniforms for the Waffen SS, and Hitler Youth, to knowingly exploiting slave labour, shows moral corruption. Knowing that Hugo Boss's intentionally used the fiduciary gain from German 'death camp' labour to fund Hugo Boss AG's ability to expand taints the companies success in some ways for me. Boss used the Nazi money to buy better production facilities, grow the companies profile and expand into textile production is a difficult reality to face. And it gives that classic, clean black suit an insidious tinge.

Well i'll give them this...they were fashionable.



Everyone loves a well tailored jacket...



Right?



     The classic black suit of Hugo Boss is certainly timeless, it now brings to mind the black of the SS dress uniform. And the utility and beauty of Boss' modern raincoats and jackets were born out of the harsh weather faced by the Nazi guards and watchmen through the difficult fall and winter. As you can clearly see from the photo's throughout the article there are clear similarities between the Nazi uniforms and their modern day renditions. Hugo Boss still pride themselves on a design ethos of utilitarian clothing. Both the uniforms and the modern raincoats and suits are based around simplistic, even minimalistic designs with fabulous detailing. The BOSS focus is still on quality and attention to details. They have clean lines and simply exude power and class. All those qualities are picked up from years of uniform design for a dictator that valued all of those same traits. A well tailored BOSS suit will still stop me in my tracks, unfortunately it will also be a reminder of the taint against the company. Where they came from, what they did, and from what devastated ashes the fashion icon's phoenix has risen.

*1 http://www.fundinguniverse.com/
*2 http://www.fundinguniverse.com/
*3 http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/15/business/hugo-boss-acknowledges-link-to-nazi-regime.html
*4 http://articles.latimes.com/1997/aug/15/news/ls-22533//
additional info was given by:
Michael Brown, professor of German Studies at York University
Bernd Widdig, Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany, University of California Press, 2001
Max Shapiro, The Penniless Billionaires, pages 170-224, New York Times Books, 1980
and, Robert Lewis Koehl, 1989, The SS: A History 1919–1945, Tempus Publishing Limited.