ATLAS 10 English - Fashion

THE WORLD IN MOTION: THE GEBRÜDER WEISS MAGAZINE

ISSUE 10

RAINER GROOTHUIS

Go west!

BARBARA VINKEN

Knowing the rules, ­breaking the rules ANDREAS CUKROWICZ

Thinking inside the box HARALD MARTENSTEIN

Fashion, courage and compromise Plus: Fabrics and faux pas, colors and cool looks

Fashion

James P. Halloran, a Key Account Manager for sea, air and land pro­jects, is happiest playing bass in HWB & downhole, a band ­specializing in covers of “rock ’n’ roll” hits. He enjoys his work because Gebrüder Weiss is a good fit for him: he can unleash his creativity, he says, and grow with the company too.

How long did you stand in front of your closet this morning? Which sports do you like? Do you read newspapers on traditional paper or on a tablet?

Doing something in a specific way, not randomly. Loving something today that might well be outmoded tomorrow.

That is what fashion is all about. It manifests itself in the ways we present ourselves every day, showcasing our ­personal tastes. For this reason we talked to the fashion ­theorist Barbara Vinken about dress. But the way we build is also shaped by trends, as the architect Andreas Cukrowicz explains. By contrast, on his journey to the American Midwest, Rainer Groothuis’ encounters ranged from the mundane to the artistic*. Closer to home, some company employees confess to being fashion victims.

And, needless to say, trends shape the field of logistics as well, despite the fact that they too will soon be superseded.

After all, nothing in life is as constant as change. Read on to explore the world of fashion – in all its facets.

* Art is also featured on the cover of our tenth edition: Crown Fountain, an installation by the Catalan conceptual artist Jaume Plensa in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

Best wishes, Gebrüder Weiss

IN FASHION 1

IN FASHION 2

Price of one bitcoin in U. S. dollars:

What Austrian internet users think about cryptocurrencies:

12 % claim they

25 %

Some have no idea what digital currencies are.

know a lot about cryptocurrencies.

April 28, 2013

December 17, 2017

19,780.35

134

March 11, 2018

Source: Bitcoin Deutschland AG

ethereum etc.

Source: www.derstandard.at

IN FASHION 3

Chiara Ferragni is the world’s best-known fashion blogger/influencer. She has an Instagram following, in millions, of:

12.4 By comparison – President Donald Trump’s followers, in millions, number:

40 % have heard of bitcoin,

9,719.82

8.6

IN FASHION 4

The world’s five largest fashion retailers (based on sales in billions of U. S. dollars, 2015) Sears (United States) e. g. Land’s End, Kardashian Kollection

39.85

Macy’s (United States)

27.69

TJX Companies (United States) e. g. TJ Maxx

25.88

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (France)

22.70

Inditex (Spain) e. g. Zara, Massimo Dutti

20.56

Source: www.instagram.com, Status: March 27, 2018

Source: Handelsblatt

SHOPPING 1

CARGO 1

In 2017 approx. 4.1 million Austrians aged 15 or higher made an online purchase. ­Proportion of adult population:

21,413

Standard TEU containers can be transported by the world’s largest container ship, the OOCL Hong Kong.

That makes:

56 %

74.65 million

3,500

Shoe boxes fit inside a standard TEU container Source: DPDgroup Online Shopper Barometer

Source: www.containerbasis.de

SHOPPING 2

CARGO 2

Top product types among online customers in Austria:

shoe boxes on a single vessel or two pairs for about every resident of Tokyo.

In 2017 Gebrüder Weiss ­dispatched: Air freight

58,000 metric tons

Books

Apparel

45 %

52 %

46.5 million packages

Shoes

were transported by DPD Austria in 2017. On average that is slightly more than five packages per member of the country’s population.

12.7 million consignments

Sea freight

117,000 standard TEU containers

34 % Source: DPDgroup Online Shopper Barometer

Land transport

Source: Gebrüder Weiss

The world in motion:

RAINER GROOTHUIS

CAROLA HOFFMEISTER

10

Go west!

53

ADRIANO SACK

FAMILY FUN

How I learned to love my Calvin Klein underwear

24

Update

27

Once upon a time …

Two-in-one: first a shirt, then a bag!

57

FLORIAN SIEBECK

The new black

58

LAURIN PASCHEK

Digitization – a universal panacea?

28

BARBARA VINKEN

Knowing the rules, breaking the rules

30

IMKE BORCHERS

Orange comes to Austria

60

CHRIS K ABEL

The midas touch

62

MARTIN K ALUZA

PERSPECTIVES

A global movement.

The Olympic Games – from humble beginnings to the world’s greatest ­spectacle

64

Oh, how embarrassing

37

Orange network

40

ANDREAS CUKROWICZ

42

Thinking inside the box

A XEL ZIELKE

Style, not fashion!

66

IMKE BORCHERS

Out to Africa!

48

HARALD MARTENSTEIN

Fashion, courage and compromise

71

72

MIRIAM HOLZAPFEL

The fickle fads of fashion: an encounter of the clothes kind

50

Imprint

View of the Michigan Avenue skyline from Navy Pier Opposite page: The old movie theater in Des Plaines evokes the golden age of Hollywood film

 11

GO WEST! A fresh start, time travel, yesterday’s promises and an American dream

12 GO WEST!

Greetings from Des Plaines

reportage: Rainer Groothuis “A little suburban town about 30 miles northwest of Chicago,” wrote the Santa Fé magazine in 1952 about Des Plaines. Today it has 58,000 inhabitants. And it is here that Gebrüder Weiss has set up its new American headquarters.

In July 2017, the company announced that it was establish­ ing its own country organization in North America; sites in ­Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York have since opened, with more in the pipeline. Gebrüder Weiss celebrated the inauguration of its corporate base in the fall of 2017, flying in all its American employees for the occasion. People still like to talk about it, about how hard Heinz Senger-Weiss worked to promote the project and how grateful employees were that he personally attended the opening ceremony – a rarity for a corporate culture in the United States.

Gebrüder Weiss is now offering half a millennium of ­cumulative ex­perience in transport and logistics to the world’s third-largest country and its markets. Air and Sea freight, ­tailor-made logistics solutions, such as warehousing, distribu­ tion, e-commerce, web-shop systems and much more: “We’re a global network with extensive expertise in regional markets:

independent, with a powerful presence, and providing excellent logistics services,” says national director Mark McCullough.

Of Scottish descent, McCullough grew up in a town of some 2,300 souls in Somewhere, U. S. A. Leaving home early, he travelled to Cape Town at 20 and then to Chicago at 23, ­where he embarked on a career in logistics. Mark is a character in the best sense of the word: his voice and laugh boom like John Wayne’s, his mischievous sense of humor recalls Jack Lemmon. Motivation incarnate, he’s a get-up-and-go kind of guy who has a good word and a follow-up question for every­ one. His manner is funny, gruff, passionate and people-friend­ ly. But achieving targets is a must as well – in the balancing act he performs between responsive leadership and the determi­ nation to pilot the company to success.

Success, friendship, partnership After all, success is the point, and it is built on the hard work of each individual. The men and women here hail from almost 20 different nations, and although they only formed this team in the last week of July 2017, their various pieces are already start­ ing to form a perfect puzzle. A shared spirit keeps them moti­ vated. Laughter often rings out; these people enjoy their work.

CRAIG DANIE

L

He manages the warehouse and is used to jokes about his name. But this man is just as fit as James Bond. He does ninja training and competes in tournaments; he bikes, swims and goes to the gym five times a week. In between he does gymnastics on the high-rise racks. “I’m a fitness fanatic.”

This is how he gets the balance right with his job, he says. “Your workplace is like a second home. My co-workers are like my family; together we create a positive envi­ ronment for everyone here.”

Few companies in the United States think and plan as far ahead as Gebrüder Weiss: not years ahead, but decades. It’s not about the next balance sheet, it’s about creating substance.

That requires trust. The staff appreciates that and is grateful for the job security the company offers. Long-term loyalty tends to be atypical of American employment relationships, hiring and firing are never far apart, and the period of notice is usually a mere two weeks. Many people work under a cloud of being replaceable. That differs starkly from the Gebrüder Weiss tradition.

Despite customers in the United States being prompter and more demanding than their European counterparts, Mark identifies big opportunities. His plan: “We build sustained partnerships with the clients and partners.” The unique quality of the company’s services is new to this country whose gross domestic product of some 19,400 billion U. S. dollars is still the largest in the world.

No sooner have his lips started to twitch than she is laugh­ ing: they communicate without words. Mark’s right hand is Daniela Wurm-Hendricks, the two are the “Dream Couple of Gebrüder Weiss U. S.” They have known one another since 1996, when she became the very first Gebrüder Weiss emplo­y­ ee in the United States. Barring a brief break, they have been

together for a long time and are now cooperating on their new endeavor. She is Mark’s “work wife,” he says with a laugh, “home-grown by Gebrüder Weiss” in Austria. Very few know the U. S. market like the “Mother of the Company.” “We clear­ ly see ourselves as a start-up,” she says. “Right now we’re ­working exclusively with the company’s structures and pro­ cesses, which for me feels like a rebirth.” Gebrüder Weiss in the United States? A start-up with 20 years of market experi­ ence.

Mun, a petite woman from Korea, radiates the self-confi­ dence of someone who is virtually in love with her job, having met her destiny in her duties and daily challenges. Optimism itself could hardly shine brighter. “Gebrüder Weiss gives us the opportunity to try new things, move forward, make deci­ sions – there is room to grow here.” She believes in company management and her coworkers, is proud of her responsibili­ ties and the latitude she has to make independent decisions.

“We’re partners internally and externally – with the customers and our fellow employees.”

They come from Guatemala, Poland, Germany, Macedo­ nia, Australia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Ireland, China, the Philip­ pines and other distant climes. The cosmopolitanism of this team mirrors the history and culture of a country that has

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2

13

TEAM CHICA

14

GO

01. Derek Luedemann 02. Carlos Velazquez 03. James Halloran 04. Timothy Hinz 05. Sean Oestmann 06. Daniel Kaiser

15

3

16

07. Julia Hagen 08. Young Lee 09. Tony Ko 10. Dalibor Kajmakoski 11. Theodore Gensch 12. Craig Daniel 13. Jim McGregor 14. Ieva Jensen

4

17

18

15. Veronica Pineda 16. Ann LaFaver 17. Alicia Garcia 18. Rowena Chaplin 19. Donka Grozdeva 20. Nick Hitchen 21. Ronnie Caguiat 22. Jean Hodge

5

19

20

23. Daniela Wurm-Hendricks 24. Mun Goodwin 25. Tatyana Fuklev 26. Alexandra Ocampo 27. Amanda Peters 28. Jeremy Häusle 29. Mark McCullough 30. Damien Griggs

6

21

22

7

23

24

8

9

25

26

10

27

11

28

12

29

30

Now you’re entering … been fueled by diversity. These are people who immigrated at some point, the first in their families or perhaps the descen­ dants of many generations. They regard themselves as belong­ ing, as being part of that “Land of the free and home of the brave” extolled in the national anthem. And they set out to make their American dream come true.

The first immigrants began settling the area around Des Plaines in 1835. Many were Germans who established farms, rendering the land lush and flush with fruit and vegetables.

Once a railway station was built in 1860, the hamlet grew into a crossroads; Des Plaines was founded in 1873. As so often in America, there is no historic center holding a church and a marketplace. This is the type of town we know from westerns and Doris Day movies: you can imagine how it snaked along

16 GO WEST!

rmDaniela Wu

Hendricks

the tracks which, along with the Des Plaines River, define the city’s coordinates; how the streets fanned out from the central track in an ever-widening lattice.

The train station is spanking clean, as are the Civic Center and high school; the streets and sidewalks are spacious and in immaculate condition. Des Plaines is prospering, profiting from its proximity to the boomtown. In the residential dis­ tricts, stickers on windows and doors warn “No Soliciting!”

The unknown pedestrian walking in the winter cold draws curious stares from passing SUV s and pickups. Signs proclaim the vigilance of the neighborhood watch; many homes are additionally patrolled by security services. Americans place great stock in safety first. And while their friendliness is always up front and often heartfelt, they avoid discussing religion, politics and personal issues. After all, this stranger could be anyone.

People’s yearning for a safe haven is nurtured by the many TV commercials touting security services, insurance policies, health products and medical treatments. Every few minutes promises of safety for you and your loved ones flicker across the screen: classic advertising images showcasing a happy nuclear family embedded in an aspirational middle class. E ­ very commercial is multi-ethnic, the conceptual mean is no longer a pure white.

Des Plaines is an odyssey into the past. It’s not difficult to imagine other buildings and vehicles on these streets, people wearing different garb. Sixty, seventy years seem to pass by in a flash. James Dean and Muddy Waters were here just yes­ terday: at the Choo-Choo time has stood still – and its owners are proud of the fact. A sign on the door proclaims, “You are now entering the Choo-Choo Diner, where 1953 is the year and common etiquette and manners are expected.” Guests are asked to behave themselves. The Choo-Choo is the neigh­ borhood meeting place and famed city-wide for its children’s birthday parties. A train chugs and rattles along the extended counter, its cars delivering fresh homemade burgers and fries from the kitchen to waiting guests. Rose has worked at the Choo-Choo for six years now. She likes her job, especially the youngest patrons, but prefers to live in Chicago and commute.

The train ride takes only 30 minutes.

Windy City Having Chicago on your doorstep explains the choice of Des Plaines as Gebrüder Weiss headquarters. The sprawl of O’Hare Airport starts just a few minutes away, and Chicago hosts the largest railroad hub in the country. Its Union Station is the nation’s largest rail terminal, the road network is highly evolved, and the legendary Route 66 begins here. Canals, rivers and lakes provide access to the Atlantic. In short, with an entire arsenal of transport options at one’s disposal – air, land and water – it offers the perfect toolkit for solving any logistics challenge.

Mun GO ODW

Mark Mc Cu

llough

IN

“We try to make things as easy as possible for international ­companies seeking to establish a foothold in the U. S. market. Although America is often referred to as the land of the free, we have more rules, regu­lations and code here than any other country in the world. What we do is to try and alleviate the fear, the very reasonable anxiety or apprehension these clients feel when entering this market. We simplify the system for them and use a language they can understand. We’re the logistics experts, and they see us as an extension of their business.”

Des Plaines: the main line Below: Chicago, Van Buren Station

18 GO WEST!

The Choo-Choo Diner

DAMIEN GRIG

GS

“We try to lighten up the rather inflexible ­American corporate culture and introduce fresh modes of interaction. We reveal new potential to our customers and ways of thinking outside the box. As a result we can offer them unfamiliar opportunities and solutions.”

In the 1770s, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable – whose father was a Quebec merchant and mother a black slave – set up a post at the spot where the indigenous Native Americans operated their own trading station in the region they called Checagou. The post’s auspicious location on the waterways of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River hastened its growth.

When Illinois gained statehood in 1818 and was slated for further settlement, an east-west railway line was built, turning Chicago into the continent’s “gateway to the west” and the most important marketplace for raw materials and merchan­ dise far and wide. Wood arrived by ship from the north, farm­ ers brought their crops to the markets, tools and other materi­ als came from the east. Everything was sold on site or routed onward by rail. This gave rise to a village, officially founded in August 1833, that became a city within the space of four years and then exploded from a population of 4,200 in 1833 to 500,000 in 1880. A mere decade later, it counted more than a million inhabitants.

Today some ten million people live in the metropolitan region. Chicago is the largest city in Illinois (also known as the “Land of Lincoln” and for the slogan “Illinois – Are you up for amazing?”). The state is thriving, with an economic output equal to that of the Netherlands and a per-capita income of

Originally a dock for freight and military operations, today’s Navy Pier was opened in 1995 – and draws some nine million visitors each year

some 66,000 U. S. dollars. Chicago is the shoulder that the state leans on.

The Windy City can claim even more superlatives: the world’s largest public library and the very first skyscraper, built here (and not in New York) in 1885. It is the nation’s third-big­ gest city and home to many national and international corpo­ rations. There is a reason why Chicago has 24 partner cities around the globe. Yet the records it holds are not all positive: it can also lay claim to the highest violent-crime rate and the most murders in the country. Al Capone and John Dillinger wrought havoc here in their heyday. Crime is a tradition and even that can be turned into profit. Tourists are invited to take tours that visit notorious landmarks in the city’s criminal history.

The world’s largest slaughterhouses were also located in Chicago. The inhuman working conditions that reigned there were spotlighted by Upton Sinclair in his 1906 novel The Jungle and provided the backdrop for Bertolt Brecht’s 1959 play Saint Joan of the Stockyards. Fresh meat was distributed to the entire country from here. Today these slaughterhouses have disappeared, and with them many other businesses. C ­ hicago is part of the Rust Belt, the oldest industrial zone in the United States. It extends along the Great Lakes northeast of Chicago

via Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to the fringes of Boston, Washington D. C. and New York. Countless jobs were lost in this huge swath of land which was once home to heavy manufacturing – iron, coal and steel processing. And while Chicago’s downtown with its financial district is flourish­ ing, the southern part of the city is all the more destitute: neighborhoods that used to be vibrant with small industry and trades yawn empty as ghost towns. The winds gusting off Lake Michigan sweep through the streets and broken windows.

Yesterday for tomorrow The end of January 2018. As has been customary in the United States since 1790, it is again time for the president to review developments both at home and abroad. The State of the Union address revolves around the accomplishments of the past and prospects for the year ahead. The focus lies on chal­ lenges and opportunities, potential and projects; sometimes there is much rhetoric and little reality. About 60 minutes in length, the speech is broadcast live on all the major television channels – and punctuated only by acclamation from those Republican members of Congress who rise to applaud every few sentences.

20 GO WEST!

The president talks of the battles of the frontier age, of the great trek westward, of the nation’s strength: “If there is a mountain, we climb it.” He praises the power of a unified front, appealing to “one people and one American family,” and his followers go wild. And he glorifies the ideal of shoul­ dering responsibility. “If you work hard and believe in your­ self […] you can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything,” he proclaims. And closes his speech , of course, with “God bless America.” He makes history reso­ nate.

Those who headed west back then were seeking a new home for themselves and their families, a home that held the promise of peace, freedom and gainful employment. Safety in numbers: that was the only way for the settlers to protect themselves from the forces of nature and the Native Ameri­ cans. So they formed convoys and wagon trains for the trek westward. That principle lives on, for example in popular sports. While each player fights his or her own battle, their strength is pooled as one team that is pitted against the other, the enemy.

Those years of the 19th century saw the birth of the Ameri­ can Dream that enticed immigrants from the world over. And although many Americans – particularly today’s newcomers – may see this differently, one thing is clear: the conviction that

Cadillac Palace Theatre – one of Chicago’s ­ 200 playhouses

hard work will be rewarded and that people can advance ­socially in a safe environment is a powerful incentive.

In 2018 the president revisits these and other concepts, promises and experiences that are anchored in the collective consciousness of the nation. He strikes an emotional chord with those who feel lost in a globalized world that has stolen their livelihoods, a world that makes them feel like strangers in their own country, as if they were no longer welcome.

During the last 40 – 50 years, various minorities have secured political majorities for their concerns and radically changed the national culture. Once passed down through the genera­ tions, the concepts of marriage, family and religion have been shaken to the core.

One might well feel lost when, contrary to one’s own sys­ tems of values and morals, the gender roles start shifting; when, on the streets, men walk hand-in-hand with men, wom­ en with women; when “strength” is redefined and doubt cast on the nuclear family as the ultimate purpose of life. Those who believe in the olden golden rules of a good upbringing – “Be kind, be useful, be respectful” – can rarely identify with the new laissez-faire approach. The emotional response has morphed into a political stance irreconcilably at odds with a more liberal world view.

This president has postulated and pledged a future driven by the values of the past. And his disciples want exactly that.

After all, they regard themselves as the “true Americans.”

Yet we Europeans are hardly in a position to point an admon­ ishing finger at the United States: too obvious are the parallel scenarios unfolding in various “Old World” countries.

Since 1966, a representative of the opposition traditionally responds to the president’s State of the Union address. This speaker has only 60 minutes to prepare, then the stations go live and televise his or her rejoinder. Joseph P. Kennedy III , JFK ’s great-nephew and Robert Kennedy’s grandson, spoke this year on behalf of the Democrats in response to the presi­ dent’s (self-) presentation. A young man, born in 1980, and a member of the House of Representatives since 2012, he ­eschewed a formal jacket and the triumphant flourishes of a statesman to speak simply about a nation living in freedom and its self-imposed obligation to be open. He promised sanc­ tuary for immigrants and dreamers. This Kennedy is the an­ tithesis of the current president, and it will be interesting to see how these polarities play out, should the two face off in the next election.

Following the opposition’s response, you can stay seated in front of the TV and wait for the surveys that start feeding back a mere half-hour later: Who did a better job of selling himself?

The younger man, basically an unknown quantity on the inter­ national stage, earns respectable grades and plaudits, but the president is doing a good job in the eyes of his disciples: his causes and arguments kindle overwhelming approval.

This land is divided, and fault lines are opening between a cosmopolitan weltanschauung and this yearning for the stability of historical tradition.

GO WEST! 21

Let’s go, let’s do

m dalib or kaj

a ko s k i

“Goods are becoming available faster and more locally all the time, with trade looking to build their own logistics bases. That’s why warehousing and supply chain management offer such opportunities, not least given the considerable expertise we possess in these fields.”

Downtown Chicago, “The Loop”

On the way back to headquarters I pass mobile homes on Elm­ hurst Road: prefab houses concocted of wood, vinyl, steel and drywall, with add-on porches and balconies, hybrids halfway between a garden shed and camper trailer. Each is fronted by two or three parked cars, the American flag waves above many.

Here too a private security company is on patrol, and dogs bark if you approach unbidden. Many years ago, flatbed trucks planted these trailers on their plots. Immortalized in the film Betty Blue, but thriving elsewhere as well, mobility – the desire to keep moving on – is the lifeblood of the American Dream.

At headquarters I meet up with Dalibor Kajmakoski, one of the rare birds who actually won the Green Card lottery and emigrated a year ago – with his wife, children and the whole kit and caboodle in tow. Previously at Gebrüder Weiss in Austria, as Business Development Manager he is now a mainstay at headquarters, where he turns first orders into follow-ups and wins over new customers. What makes the company so special in his view? “The ample resources, the unique know-how, the family feel of the company, its independence and, of course, its loyalty to its employees,” is his spontaneous answer. “In the States,” he adds, “that family feeling often makes the differ­ ence. It’s a big point for Gebrüder Weiss, and while it doesn’t exactly make us unique, it does make us very special.” When

Des Plaines: intersection of Pearson Street and Mannheim Road

asked whether Washington politics impacts business perfor­ mance, he says, “If companies come back to the United States and produce their goods here, that will affect exports and ­obviously our potential as a warehousing and service provider too.” As in so many cases, there are more than two sides to this argument.

t h eo d o r e g

ens ch

I finally meet Theodore Gensch, known to everyone as “Ted”: his great grandfather arrived from southern Germany, his maternal grandparents come from Mexico, his paternal grandmother was born in Chicago. Tomorrow he’s celebrating his sixth anniversary at Gebrüder Weiss. “Really a long time,” he says with a grin. A specialist for automotive and technology, he is National Compliance and Risk Manager. The fact that Ted is an avid history buff also makes him a good fit for a com­ pany whose roots hark back to 16th century Europe. American customers never cease to be amazed by such a storied legacy and are always eager to learn more about it.

Once the initial start-up phase has been completed, Ted hopes to study law. At night school, of course.

Rainer Groothuis, born in 1959 in Emden / East ­Friesland, is Managing Partner at the communications agency “Groothuis.” www.groothuis.de With special thanks to Julia Hagen, Daniela Wurm-Hendricks, Mark McCullough and the entire ­Gebrüder Weiss team in Des Plaines that decided to climb into the high-rise rack after all.

It’s my home!

Frank Shuftan on working in the Windy City His parents survived German concentration camps; his son is studying in Berlin – very happily. Frank Shuftan is Director of Communications in Cook County, home to the Chicago area and its ten million or so inhabitants.

Seen from an economic perspective how would you describe the outlook for Chicago?

Frank Shuftan: The challenge is to take the success of the

Frank Shuftan

central city and extend it into the outlying areas. In some ways it’s like some of the European cities, where the centers are very prosperous and the surrounding areas less so. For exam­ ple, you have suburbs in the south of Chicago that are very poor. For a hundred years, they were very heavily industrial­ ized. With steel mills, auto plants and tire manufacturers etc.

The challenge is that you’ve got a great disparity within our county. Some of the programs we run are aimed at helping these areas get back on their feet. But it’s not something that can happen overnight. The problems didn’t arise two days ago and they won’t get fixed in two days either. It’s a longer­term challenge, but you have to put the processes and projects in place and hope that some will ultimately bear fruit.

How will logistics be relevant?

Logistics – by that we mean warehousing distribution and logistics, and the movement of goods – is a very big part of the economy in Cook County. The Chicago area is a major railroad hub. All the railroad lines pass through here. The companies get the containers and transport them across country by rail.

But when they get to the multi­modal facilities here, they use cranes to transfer them onto trucks which then take over.

There is a lot of that, particularly in the south and the south­ west of the county. It’s a big part of the economic expansion that’s going on in those areas, and that’s unlikely to change.

What does Chicago mean to you personally?

Chicago is my home, it’s where I grew up. My father came from Germany and my mother is from Hungary. They were Holocaust survivors. They came here in 1947 and this is where they built themselves a new home, this is where they made a new life for themselves, because there was nothing left for them in Europe.

Chicago is a great place to live, because you have people here from all over the world. It’s a vibrant and dynamic city.

True, we have a problem with violence. It’s a very complicated problem and it’s rooted in many, many things. But there’s no doubt it’s a great place to call home, despite the weather.

U. S. A. The United States is the third­largest country in the world and the biggest economy on the planet.

The world’s most heavily frequented websites (Google, Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo) are based here. And the country holds the world record for tornados: more than 1,400 twisters were reported in 2017.

INHABITANTS

319 million

POPULATION DENSIT Y

CANADA

33 per km2 Boston

New York City

Chicago

U. S. A .

AREA

9,857,306 km2 Los Angeles Atlanta Dallas PACIFIC OCEAN

MEXICO

ATLANTIC OCEAN

TIME ZONES

9 (four on the continental mainland and five overseas)

24  ET CETERA: USA

How I learned to love my Calvin Klein underwear

Or: Why Americans are simply always well-dressed

ET CETERA: USA 25

text: Adriano Sack The man doesn’t really have any enemies to speak of. In the course of his turbulent career, he has lost a lot of money and earned a lot more; his net worth is estimated to be some 6.6 billion dollars. That requires resourcefulness and ruth­ lessness, but Ralph Lifshitz, the son of White Russian Jews, is neither confrontational nor prone to excess, and he has had but a single documented extramarital affair. And he deals exclusively in clothing. But that’s something Ralph Lauren – which he has called himself ever since the onset of his career – does better than most others. That’s why the way to his ­private New York office on Madison Avenue leads past • the doorman on the ground floor, who announces my arrival • the doorman who greets me at the entrance to a hall lined with dark paneling, and to • the young woman at reception who directs me to • the press director’s assistant who leads me down a far less opulent hallway to • the press director, who rehashes with me exactly what I want to discuss with Mr. Lauren (extensive emails had already been exchanged on this subject), • the very attractive PA who flashes an apologetic smile my way every three minutes and otherwise issues orders over the phone: “He would like to see the photographs today”; “He would like to meet you tomorrow morning here at the office”; “He would like to choose the T-shirts himself.”

If “he” had intended to advertise his importance before we met, this performance has done the trick. Finally I find myself shaking the hand of a short, older man with a very dark tan; that famed silver hair is still full. He is wearing a close-fitting undershirt modeled after American army gear, 7/8-length cotton trousers and a few colorful twine bracelets. And I think that a country in which billionaires receive visitors in a look like this can’t be all bad.

After the Second World War, the United States demolished European perceptions of style: that appreciation, nurtured over centuries, as to what the epithet “well-dressed” means.

The Americans conquered the closets of this world with jeans, T-shirts and sportswear, and their propaganda department Hollywood ensured that the sexiest men in the world wore clothes that looked like they’d been assigned to them at col­ lege, in the army or on a ranch. It’s a little more complicated where women are concerned. If something really sexy or chic is required, even American women find it hard to steer clear of the old European designers. But for everyday wear, they have been thoroughly Americanized. Which is to say, roughly speaking, that the distinction between work wear and appro­ priate, i. e. more formal, fashion has been erased. Today, all around the world, you can wear a tee in the office, at the club and to bed.

“The world has become much freer. Only a few places require a necktie. I can choose my own look. Like an actor who plays different roles,” Lauren says – a man known equally well for his white tux at public appearances and his cowboy outfit, which is 100 % authentic because he invented it himself. The role of Lauren’s life was perfecting the look of the WASPS , the Eastern seaboard elite, and morphing into a proto-WASP himself. Many reasons for the liberation of the world are root­ ed in the United States. One key factor was certainly the in­ vention of blue jeans, the erstwhile working garb of the gold diggers made of highly durable denim. What is more, the Americans worshipped those who had to live and work in this type of garb. A real man is an adventurer, an explorer, a pio­ neer. And you can’t drill for oil or lasso a mustang wearing a three-piece suit.

Of course, men like Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Dean ­Martin and Frank Sinatra were always impeccably dressed and cut truly elegant figures. Even today, in exceptional cases, the Americans are at least as formal as the Europeans. Finer res­taurants announce their dress codes at the reservation stage, just to be on the safe side. In reverse order of impor­ tance, these are: 1. No sneakers. 2. No jeans. 3. Jacket required.

4. Necktie required. If the courage of your convictions tempts

26 ET CETERA: USA

An idol despite – or because of – his white T-shirt: James Dean, seen here in Rebel without a Cause (1955)

you to ignore these rules, you’ll be sent home hungry. Or you’ll find yourself sitting in an elegant establishment wearing a hideous tie and a jacket that’s two sizes too big – such as those kept in reserve by some of these restaurants to lend out to customers.

Even at black­tie events, the only person who can get away without a tux is the one who has just presented a new collec­ tion or plays the leading character in a popular TV series like “Gossip Girl.” There are many other occasions that are either unknown in Germany or governed by different rules. Does a business suit work for a baby shower – that party for newborns from which men are traditionally excluded? Is a lightweight summer suit okay at a BBQ ? Am I really barred from wearing white trousers after Labor Day? No, no and yes. But it’s always better to ask about the dress code. After all, Americans are both: more formal under special circumstances, but as a rule more relaxed.

The actors Marlon Brando and James Dean were the ones who elevated men’s undershirts, tees and black leather jackets to the regalia of sex symbols. The fashion excesses of the hippies generally failed to take hold, but the body focus and

no­nonsense attitude of American workwear has endured. The term that perhaps best encapsulates the country’s fashion philosophy is “casual”: a look that is laid­back, seemingly effortless, democratic. The aggressive business with licenses was invented by the Frenchman Pierre Cardin, but whereas he overextended the concept and got cheap, Americans like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein (and Giorgio Armani to a certain extent) succeeded in selling to a mass market without damaging their brands. Quite the oppo­ site was the case: the more famous Ralph Lauren’s polo pony became, the larger and more often Calvin Klein’s logo loomed on underwear waistbands and perfume bottles, the more their brand images flourished. While the ideal of European fashion is to foster elitism (either by way of pricing or through refined aesthetics), in America something is good if everybody’s wearing it. “In the fifties and sixties there was a very American approach to fashion: it was taken for granted,” the designer Thom Browne tells me. “The clothes disappeared when you wore them. I would like to rediscover that easiness.” If it’s not in your genetic code, easiness is hard work. But it’s easiest to learn in America.

Adriano Sack is a writer and journalist. Since 2015 he has headed the Style, Travel and Motoring desk at the German newspaper WELT. He lived in New York from 2005 to 2010. Piper Verlag published his book Gebrauchsanweisung für die USA “Instruction Manual for the United States” in 2008, an excerpt from which appears in translation here.

Update Intelligent cities

Hosting the world

Smart technology isn’t limited to cellphones and homes. As we reported in ATLA S 8, entire subdivisions and districts can be smart too.

In an age of growing urbanization, net­ worked, sustainable communities have become a paradigm for planners. Recently the technolo­ gy company EasyPark published its Smart Cities Index for 2017. This lists the places that come closest to this ideal.

The top five were Copenhagen, Singapore, Stockholm, Zurich and Boston. Vienna still has some catching up to do: it was listed at 32.

The lead article in our seventh issue of ATLAS reported on preparations for the World Fair in Astana, Kazakhstan. When its doors opened from June through September 2017, people from around the planet flocked to the exhibition, staged in central Asia for the first time. The year 2017 also marked the 150th anniversary of the second EXPO in Paris, which established the framework for all future World Fairs. Dubai will be hosting the next event in 2020.

Recommended reading Innovative and cost-efficient The charity Doctors Without Borders is backed by a sophisticated logistics department (as we reported in ATLAS 8). But there are problems that even the best designed supply chain can’t solve. At its own hospital in Amman, Jordan, the organization treats large numbers of war casual­ ties. For the worst of the wounded, amputation is often the only option. To create the flexible supply of artificial limbs needed, locally based bioengineers are building low­cost but robust prostheses using 3D printing technology.

The logistics department ensures a steady stream of the material required.

Anyone inspired by the interview with Barbara Vinken can find further ideas and information here. As indeed can readers wanting to learn more about Karl Lagerfeld’s world view. Happy reading!

KARL LAGERFELD THE WORLD ACCORDING TO KARL Thames & Hudson

BARBARA VINKEN FASHION ZEITGEIST TRENDS AND CYCLES IN THE FASHION SYSTEM Berg Publishers

On your bike!

The QR code links to a video on the Amman project.

In July 2018 the Tour of Austria is being held for the seventieth time. With its numerous mountain climbs, the race, which consists of eight stages, is considered particularly challenging. Given its traditional involvement in cycling, Gebrüder Weiss is almost duty­bound to support the event: having sponsored the GW Oberndorfer team in the past, the company is the tour’s official transportation and logistics partner this year. Moreover, it is providing the jersey for the leading Austrian rider. Here’s wishing everybody a successful race and smooth ride!

DIGITIZATION – A UNIVERSAL PANACEA? Today’s logistics world is an El Dorado for trend r­ esearchers.

They dream of intelligent transport containers that will find their way auto­nomously from A to B. And they will be able to choose from a flexible pool of driverless, self-navigating vehicles.

But how do we get to this future from where we are now?

DIGITIZATION – A UNIVERSAL PANACEA? 29

TEXT: Laurin Paschek It’s early evening and I’m on the autobahn, driving back from a meeting at a logistics academy in Hamburg. Two professors have just been explaining a new concept to me, the Physical Internet. This vision of the future, which extends to the middle of the century, is based on a manifesto drawn up by the American professor Benoit Montreuil in November 2012. It takes the basic principles of the internet and applies them to the world of transport. Tomorrow’s global commodity flows will function rather like e-mails and data packets do today, navigating their own way from senders to recipients via nodes and various connections. To this end, in this vision, intelligent containers will communicate directly with the available vehicles and find a suitable carrier in real time. It no longer matters how the freight travels between two locations. The only requirements: it needs to be at its destination at a predefined time and cost as little as possible. In this way the capacities available on the vehicles and at transhipment hubs can be exploited far more efficiently. As I reflect on the interview, I start to feel tired and look for a place to stop. But to no avail: the rest stop is packed full and blocked by several trucks. I drive on but meet the same problem at the next one.

This begs a question. Should we be trying to solve today’s problems with the technology of tomorrow? Should the EU Commission fund research into the Physical Internet or start building new rest stops instead? The quest to straddle the real and potential worlds is shaping mobility today. We have embarked on this journey and know where we want to end up – but not exactly how to get there. Developers presenting the latest telematics systems at trade fairs and conventions get stuck in traffic jams en route. Scientists research new forms of digital networking in the logistics chain, while dispatchers using phones struggle to incorporate their vehicles into loading dock schedules.

Digitization is not a universal panacea. And yet it can help resolve a conflict down the line. While transport volumes continue to grow in our globalized economy, resources – time, money, drivers, vehicles, roads and rest areas – remain limited.

Digital technologies can help maximize the use of existing infrastructure. But ethical issues and regulatory requirements also drive digital innovation. Given the hazards of climate change, it’s important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This can be achieved by building more efficient engines and electrified powertrains.

Another response would be optimizing supply chain processes. Industry has pursued this goal for years, but therein lies the rub: much of the increased efficiency potential is long tapped. Digitization is spawning the first new opportunities in a generation.

A good example is reducing empty truck runs to a minimum. Many – mostly larger – logistics companies have used groupage traffic to solve this problem, with break bulk cargo being consolidated on the main leg of a service. Moreover, open computer platforms are now offering digital tools that non-experts can use to manage freight. These tools automatically assemble individual loads and dispatch them on the most efficient tours. Their algorithms take account of information such as real-time traffic data, the road and rest periods of the drivers, and cargo volumes. While these platforms are still in their infancy, they bring benefits for all of the stakeholders.

The platform providers – many of them start-ups – can develop new business models; transport providers of all sizes can maximize use of their vehicles beyond the options offered by their own software; customers ultimately reap the reward of lower prices; and everybody benefits because less CO 2 is released into the atmosphere.

Predictive maintenance offers another approach to boosting efficiency. A multitude of sensors on vehicles record the conditions of components and electrical systems, and assess wear and tear on the brakes and tires. Once the data is analyzed, maintenance schedules can be optimized, cutting the risk of breakdowns and allowing repairs to be performed between runs. Unnecessary maintenance can also be avoided.

This too conserves resources and optimizes processes.

Any journey through tomorrow’s logistics world consists of numerous small steps. These include systems which assist drivers and, for instance help them avoid accidents. By creating concrete benefits, they become self-financing and establish themselves on the market. They take the strain out of driving, allowing drivers to perform other tasks where the situation permits. Some industry experts expect drivers to evolve into transport managers. But while completely autonomous trucks are, at least technically, about to become reality, drivers will retain overall responsibility for their vehicles, if only for legal reasons. Innovation isn’t just a manifestation of technology.

It is always part of its wider social context.

Laurin Paschek is the co-owner of the editorial office delta eta in Frankfurt, Germany. The focuses of his work for various specialist magazines include transport engineering and the future of energy supplies.

30

Knowing the rules, breaking the rules A discussion about men, courage and the financial limitations of fashionconscious people.

INTERVIEW: Frank Haas “But what am I going to wear?” This question may well have plagued many who have been granted an audience with Barbara Vinken. After all, the esteemed literary scholar has long established herself as an authority on fashion. So … a white shirt? A black jacket? That can’t be completely wrong – but it has nothing to do with fashion. “Being fashionable,” Barbara Vinken says, “means knowing the rules of style but always consciously bending or breaking them a little.”

Frank Haas: Ms. Vinken, isn’t being a fashion expert awfully exhausting?

Barbara Vinken: Why? Because you always have to be on

Barbara Vinken, born in Hanover in 1960, is a German literary scholar.

Having held teaching posts in Constance, New Haven, New York, Bochum, Hanover, Hamburg and Zurich, she was appointed to her current position of Professor of Literature at Munich’s Ludwig­Maximilians­Universität in 2004. Several of her many books are devoted to fashion and dress as vehicles of self­expression and communi­ cation, including in English Fashion Zeitgeist: Trends and Cycles in the Fashion System (2005).

the ball?

And maybe because you can’t go to the bakery wearing jogging pants.

Yes, that’s true! You need to enjoy pleasing people, and you have to abide by certain conventions. “People who wear jogging pants have completely lost control over their lives.”

Karl Lagerfeld did have a point there. For me, fashion is fun.

Former U. S. President Barack Obama wouldn’t have agreed.

His closet was almost completely dominated by gray and blue suits. By choice: that way, so the story goes, he never had to worry about his clothes and could concentrate on more important decisions instead. Can you understand that there are people who don’t want to have to think about clothes?

That’s tantamount to sacrificing one of life’s greatest pleasures! Michelle Obama obviously didn’t do things that way.

But fashion is the privilege – or a burden, depending how you see it – for women in bourgeois society. Men have to keep proving that they have more important things in their heads than the hairstyle on the top or the clothes on their backs.

Choosing apparel is something that makes me very happy.

It relaxes me, just as cooking does. It gives life scents, colors, sensuousness.

Why do men have such problems with the topic of fashion?

It hasn’t always been that way. In the pre-bourgeois age, noblemen were almost obsessed with adorning their bodies – with silk, ribbons and perfumes. They paraded their legs in fine fabrics, and in aristocratic circles the male physique was regarded as the more erotic of the two genders. In bourgeois

In the early Modern era, the Burgundian court played a pioneering role in French fashion.

Hosiery highlighted the erotic appeal of the male physique; the color red was reserved for nobility.

In the 1960s, men’s collections in Europe were elegant but straightforward. Palettes tended to be muted and synthetics grew popular; simplification was the name of the game.

KNOWING THE RULES, ­BREAKING THE RULES 33

“Jogging pants are a sign of ­defeat. You’ve lost control of your life, so you go out in jogging pants.”

Karl Lagerfeld

society, men deliberately rejected that image. Being body-­ conscious was decried as being effeminate. Ever since, men have been basically banned from fashion, while the bour­ geoisie showcases the castration of the aristocracy on its women.

The sociologist Norbert Elias supports the theory that our modern rules of etiquette trace back to royal courts before the spread of democracy. By emulating their kings, subjects wanted to demonstrate their dependability and hence further their careers. Isn’t that what fashion is about as well?

Demonstrating one’s predictability to society?

Certainly. Fashion is like a language. You can speak a language correctly and know all the rules. And it’s the same with the way you dress as well. Fashion-conscious people can express or restrain themselves. They demonstrate that they know the rules, that they know how to apply them – this is where fashion takes over – but that they don’t just blindly follow them; they show that they can tinker with them, manipulate them, change them. And that’s the fun of fashion: demonstrating that while you obviously have a firm command of the conventions, your control is so perfect that you can afford to ignore them, flirt with them, or even lampoon them. In that sense, fashion is an intellectual phenomenon.

And fashion is change. But change is the one thing people fear most. Does that make fashion the preserve of the brave?

I would agree with you there. Fashion generates fear and fascination alike.

How much money do you need to be fashionable?

Believing that fashion depends on money is one of the greatest misconceptions of our time. That was the case during Balzac’s age, when people spent a much larger percentage of their in­come on clothing than we do today. Fashion has increasingly less to do with money, and today that is not down to H & M , Zara, Mango or any of the other well-known chains. It’s all about the vintage thrill. You can be very stylish if you live off the detritus of the rich. There are great second-hand pieces to be had for relatively little money.

Does the clothing available from the discount chains you mentioned also qualify as fashion?

Sure. But I personally refuse to shop there because those stores are built on foundations of dual exploitation. Firstly, because imitations of designer collections are hanging on their racks five minutes after they’ve been presented. That’s a lack of respect for intellectual property. And secondly because, as everybody knows, the conditions under which their apparel is produced are totally unacceptable. But’s there is a third aspect that merits mentioning here as well.

And that would be?

In fashion, the sense of sight is generally overrated. Obviously, you see the clothing. But a dress is also a second skin. What is the fabric like? Does it caress and cling to us, does it glide smoothly and cool the skin? Can we move freely, does it constrain us, hold us? We feel the softness, the heft, the airiness of a fabric; its sway as it moves with our bodies. Does it crackle?

Rustle? Does it have a scent?

34 KNOWING THE RULES, ­BREAKING THE RULES

Isn’t the image problem that still hampers fashion in some circles rooted in that very emphasis on the visible?

In ­debates on fashion, shouldn’t greater weight be attached to the effect a piece of clothing has on us, to the response it triggers inside us?

Yes, that’s right. We talk about a piece of clothing as though

it were a picture. Our other senses – touch, smell and hearing – are all marginalized by overemphasizing the eye. A pity, ­actually.

So people who embark on the journey that is fashion will also come to know themselves better as a result?

Of course. A dress does something to you. How I walk, how I sit … the dress determines my posture. In that sense, it puts me in touch with myself.

Would a fashionable society be a better society?

Yes, it would be a more polite society that accords others more respect. But it would also be a society in which there would be a significantly heightened sensitivity toward the body’s uniqueness. I’m not referring to physical beauty in the traditional sense, but rather to the beauty the body derives from its underlying ephemerality. I’m talking about a society that would no longer deny the transience of life. A society would live more happily because people would deal differently with the frailties of their own bodies.

But if everyone was fashionable, would that not neutralize the impact of fashion? Doesn’t fashion need contrasts?

Yes, certainly. It’s not easy to define fashion. Let’s postulate: clothing is a code and fashion supplies its commentary. This code cannot become visible without fashion, because as a commentator fashion explains, overemphasizes, shifts, modifies and disguises it. In that sense, dress sociologists are right when they say that fashion has an ironic side, even a side that takes delight in destroying the status quo. Yet this aggression by no means explodes into violence, but rather is channeled into imaginative, perfected shapes. So fashion is a highly civilized form of conflict: the pinnacle of refinement in a world of verbal and physical violence.

Are there fashion phenomena that you find annoying?

In my view, the big luxury labels are currently playing a very odd game. For years they have been showing and telling us that we are all fetishists. Chanel has been the most prominent, saying, “You think that other people are brand fetishists, but you yourself will buy anything bearing our label. And I give it to you! Here it is!” In ways that are not exactly subtle, they’re rubbing the “stupid customers’” noses in the fact that, due to their grotesquely bad taste, they have once again fallen for this branding hype. That cynicism was thoroughly justified at a certain point, but it’s slowly on the wane. Things like Christmas trees laden with Louis Vuitton ornaments – specially designed to make the initials sparkle – were always bizarre, but it’s time now to put them to bed. These labels have been taunting us with our own barbarism for too long now.

Colors are part of fashion. But apparently you don’t much like wearing colors.

“What is a ‘style’? It starts with breaking away from convention, smashing accepted reality.”

Karl Lagerfeld

In the new millennium, color has returned to the menswear stage – at least on the runways of top designers like Angus Chiang, who presented his Fall / Winter collection at the Paris Fashion Week in January 2018.

36 KNOWING THE RULES, ­BREAKING THE RULES

That’s not true! Today I’m in mourning for Alaïa. An incre­dible designer who I liked very much. So at the moment I’m wearing my black Alaïas. Otherwise I’m a fan of color. In bourgeois societies, wearing color is a woman’s privilege. Men traditionally wear more understated shades – midnight blue, charcoal.

And you think that’s a good thing?

No way! It goes without saying that we need to subvert the masculine versus feminine axis that underpins modern fashion. Men need to finally surrender that fake corporate identity and show their true colors – and stop pretending that they never give a second thought to the clothes they wear. If we no longer had this gender-based dress duality, our society would be much more balanced. But I’m not saying that women should become more like men. On the contrary: the men should be doing the assimilating.

But shouldn’t good fashion emphasize the masculine in men and the feminine in women?

I’m not talking about unisex. That is, quite frankly, simply tedious – and more a gray utopia than reality. From the ­beginning of the 20th century and into the 1980s, women’s dress was oriented toward men’s fashions. It was a one-way street. Currently, by contrast, the techniques of feminine haute couture tend to be translated into masculine high fashion. That includes, for instance, the contrast between skin and fabric, the transparency, the necklines, the ruffles, the whole pantomime of rendering the body an ornament. ­Nowadays a man’s suit isn’t only skin-tight; it might also be studded with Baroque roses against a deep red background.

So recent years have brought an about-face. Men’s dress is now demonstrating the allure that was reserved for feminine fashions in the bourgeois era. The aesthetics of minimalism, Bauhaus-style – i. e. form follows function – are slowly ­disappearing.

What’s your take on orange?

Orange is the new black, at least since Hermès. (laughs).

But hey, every color is the new black.

Frank Haas was born in 1977. He studied History and Ph­i­losophy and, as Head of Corporate Com­ munications at­­Gebrüder Weiss, is editor-­in-chief of ATLAS .

* The Tunisian-born fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa passed away in Paris recently at the age of 77. Touted as the “last couturier” and “sculptor of fashion,” he gained notoriety in the 1980s for his skin-tight stretch and leather dresses, and his use of accent zippers.

“If you ask me what I’d most like to have i­ nvented in fashion, I’d say the white shirt.

For me, the shirt is the basis of everything. E ­ verything else comes after.”

Karl Lagerfeld

O H, OH, HOW EMBARRASSING Trends come and – thank goodness – go again.

Because, with hindsight, all of us have subscribed to fashions that we wish we had ignored. Or, alternatively, continued to follow trends that others have long abandoned.

Because changing fashions define our individual styles.

Today, Gebrüder Weiss employees reveal all.

OLIVER HAJEK GW SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

During the 1980s I thought cowboy boots were fantastic, and I was in love with my pair.

I can’t really imagine feeling the same way today. Also, in those days wearing one-piece overalls for skiing was a big hit. When I see photographs of myself now, it makes me cringe.

38 PERSPECTIVES

CLAIRE LIN GW HONG KONG, CHINA

When I was younger (well I’m still young), I preferred very cool, occasionally exaggerated styles that attracted attention. Hip-hop was just perfect at that time, with oversized trousers, plenty of gel in your hair, a loose T-shirt and a smug expression on your face.

When you are a kid, everything looks just great. But it’s pretty hard to imagine I could ever wear that style again.

MERLIN DOW GW CHICAGO, USA

When I was young and had bleached blond hair, I guess it was trendy to have a bowl cut. Looking back now as a father, there’s no way I would let my son follow suit. ;-)

ŠTEFAN ESZTERGÁLYOS GW SENEC, SLOVAKIA

When I was younger I wasn’t really interested or involved in trends or fashions. Just a few years ago I started to collect and wear socks with crazy colors or pictures on them.

On occasions I’ve noticed customers smiling to themselves or checking which socks I’m wearing. So it’s a nice way of breaking the ice in meetings as well. Of course, you can’t wear them in every conference, but in some situations they are simply perfect.

MAIDA SEHMEHMEDOVIC GW SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Platform shoes were part of my signature look in the 1990s. Ideally, I bought pairs that were a size or two larger than I needed.

I wanted them to look even “larger than life” – but, today, I really don’t know why. And hair twists were an absolute must! In retrospect I find that really embarrassing.

There’s no way I would have a hairstyle like that nowadays.

PERSPECTIVES 39

MICHAEL ZHANG GW PEKING, CHINA

Twenty years ago in China, young people really got into karaoke. It was always really exciting when we stood up in front of our friends and sang songs like a superstar. But karaoke is no longer as popular in China now because young people find other things more interesting. When we look back at these “performances” now, it looks as if people are shouting on TV in a small dark room!

Could it really have been that much fun?

MIRELA BROJBAN GW BUKAREST DEAL, ROMANIA

Trends are part of our life even if some change as fast as the weather. We have all been influenced by a trend or fad at one time or another. That was also true of me in the early 1990s when I dyed by hair black to emulate Michael Jackson. I have no regrets and am still coloring it black 20 years on.

SILVIA SMAILOVIC GW ALTENRHEIN, SWITZERLAND

Hide behind the sofa now!

Buffalo plateaus were my biggest fashion faux pas. I never left the house without them. Today I’d give them a very wide berth.

SONJA THALER GW WOLFURT, AUSTRIA

My trend no-no during the 1990s was the Diddl Mouse. I must admit that I always found this comic figure kitschy, but as is often the way with fashions, I still turned into a big fan. In those days, the Diddl Mouse was simply everywhere: on stationery, T-shirts, pen cases and as stuffed animals. There was a Diddl Mouse for every occasion. Nowadays I would likely fall prey to different fashions, and then hold my head in shame ten years later.

40

CHINA / GERMANY | With the help of the Automotive Desk at the company’s Frankfurt office, Gebrüder Weiss China did the impossible recently: when an urgent special car shipment that weighed in at some 300 metric tons hit capacity problems, it swiftly chartered four complete BOEING 747-400F aircraft.

The consignment was transported on time to Luxembourg before being flown to Zhengzhou. From there it was taken by truck to Changchun.

The impromptu backup option worked like a charm.

CHINA | New voices for the Far East: Gebrüder Weiss is boosting its digital communications in China with its own channels on the country’s key social media platforms: the extended messaging app We Chat, the leading search engine Baidu and the video portal Youku. Weekly posts in Mandarin and English keep both potential customers and employees at the company’s 18 locations up to date.

U.S. A . | Six months after establishing a country organization in the United States, Gebrüder Weiss has opened an office in Dallas, Texas.

This marks the sixth company base in the country alongside locations in Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles and New York. The new orange presence in the Lone Star State feeds local know-how into the global network and strategically complements the existing range of services.

ORANGE NETWORK

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GERMANY / T URKMENISTAN | New horizons: A length of over 6,000 kilometers makes the truck transport service from Wangen in Southern Germany to Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Astana in Kazakhstan one of the longest ­Gebrüder Weiss land transport routes. The company has been delivering freight there for its customer Waldner Labor­ einrichtung since 2016, connecting the ­Allgäu region of Germany and Austria with the New Silk Road.

AUSTRIA / C ENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE | In 2017 Gebrüder Weiss retained its status as the dominant force in Austria’s home delivery segment. During the twelve-month period, GW pro.line home delivered 300,000 consignments to the application site of end-customers. The steady growth in online purchases kept order volumes at peak level, particularly in the run-up to the holiday season.

Go east! The last-mile delivery service is now available in Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia and the Czech Republic. Plans are being drawn up to expand it into further Eastern European countries.

CROATIA | Gebrüder Weiss is extending its presence in Croatia with a new office in the port city of Rijeka. The office is affiliated with the branch in Zagreb and will serve customers in the Upper Adriatic.

As Croatia’s third-largest city and its leading commercial port, Rijeka is the region’s gateway to and from the interior of Eastern Europe.

GEORGIA | A gigantic con­ struction project is taking shape in Georgia’s tranquil health resort of Anaklia: “Anaklia City,” a deepwater port with an adjoining industrial area on the shores of the Black Sea. With the ability to handle more than 900,000 TEU a year, the logistics hub is due to begin operation in 2021 and will facilitate seabound freight transport services along the New Silk Road. Gebrüder Weiss, which opened a location in Tbilisi four years ago, has sealed a logistics partnership with the consortium behind the plans.

ARMENIA | Gebrüder Weiss is consolidating its presence along the New Silk Road with an office in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital and largest city. Thanks to its connection with the hub in Tbilisi, Georgia, it can now offer regular consoli­ dated cargo services from Austria, Germany and Italy to the area. The new location offers export-oriented companies access to the Armenian market while simultaneously boosting imports into Europe from the Caucasus.

43

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX Andreas Uebele and Andreas Cukrowicz talk about the Gebrüder Weiss Head Office, expediency and the passing of time INTERVIEW: Andreas Uebele

RECORDING: Miriam Holzapfel

Simple and unpretentious, not spectacular but rather thought-provokingly modest – this is the precept adopted by the Vorarlberg-based firm of architects Cukrowicz Nachbaur which also designed the corporate Head Office in Lauterach. Most recently the firm won the competition to design the new Concert Hall in Munich. In 2011, Andreas Uebele and his agency büro uebele designed the orientation system for the new trade fair center complex in Innsbruck – also in conjunction with Cukrowicz Nachbaur.

Since then Cukrowicz and Uebele have not only maintained a productive partnership but also a close friendship.

44  THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

Open or closed depending on the lighting outside, but always seemingly suspended above the traffic: the Head Office on the highway.

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX 45

Andreas Cukrowicz was born in Bregenz, Austria, in 1969 and has been cooperating with Anton Nachbaur-Sturm since 1992. In 1996 they opened a joint firm of architects whose works have won an array of major prizes.

In Austria these have included the 2014 best architects award in gold for the Vorarlberg Museum, the 2012 International Architecture Award for the Music House in Röthis, the State Prize for Architecture and Sustainability for the St. Gerold Community Center, along with the State Prize for Architecture and the 2008 Best Architects Award for the civic swimming pool in Dornbirn.

Andreas Uebele: The Head Office almost seems to be ­suspended in mid-air. It’s like you’re a captain surveying ­everything from the bridge of a ship.

Andreas Cukrowicz: Exactly. And that’s how it should be.

A position overlooking the action is ideal for a company Head Office. This way, you have a lot more surface area that needs to be insulated. And that doesn’t come cheap. But as always, the question is: Is something good value for money? What’s the return on my investment? When it comes to this building, I’d say: a whole lot. For this reason, we also opted for the square footprint. Squares convey a strong message and this looks equally imposing from every direction. That principle was the basis for everything else.

Gebrüder Weiss is an important player, not only because it is a local employer, but also because of its national and ­international reach. How can this status be crystallized in the architecture? Is some kind of elevation needed?

That’s a possibility. But it wouldn’t have worked in Lauterach, for planning reasons and because of the building’s physical

environment. That’s why we devised another way of expressing the company’s significance: an expansiveness that conveys both size and a sense of confidence and composure. The fact that its space is spread across two floors reflects the flat hierarchies within the company. We understood the desire to encourage interaction between the employees – and that the boss should not be perched up on the 27th floor but rather be down with the other employees. That appealed to us a lot because it reflects our mindset. So, openness and expansiveness are major focuses. But at the same time we wanted to honor the basic human needs of the employees by not exposing them too much to the outside world. That is why we created this slatted facade. It offers a degree of privacy, intimacy.

And it also produces some unexpected, architecturally interesting effects: the perspective from inside the building varies, revealing differing snapshots of the scenery outside.

The physical transparency created by the floor-to-ceiling glass is an interesting feature – especially for a company that is represented right across the planet and therefore

46 THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

wants to appear open and inviting. But what, then, made

The Gebrüder Weiss Head Office is at home in a region

you opt for the matte black coloring?

where tapping local skills and resources is paramount.

We spent a very long time thinking about this and ultimately concluded that the Head Office should make a high-class impression. The black is understated but still very compelling – it resonates with the building’s rectangular shape.

Maybe the shape and color are just a conventional combination, but it could also be that black is almost predestined for a square. Our feeling was that it should be black and not ­silver-gray. And even if we had gone for white, that wouldn’t have been cheaper. It would simply have looked cheaper.

Crafts are endemic in Bregenz Forest, as are principled

The interior invites transparency and creates spaces for personal encounters.

­attitudes and down-to-earth values. In the villages you can see the typical wooden houses covered with slats.

How does your building fit into this tradition?

You can’t build a barn in a skyscraper or a skyscraper in a

barn. We view this building neither in the tradition of rural buildings, nor in the organically evolving local traditions in craft and architecture. We see it as part of a qualitative attitude, of its local roots, and hence of a tradition on a different level. We place it in the context of the Upper Rhine Valley with its mounting urbanization. In just a few decades this area will give rise to a large city, a metropolitan region. Given that, I didn’t think of wood for Gebrüder Weiss. That wouldn’t have reflected the company’s line of work either. Instead we opted for a technical, sophisticated and honest structure that is something of a Pandora’s box, but in a very positive sense.

It functions very efficiently – just like good logistics.

In logistics, what counts a lot is the most economical use of space. In this context, the generous proportions of the building don’t really seem to be a good fit, do they?

There’s no disputing that the building’s ground plan isn’t economical. If you wanted to create a really economical building, you would create two separate office zones divided by a two-meter wide corridor. Or even better, one that is one meter eighty wide. Then you attach a corrugated sheet facade which can be extended in any direction at any time. However, expanding the surface area opens up all kinds of pathways and spaces where people can linger. And if that is done well, it automatically generates added value in the form of communication options. If you have a long corridor, all you want to do is get from A to B and then back into your office. An environment with several navigation systems generates spontaneous and relaxed encounters, and these generate familiarity and promote communication. When people communicate, fewer mistakes occur; it acts as a springboard for innovation. And, ultimately, it’s the people that make the company.

For many years sustainability has been a key factor, both in architecture and in general debates, although the concept is actually 300 years old. Was it relevant to your work as well?

We are always discussing issues related to sustainability, with every building and every challenge we take on. But the problems we face are always different. It’s not as though we can simply take figures and compare them with existing calculations. Rather, our goal is always to ensure that the investment brings the greatest possible benefit to the greatest number of

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX 47

“IN MY OPINION TIMELESSNESS ISN’T A SIGN OF QUALITY. I TAKE THE VIEW THAT EVERYTHING IS ALLOWED TO BE AN EXPRESSION OF ITS AGE.” Andreas Cukrowicz

people. We want to create something that will last a long time, look good for a long time, and not require a constant stream of expensive repairs. For this reason we used high-quality materials that are robust and durable. Moreover, the building performs very well when it comes to costs. Despite its ample dimensions, it uses very little energy. And on the issue of arranging the individual offices, we found a system that allows us to respond very quickly to changing circumstances. That too is part and parcel of sustainable planning. An office can be reconfigured within a single day. Everything we need is already there. Whatever the future may hold, we will be ready.

When I visit my customers they often look to see which car I am driving. Because that’s obviously a statement in itself.

In your view, does the same argument apply to architecture?

Ah, the Germans and their cars! (laughs). I’m a Volvo fan.

They aren’t exactly cheap but they deliver sound value for money in their segment. What’s more, design has always been a real priority for Volvo, not that it is eye-catching and demands your attention. The design is as clean and timeless as possible, so that it still looks good twenty years later.

That’s the way I want to build, too.

You mean, quite literally, un-fashionably?

Right. Not that trends should be eliminated completely from architecture. Two decades on we will likely be taking a different tack on design. Today’s buildings are statements of our time – but hopefully in ways that let them preserve their positives so that they won’t seem boring any time soon.

So you’re saying that in 100 years people will be able to say when approximately a building like the corporate Head Office was designed, just as we can tell nowadays that one was erected during the 1930s?

They will, yes. And I don’t necessarily believe that timelessness is a positive quality. It’s my conviction that everything can be a manifestation of its period. We are talking about contemporary design elements and presentation methods, and of course about the technical possibilities they demand. There are things that bear eloquent testimony to every era, and that’s how it should be.

But the term “timelessness” always has such positive connotations. People use it to describe a beauty that transcends trends and fashions.

I think there’s another dimension to this, by which I mean a desire to avoid something obtrusive – although it can still be product of its age. Because if you set out to create something that is valid for every era, you will soon run the risk of it becoming dull and dreary. Maybe you are simply avoiding the need to take a stance. For that reason, I have no fundamental

objection to trends. For example, regionalism, a focus on tradition, is currently a hot topic in architecture. That’s a good thing in my mind, I am all for it. Plus, there’s another aspect: you can’t allow things to age gracefully, which is a strange phenomenon in and of itself. I think we need to become more aware of our transience and view our architectural surroundings in a similar light.

Working in graphic design as we do, we regularly get jobs that might be described as “no-frills” or streamlined, but which otherwise have little to offer – no history, no contextual positioning. The font used is then considered safe, for example Helvetica. The text is in black and left-aligned, and that all passes for “timeless.”

Exactly. In reality it’s simply trite.

But I assume there are also trends that you don’t approve of.

For example, desk-sharing has been fashionable for some time, with offices built so that employees simply bring what they need in a container on wheels, and otherwise work wherever they want. What is your take on this? Don’t we need the personal touch – a cactus on our desks and family photos on the wall?

Look, employees are very important to us. They are all real people. When we are making appointments we look closely at candidates, first and foremost to see what type of people they are. In my view the trend towards providing maximum flexibility may be exciting from an entrepreneurial perspective, but from a human point of view I consider it dangerous and shortsighted. In my opinion, people need ways to identify with their workplaces that complement their personalities. I need to feel good about my workplace, if I am going to really throw myself into my work and duties. But if I don’t even have my own space, and things can be removed and replaced at any time, I start to feel that I too am interchangeable as a human being. And that idea sticks in my gullet. This also has further ramifications for my emotional bond with my company.

My feelings towards it become similarly interchangeable.

Personally, I like to have my son’s drawings close at hand.

“For Daddy.”

Andreas Uebele is a communication designer who lectures in communication design at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf. The designs produced by his agency can be seen in numerous museums, having already garnered over 300 national and international awards. The corporate design for the German Parliament ranks among the agency’s highest-profile projects.

48

Out to Africa!

The traditional trade in embroidery from Austria’s Vorarlberg region

text: Imke Borchers Vorarlberg is an innovative economic ­region that, with Upper Austria, has the highest industrial density in the whole country. Alongside fruit juices, cheese, lighting, metal fittings, timber, engineer­ ing and electronics, the region is primar­ ily known for specialist embroidery and other textile finishings. And it owes this prowess partly to Switzerland. In 1751, merchants from St. Gallen saw Turkish women using gold and silver thread to embroider silk stretched over a drum.

And, no sooner seen than done, they ­dispatched one of their countrywomen to learn this intricate craft, and she sub­ sequently passed on her skills to others in St. Gallen. Soon the embroidered goods were selling so well that new re­ cruits had to be sought in Bregenz Forest across the border to Austria. In no time the locals too were learning the tricks of the trade – after all, a second source of income was always welcome for farm­ ers’ families. And over the years, em­ broidery exports to Switzerland fueled a whole rural industry. New embroidery machines came into use from the 1860s, with no less than 1,400 in operation in the region by 1880.

Much has changed since then, but some traditions have survived intact for the past 250 years. The Vorarlberg em­ broidery factories are owned by families who personally vouch for their quality standards and ensure excellent custom­ er service. In 2016 these companies ex­ ported 345 tons of embroidery worth a

total of 36 million euros. Just under half of the merchandise found its way across Europe, most notably to France, Switzer­ land and Germany. Perhaps surprisingly at first glance, a further 40 percent was sold to Nigeria.

At the start of the 1960s, the Vorarl­ berg embroiderers presented their wares in western Africa, prompting such enthu­ siasm that they soon became an export hit. Increasing numbers of Nigerian mer­ chants descended on Vorarlberg where they placed their orders on the spot, pay­ ing in cash. Gebrüder Weiss took charge of delivery, sometimes transporting 100 tons of European fabric a week in­ cluding 70 tons of embroidered goods.

Walter Schneider, then manager of the Gebrüder Weiss branch in Lustenau and the network coordinator for African sales, remembers well: “Once a week, starting in 1978, a Boeing 747 flew from Paris to Cotonou, the main economic hub in the neighboring country of Benin.

Back then we had no option but to part­ ner with other shipping companies in Lustenau because we couldn’t handle the high demand on our own. We la­ belled the pallets and loaded the materi­ als onto them in Lustenau. Intake was on Friday and delivery was on Sunday.”

Until the late 1980s, exports to West Africa boomed. Then business declined significantly as a result of the devalua­ tion of African currencies. However, the trade in exclusive goods proved sustain­ able and the fine fabrics from Lustenau still find their way around the world. For someone somewhere, it seems, they will always be the height of fashion. | IB

OUT TO AFRICA! 49

Classic elegance: women at a wedding in Benin City dressed in the traditional festive gown Aso ebi – made of imported fabric

The fickle fads of fashion: an encounter of the clothes kind On Fashionet Austria, a textiles logistics provider straddling high fashion and off-the-shelf clothing

THE FICKLE FADS OF FASHION: AN ENCOUNTER OF THE CLOTHES KIND 51

text: Miriam Holzapfel The times are changeable, and so are fashions. It’s difficult to predict which ideas will carry the day, what will work on the market and what customers will not accept. This element of surprise might well exert a pull on fashion victims: one never knows what designers of big and small brands alike will dream up, nor what will ultimately make the journey to the stores.

For textile logistics specialists who are responsible for this odyssey, the success of a single designer can decide between success and failure. If designers present popular collections, the shippers will also profit from the sales. If the fashion ­companies’ creations fail to hit the mark, the transport com­ panies will suffer as well. Add to this unpredictable equation the fact that the merchandise is naturally delicate – and that wherever apparel is transported on hangers (and hence very carefully), lots of air travels with it. No one pays for that. ­To score on the market, textile logistics providers too need innovative ideas.

A burden shared is a burden halved Fashionet Austria is a European-wide logistics and distribution network that meets the industry’s challenges with a wealth of experience – and the solid infrastructure of its parent compa­ nies Gebrüder Weiss and Lagermax. Founded in 1997, the joint venture is headed by managing directors Michael Jahn and Michael Eberl, while Karl Tordy oversees product man­ agement; business revolves mainly around Austria and the neighboring countries. Hanging goods form the core, but this shipping method has its drawbacks particularly in less devel­ oped regions. The volumes that need to be moved from A to B cannot fill a vehicle to capacity. Fashionet has developed a solution to this problem by cooperating with DPD . The parcel ­delivery business is also subject to strong seasonal fluctuation, with sharp peaks during the three months preceding Christ­ mas. While Fashionet experiences variation as well, the timing differs; volumes rise when new collections arrive between January and Easter and then again from August to September.

The idea is simple, but brilliant: a clothes rack is installed in DPD vehicles that also deliver to remoter areas, so the gar­ ments can be shipped together with the parcels. In urban dis­ tricts, Fashionet operates its own fleet.

Feathers favored Jahn and Tordy would not describe themselves as fashion experts. Yet the two do have a nose for trends. On the one hand, they naturally observe how customers feel and how they change over time; on the other, they need only glance into the warehouse to see the collections, even before they’re in the stores. And color trends are the most obvious.

Where fabrics are concerned, both of the textile logisti­ cians prefer fine silk: it requires special care and should never be crushed into a small box. Synthetics, in contrast, are uncom­plicated and therefore perhaps cheaper for end-cus­ tomers – but not for logistics providers. This also applies to down jackets, another popular product, but a bulky one that can only be compressed to a certain degree. So everyone has their favorites – even the shippers!

Exceptional situations require exceptional solutions To smooth out the garments, the Fashionet warehouse offers a steam tunnel that handles up to 1,000 pieces of apparel per hour. While transporting and storing the merchandise appro­ priately is the cornerstone of Fashionet’s business, other ­ser­vices are offered as well, including order picking and pre­ paration. The steam tunnel does more than “iron” the textiles; it also removes odors, i.e. by evaporating cleansers used to disinfect the transport containers. They definitely require steam treatment – just like the 60,000 nursing bras recently

The latest trends on parade at the hanging goods warehouse – with pastel evidently coming in spring 2018

52 THE FICKLE FADS OF FASHION: AN ENCOUNTER OF THE CLOSE KIND

top: The garments are stored with special care right: Karl Tordy (left) and Michael Jahn view the future with confidence

imported from the Far East that proved malodorous upon arrival at Fashionet. Piece by piece, they were sent through the tunnel. That’s good for business. Because without this service, it would not have been possible to get these pieces onto the market.

What’s bad for business is the growth of e­commerce ser­ vices that are also impacting specialty providers. When Karl Tordy joined the company two decades ago, the sales structure was still quite simple: the garments were shipped from the producers to the retail dealers. But then big chains entered the fray, and since then the specialty retailers and chains have been joined by a burgeoning online business. In other words, things are not getting any easier with time. Yet even if retail continues to decline and urban shopping zones become more interchangeable, the major fashion chains at least will main­ tain branches that need merchandise. Delivery windows are nonetheless slated to become smaller and supply chains more transparent. Shops want their goods quickly, punctually, and ideally early in the morning before they open. And they want to know where their shipment is at all times – understandably so, particularly for major brand collections. After all, there is often a small fortune hanging in these delivery vehicles. In today’s world, store customers are willing to tolerate 48­hour

delivery times at most. And that period is due to keep shrink­ ing.

That being said, Jahn and Tordy confidently face the future, because their stable network and the synergies it generates constitute unique selling propositions in a very small market.

In Fashionet Austria, 60 percent of the shares are held by Gebrüder Weiss and 40 percent by Lagermax, another Austri­ an shipping company that would otherwise be a competitor in the free market. In the textile industry, however, the two com­ panies have joined forces and get on well together, notwith­ standing the transitory nature of fashions and trends.

Miriam Holzapfel is a cultural scientist and a journalist for ATLAS.

53

Once upon a time …

As Coco Chanel once noted, all fashions fade. And ­history testifies to the accuracy of this statement.

Over the centuries there have been repeated on-trend looks and inventions that only survive today in fiction or historical documents. Often for very good reason, as the following examples show. texts: Carola Hoffmeister illustration: Sören Kunz

CLASSICAL AGE //

Chitons

The Ancient Greeks draped lengths of material around their bodies. To non-experts these may all look the same, but there were major differences between the ways they were wound. The Dorian chiton, for example, was closed on the right-hand side while the left was largely open. The Ionian chiton, which people wore during the age of Homer, looked more like a tunic that hung from the shoulders. During the Pelopon­ nesian War (431 – 404 BC ), the Dorian chiton became a kind of uniform for freemen.

Slaves, by contrast, tied it closed on the left so their right arm was free for work.

54 ONCE UPON A TIME …

MEDIEVAL PERIOD //

Cracow shoes

With their elongated toes that resembled a bird’s beak or chili pepper, cracows ­evidently made their first appearance at end of the eleventh century in France – crafted for an aristocrat with deformed feet. Nobody knows for certain whether the legend of Count Fulko von Anjou is true, but the shoes did prove fashionable in France and England for several centuries. Filled with moss or cotton, the toes were between 15 and 46 centimeters long and signified social status: the longer the toes, the higher the wearer’s standing. To ensure that the coding was followed, ­regulations stipulated the varying lengths of the toes for aristocrats, royalty and knights. This style was completely unsuitable for peasants who continued to wear flat, more practical, drawstring shoes. Today the mere sight of these ancient ­winkle-pickers makes people’s toes curl – whatever their preferred footwear.

BAROQUE //

Wigs

To conceal his bald pate, Louis XIV wore a wig – a so-called allonge with locks dangling down over his shoulders. With this act of vanity, the Sun King sparked a new fashion, initially at the court of Versailles and sub­se­ quently at its counterparts across Europe. In 1673 he anointed allonges as the “wigs of state,” establishing them as symbols of status and power. About a ­century later wigs started to become popular among women as well. Whereas male wigs were a dazzling white, women’s lit up high society in tinted shades like pink, violet and light blue, sometimes towering about fifty centimeters above their heads. This was achieved using a construction made of lace, ribbons and hair from humans, goats or horses, occasionally attached to a delicate ivory frame inside.

Pragmatically, this construction contained cotton wadding drenched in blood or honey, which trapped any errant fleas. Fleas were ubiquitous during the Baroque period and people rarely washed their hair, as they considered bathhouses a ­breeding ground for the plague.

NINETEENTH CENTURY //

Bustles

Around 1870, women began wearing skirts that had a frame of steel or fishbone underneath, creating a bulge at the back of the skirt, rather as if it was padded out by a large cushion. Known as a bustle, this frame superseded the fashion of ­crinolines, stiff petticoats that were attached tightly around the waist and formed a dome shape around the legs. Familiar today from period-piece movies, bustles performed an optical trick: tracing women’s silhouettes down from their breasts to their slim waistlines and bustles, it made them resemble the letter “S.” Nobody knows why people considered that desirable, and it was evidently so uncomfortable that bustles vanished completely from the fashion scene two decades after their emergence.

ONCE UPON A TIME … 55

VICTORIAN ERA //

Monocles

For millennia people have sought ways of improving their eyesight. In Roman times, Emperor Nero is said to have watched gladiators fighting through a monocle, a polished emerald that he held in front of his eye – presumably to see more clearly and shield it from the blazing sun. Spectacles as we know them today were invented in Tuscany around the end of the 13th century. From that point onwards, nobody actually needed monocles. After all, they could only improve the vision in one eye and had to be held in place by eye-socket muscles – the ultimate form of eyestrain.

Nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century, monocles came back in style in Britain and Germany, with upper-class men and women viewing them as a status symbol.

They were particularly popular in the two countries’ armies, and often featured in caricatures depicting top officers.

56 ONCE UPON A TIME …

TWENTIETH CENTURY //

Cigarette holders

Audrey Hepburn puffed on a cigarette holder in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, as did Marlene Dietrich in the movie The Blue Angel, and when the flappers – young women in short skirts with headbands over their short hair – were performing the Charleston some­ where, they often dangled a cigarette holder from their mouths between dances.

At the start of the 20th century, the cigarette holder – a mouthpiece made of metal or plastic – was a chic personal accessory. The democratization of fashion continued during the Roaring Twenties, with women smoking in public as well. They also drank wine, cast off their corsets, exposed their legs up to their knees and even wore suits and top hats. For the first time in history, it became impossible to distinguish the gender of a silhouette. Or, for that matter, to identify its status and social class.

Platform shoes Platform shoes rank among the strangest phenomena in fashion history. During the Classical era, actors are said to have swaggered around amphitheaters on high, cork heels – to increase their visibility. And in Renaissance Venice thick wooden outsoles attached with straps offered protection from the dirt and mud of the streets.

At one point, high­class prostitutes too balanced precariously on platform shoes – reason enough for the church to brand them as immoral. During the 1970s they again gained currency, this time on rock stars like Elton John, David Bowie and KISS vocalist Gene Simmons. These styles may not have always proved practical, but their unusual design has secured them a regular niche in the shoe market.

Carola Hoffmeister has a degree in literature and art history. Her job as a radio and magazine journalist takes her around the world.

She has published books on her travels in Iran and Albania.

FAMILY FUN 57

TWO-IN-ONE: FIRST A SHIRT, THEN A BAG! When clothes go out of fashion or style, we often stop wearing them. But that doesn’t mean that all our old stuff has to land in the garbage.

Check out this neat trick for giving old pieces of clothing a new life.

1 Take an old undershirt and turn it into a handy bag. The bigger the shirt, the bigger the bag.

Lay it down and fold it so that the armholes and side seams are aligned.

2 Turn it inside out.

4 Sew the bottom together, creating a hem. Tie the thread together at both ends of the hem so that the seam doesn’t start unravelling.

make a bag n a c u yo y, sa Needless to r shirt as well. o e te ld o y n a from an sleeves and – e th ff o t u c ly Simp nlarge the neck. r e y r – a ss e c e n e if e bottom togeth th w se n e th d n A ve. as described abo

5 Turn the bag the right way out again. Now you can dye it, draw designs on it or decorate it any other way you want. It’s easy and fun!

THE NEW BLACK

How experts predict which colors will be “in” – and which ones won’t

ULTRAVIOLET 59

TEXT: Florian Siebeck 2018 is ultraviolet. Not any old ultraviolet, but the one with the number 18-3838, says Pantone, which produces standard color decks for industry. Pantone marks the start of the year by announcing the trend color for the coming months. In 2016 it was “Rose Quartz & Serenity,” in 2017 “Greenery.” Pantone Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman told the trade journal WWD that digital interfaces were significantly changing people’s perceptions of color. “On their displays, they can see rosé and metallic tones that were previously unknown,” says Eiseman. Companies such as NBC Universal, Instagram and Twitch are using violet in their branding. Ultraviolet is associated with forward thinking, she adds, “and people will want to find this color in their shoes, accessories and clothes.”

A lot of work goes into crowning the “Color of the Year,” because color is one of the most unpredictable variables in fashion and design. Banking on the wrong hue can sink a company’s sales and propel competitors ahead, even if the competing shades only vary marginally. “Controlling color means controlling the world,” wrote the academic James Woudhuysen. As studies show, color is the key determinant in fashion purchasing decisions: it even trumps design, feel and pricing. By contrast, the auto industry table of criteria is topped by the brand, model and engine, with the color trailing in fourth. Most customers demonstrate similar reservations when buying furniture. “People want something safe,” says the celebrated designer Sebastian Herkner. “Plenty of people won’t countenance a sofa in anything but gray, beige or black. Very few have enough confidence to take risks.” The more disposable the item, the logic runs, the more adventurous the customers when choosing the color.

With the pace of change accelerating in fashion, demand for new colors is almost insatiable. But that shouldn’t be a problem: the human eye can distinguish between ten million different shades. In recent decades an entire industry has

emerged to aid designers and purchasers by identifying trends and selling market analyses. The prophets of the new palettes keep their eyes peeled everywhere; they watch fashion shows and car presentations, they visit showrooms and trade fairs, they scour magazines, they survey home appliances, they observe developments in society and how cultural changes affect people’s moods.

Exactly how they go about this is rarely clear. But their approach is most plausibly depicted in a scene from the movie The Devil Wears Prada in which Meryl Streep, playing the despotic editor of a fashion magazine, describes how a color trend is born: “In 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns, and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent who showed cerulean military jackets, and then cerulean quickly shot up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it filtered down through department stores, and then trickled on down onto some tragic Casual Corner where you no doubt fished it out of […] some clearance bin.” Could that have been a coincidence? In 1999 Pantone had declared sky blue the “Color of the Millennium.”

Tom Vanderbilt is one of the few journalists who has attended a Pantone meeting. To be admitted, he had to provide assurances that he would keep the names of the participants secret and even conceal his own identity. It’s a clandestine industry in which the right information always has its price and the precept – the earlier the prediction, the higher the cost – always prevails.

Twice a year the Pantone researchers meet in varying European cities – ideally in a drab, colorless room. They cooperate with experts “from Airbus to Zara,” writes Vanderbilt in the magazine Slate.

Over the course of two days each colorist presents a palette for a prescribed topic – a range that will dominate for a specific period. Vanderbilt quotes from the animated discussion: “A good navy … is going to fulfill the role that black used to fill, because black is now launching into another dimension.” The Italians made “a big statement” about black and this was followed by the “big Yohji

Yamamoto retrospective” in London.

Suddenly somebody interjects: “Who doesn’t know about black? But what’s new about it?”

Pantone isn’t the only player to research color trends. Firms like Design Intelligence and Carlin International have followed suit. And trade fairs too play a key role, such as the “Première Vision” in France, at which a consortium of experts curates the key colors for future fashions. Almost all of the top designers congregate here to buy fabrics for their upcoming collections. In turn, companies such as Promostyl of Paris provide specialist help to organizations implementing the trends in a particular segment or product group.

Ultimately, a product’s color when it reaches retail is the result of a complex cocktail of research and marketing, spiced with a dash of uncertainty.

Designers often decide the palette for a collection in conjunction with purchasers. Some even claim that the anticipated trends are more diktats to be obeyed than predictions. The designers bow to the companies because the pressure to sell sufficient quantities has become intolerable. Cynics say: if people see a color enough, it becomes a color they want to see. While the accuracy of the forecasts is hard to assess, at the end of the day they usually hold true, the looks sell well and everybody’s happy.

Florian Siebeck is a journalist who writes about architecture, design and fashion, including for Architectural Digest (AD) and the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

ORANGE COMES TO AUSTRIA

And how the color activates the body’s own defenses

ORANGE 61

TEXT: Imke Borchers Orange is an unusual color. It is created by combining red and yellow, and possesses the symbolic connotations of both.

Orange is cheerful and carefree like yellow, but also dynamic and eye-catching like red. It signals pleasure, warmth and conviviality. But due caution is needed: depending on the relative proportions of its base colors, orange can cause disquiet (if it contains more yellow than red) or convey danger (if red is predominant).

This might explain why orange is among the least popular shades of the color spectrum, at least according to various psychological surveys.

A further explanation is that orange – alongside brown – was the ultimate trend color during the democratic 1970s. Attributes like “modern” and “cheap”, which are often ascribed to it, may well derive from this period, when it was not only a top choice for wallpaper and bellbottoms, but also for home utensils and plastic accessories. The fashion may have faded but the symbolism has survived. Because, as with other cognitive processes, the associations evoked by colors stem above all from our personal habits and experiences. Colors effectively become attached to these, and subsequently produce a specific response in the brain that derives from them. For this reason, our perceptions of colors are always subjective and vary around the globe.

In Asia, orange sparks very positive associations. In Buddhism it represents the supreme state of awakening or enlightenment. Buddhist monks wear orange gowns, and by convention Chinese civil servants wore the color too. In yoga and traditional Chinese medicine, orange represents one of the human body’s energy centers.

By contrast, in the Western world there was no color orange until the fruit of the same name was popularized. For centuries Europeans only found pure and natural colors aesthetic. For this reason, orange does not feature in the clothing or symbolism of medieval paintings, while its use in insignia and coats of arms was expressly prohibited.

It wasn’t until the fifteenth century that the juicy citrus fruit we know today found its way from India to Portugal, and people appropriated its name for the color: laranja in Portuguese or naranja in Spain, both of them derived from the Arabic word narang. As it spread northwards, the fruit was embellished with the prefix or – the French word for gold.

And in every language around the world, the color orange is still named for the fruit.

As oranges grew in popularity, their coloring slowly acquired a fanbase. In his 1810 treatise on the theory of color, the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe still refers to yellowish-red or reddish-yellow, but he does attribute an “elevating effect on the mind” to it.

Gebrüder Weiss began operating transportation services as long ago as 1474, shortly after the first oranges had reached the shores of Europe. But its corporate color has not always been orange. Until the 1930s, when the family- owned company was still based in Bregenz, its vehicles were finished in subdued shades. This was standard practice at the time. Then, as a fleet manager Josef Schwerzler recounted decades later, an urgent customer order came in. But there were no trucks available. One was just being repainted and, while the rust-proofing had been applied, it was still waiting for its gray top-

coat. The half-painted truck was driven straight out onto the forecourt for loading. And, as chance would have it, the managing partner Ferdinand Weiss caught sight of the orange finish and immediately recognized its potential for branding and advertising. Since that day, half a century before the color became fashionable on the road, Gebrüder Weiss vehicles have been painted orange. Back in the 1930s, Ferdinand Weiss could scarcely have envisaged the positive impact the color would have for his company in the Far East.

The history of Gebrüder Weiss underscores yet again that the symbolism of colors is deeply rooted in our subconscious and cannot only be properly explained with rational arguments.

Chromotherapy – personal therapy using colors – is presumably based on this same hypothesis: practitioners of this alternative medicine believe that orange boosts our immune systems. Who knows? Perhaps the positive effects of eating oranges are not confined to the vitamin C they contain, but to the invigorating color of their peels as well.

Imke Borchers, born in 1982, is a literary scholar and a journalist for ATLAS.

THE MIDAS TOUCH

Or, how we got good at gold

GOLD 63

TEXT: Chris Kabel After discovering the drunken satyr Silenius passed out in his garden and entertaining him for a few days at his palace to recover, gold-crazy King Midas received a special present in return. The satyr bestowed him with his deepest wish, the golden touch. Midas rejoiced and had soon touched his whole garden, transforming fragile roses into soft gold, their suddenly heavy heads causing the now flexible stems to bend down and fall to earth. Indeed, his joy was short-lived as he soon discovered that everything he touched turned into the cursed material.

Bread became a stale yellow brick, wine froze into solid gold and his beloved daughter became a valuable but cold and shining statue. Bereft of love and food King Midas died a poor man’s death of starvation.

One would think we would have learned from this terrible warning and curbed our craving for the glittering stuff. But alas, the opposite is true. Never before have so many surfaces shone with gold’s glistening shimmer. Entire edifices compete with the sun, winged golden sneakers defy the muddy streets and marathon runners are lauded with an ultra thin insulating golden fleece, regardless of their performance during the race, turning them into their own gold medals. Luckily we don’t need a satyr’s generosity anymore: we can acquire with the Midas touch without starving to death.

Because we have become very good at making things (appear) gold. We have found many ways to stretch out, re-create and imitate the highly coveted material. Even in King Midas’ times, the precious metal was hammered into sheets as thin as one tenth of a micron.

The ancient Egyptians covered their statues with a mixture of Arabic gum and finely powdered lead and gold.

The surface of the coated statue was then burnished to evaporate (!) the lead, leaving a gold coated surface. This technique later inspired the now famous Ormolu method, used to coat details of cast bronze, Rococo style mantle clocks

and the lion-paw legs of sideboards.

Here an amalgam of gold and mercury was used. Needless to say, neither the Egyptian nor the French craftsmen lived beyond forty. The French, aware of the dangers of mercury, invented a sort of leather snorkel before the fact, so that the craftsman applying the toxic mixture would breathe the air from behind his head. This didn’t help much though as most artisans lost both their minds and their lives. The Ormolu technique was banned after 1830 and replaced by electro plating, a less deadly but also less attractive alternative that is being used today.

The search for the Midas touch continued in the twentieth century, albeit now on an industrial scale and using cheaper substitute materials. In the 1960s a low-fi solution was found to the problem of coating a large surface evenly with liquid gold. Finely ground mica flakes or bronze powder mixed into automotive paint made it possible to cover entire cars with a golden sheen, and drum kits, fairground rides and fingernails quickly followed suit. At the same time the beauty industry started to use gold as a marketing tool; perfume and beauty products seemed much more credible and luxurious in a bottle or jar adorned with a touch of gold, much like the Ormolu decorations of the past. This touch of fake gold became possible thanks to the discovery of a technique initially used to coat large mirrors for telescopes in the 1930s. Not unlike roasting a chicken, the object to be coated is placed on a rotating spit in a sort of microwave oven. As it slowly turns, an aluminum coin is heated with a current until it starts to evaporate. The aluminum steam precipitates on the object, leaving a layer a few atoms thick. When the objects emerge from the microwave oven, they shine like chrome car parts.

Turning this silver into gold could scarcely be simpler: a transparent yellow topcoat does the trick.

And the magic doesn’t stop there: gold has detached itself from matter to become a special effect, enhancing movies like Pulp Fiction; after adjusting the numeric dials and opening the infamous

briefcase, a yellow light illuminates Vincent Vega’s face. “We happy” he says at the sight of its contents. From there into the virtual world, where a standard gold mapping texture in rendering software programs allow designers to instantly transform every virtually-created object into the once so scarce material. Albeit only on screen. And nowadays we no longer even need visual effects: the mere notion of mining cryptocurrency evokes an image of mountains of gold, just waiting for anyone fast enough to join the gold rush …

We have come a long way from the nugget to digital code. We mix solid gold with toxic metals and burn the latter away again. We beat it flat into infinitely thin veneers. We fake it. And now we trade its virtual image with the speed of light. And there we stand again, victims of the same old greed, consumed by its dazzling shine. Oblivious once again of what happened to poor King Midas a few thousand years ago.

Chris Kabel, born in 1975, is a Dutch product designer.

He has been working out of his Rotterdam studio since 2002, and his works are exhibited in institutions such as the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. He is a professor at the École Cantonale d’Art in Lausanne (ECAL) and the Design Academy in Eindhoven.

64

A global movement.

The Olympic Games – from humble beginnings to the world’s greatest spectacle

A GLOBAL MOVEMENT 65

TEXT: Martin Kaluza When it comes to sports, the sack race, tug-of-war and rope climbing are scarcely trendy. At least not today. But at one time they were Olympic disciplines.

We owe the existence of the Olympic Games to the French educationalist and Greece aficionado Baron Pierre de Coubertin. By the end of the 19th century, Classical antiquity was en vogue again. Inspired by the growing popularity of archaeology, people started to romanticize the civilization of Ancient Greece. When German archaeologists excavated the ruins of Olympia in 1875, the decision was finally made to revive the Games.

In addition to the sporting competitions, the Internatio nal Olympic Committee (IOC ) introduced artistic disciplines in 1912, awarding medals for architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. The swimmer Alfréd Hajós was one of two Olympians to win medals in both sporting and artistic disciplines. In 1896 he won gold in the 100-meter and 1,200-meter freestyle events, which were then being held offshore. Hajós had to conquer ice-cold waters and the swell of the sea, and later claimed that the instinct to survive had driven him on more than the will to win. In his hometown of Budapest, he subsequently built a swimming stadium where competitors could race without fearing for their lives, earning himself the silver medal in architecture at the Paris Olympics of 1924.

However, the Olympic Games failed to produce any artistic highlights. The juries may have been star-studded, with Béla Bartók, Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla and Igor Stravinsky among the judges in 1924, but of the mere seven musical contenders not one was deemed worthy of a medal. Unable to keep pace with the sporting competitions, the artistic disciplines were finally scrapped after the 1948 event.

In the early years the funding of the Olympics was usually kept to a bare minimum, and the venues had little chance of recouping their costs. As recently as 1948 the President of Argentina Juan Perón promised to subsidize the London Olympics by having each major landowner in his country donate a bull. In 1928 Amsterdam became the first host city to sell its film and photo rights and only allow accredited cameramen and -women. But the Games didn’t become lucrative until the 1960s, by which time almost every household had a television set. The IOC at least could cash in, as it has done since: a short while ago, the United States media company Discovery paid 1.3 billion euros to broadcast the Summer and Winter

Olympics between 2018 and 2024 – and those rights were for Europe alone.

The athletes were long denied one opportunity that we take for granted today: the chance to make money. This – quite intentionally – had led to well-off athletes predominating. By contrast, their counterparts in poor countries found it difficult to cover their costs from their day jobs. When the IOC finally allowed professionalism in 1981, it opened up the Games to all social classes – not a second too soon.

“Taking part is more important than winning.” Baron Pierre de Coubertin The majority of disciplines have stood the test of time. Fencing, cycling, swimming, athletics and artistic gymnastics have been represented every four years. By contrast, some were only granted the briefest of appearances: sports like cricket and croquet only featured once. The tug-of-war lasted for two decades at the start of the 20th century. The rules allow the occasional inclusion of new, fashionable sports, and sometimes even spark sporting trends. Spectators can thank NBC for getting beach volleyball adopted at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The company already held the American rights for broadcasting the sport and wanted to use the Games to boost its popularity. It therefore threatened to reduce its royalty payments if the Olympic Committee refused to sanction the move.

Five new sports will be represented at the 2020 Games in Tokyo: skateboarding, surfing, baseball/softball, karate and sport climbing. The wrestlers, by contrast, have had their day.

Despite being one of the most historic Olympic disciplines, it will no longer feature in Japan.

Martin Kaluza is a journalist based in Berlin. If he were rich, he says, he would sponsor a campaign to make unicycle hockey an Olympic sport.

STYLE, NOT FASHION! How a phenomenon from youth culture is turning into an Olympic sport

68 STYLE, NOT FASHION!

text: Axel Zielke fotos: Little Shao / Spin / Jhanhuan

BREAKING Originally known as b-boying and b-girling, breaking is a dance style from hip-hop culture which emerged in the Bronx during the early 1970s.

The name derives from the instrumental breaks and drum solos in sounds played by hip-hop DJs at parties and events during the period. Broadly, the dance form consists of four elements: toprock ­(upright movements), downrock (normally elements where the top of the body is touching the floor), power moves (athletically demanding elements such as headspins) and freezes (motionless poses).

ONE-ON-ONE The term one-on-one describes a contest between two dancers, analogous to a singles match in tennis. Two-on-two, three-on-three, four-on-four and even five-on-five battles are also possible in hip hop.

When first staged in 1894, the modern-era Olympic Games were viewed as a gathering of the young. It is therefore only fitting that the International Olympics Committee (IOC ) is staying young at heart by embracing so-called trend sports.

At the Tokyo Olympics of 2020, medals will be awarded for skating and freestyle BMX riding for the first time. “We can’t keep waiting for the world’s youth to come to us,” reflects IOC President Thomas Bach. “We need to reach out to them, in the urban centers.” Another sport is being tested at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires with a view to introducing it at the 2024 Olympics in Paris: breaking.

But is breaking really a sport? That question is not only causing controversy among TV audiences but on the global hip-hop scene as well. After all, together with the disciplines of rap, DJ -ing and graffiti, breaking forms the hip-hop culture spawned as a protest movement in the Bronx of the 1970s.

Kenny G from Taiwan, a finalist at the qualifier for the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires

Young black Americans there not only forged a new kind of music out of traditional blues, jazz, soul and funk, but simul­ta­ neously laid the cornerstone for a global cultural phenomenon. Today hip-hop is the world’s most popular youth culture.

While the dancers of the 1970s performed on asphalt or stray wooden planks, and DJ s tapped electricity from nearby properties so they could play on the streets, today the dancers ­appear in major competitions around the world, such as Battle of the Year, Red Bull BC One, Freestyle Session and Taipei Bboy City. And soon they will be competing at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.

Changes are unavoidable. Whereas dance performances typically involve the presentation of the dancers’ personalities, identities and styles, here the skills, sporting achievement and level of difficulty need to be isolated so that points and medals can be awarded.

Skepticism dominated on the hip-hop scene when the World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF ), the body charged by the IOC with organizing Olympic dance events, set about introducing breaking as an Olympic discipline. Nobody believed that a body with no knowledge of its long tradition and cultural codes could successfully pull it off. In March 2017 the WDSF responded to these doubts by appointing a number of hip-hop experts including Thomas Hergenröther – the founder of the world’s biggest breaking event, the Battle of the Year. Initially a consultant to the WDSF , Hergenröther has since been assigned responsibility for overall project co­ ordination.

In addition to the time pressure – the requisite qualifiers had to be completed in time for the Games in Buenos Aires – Hergenröther faced two major challenges. Firstly, he needed to reconcile the unique practices of the breaking scene with the strictly codified stipulations of the IOC . “The Olympic Games have existed for an eternity. There are extremely rigid, time-honored rules. Technology is becoming all-pervasive, sucking the energy out of the culture,” says Hergenröther.

“But the IOC wants to stage a spirited competition, so compromises are inevitable.” His work with the IOC has made great strides over time, he adds. An 80-page rulebook has already been drawn up, listing all the equipment permitted and detailing procedures for dealing with situations arising during competitions. One result: headspin caps have now been anointed an official item of sports equipment.

Secondly, it seems that the IOC originally assumed that – as in established sports – a global organization existed for breaking which the Youth Olympics could tap. That wasn’t the case. In many countries breakers have no regular training facilities, let alone experts to coach them. Ultimately ­YouTube videos are the only “training manuals” available. Moreover, there was no standardized set of rules for judges to apply at international competitions. When adjudicating bouts between

top: Freestyle battle at the Zulu 44th Beat Square 7th Anniversary in Taipei; bottom: Kid Colombia from the Netherlands at the Taipei Bboy City World Final

HEADSPIN CAP This cap is worn by breakers who perform headspins, i.e. twirl their bodies while balancing on their heads. Equipped with a nylon pad attached to the front, it reduces friction, makes spins easier and helps prevent injuries.

Dancers from BBoy Bojin’s HRC Crew

two contestants – so-called one-on-one battles – they would simply point to dancers to show which one had won a round.

And spectators had little or no idea of how and why they had reached their decisions.

So the aim was to define a scoring system that was transparent for both audiences and the dancers, one that – notwithstanding its technical criteria – had to be compatible with the values of hip-hop culture and the traditions of breaking.

Otherwise the dancers would have rejected it. To this end Hergenröther secured the services of Niels “Storm” Robitzky for his coordination team. Back in the early 1990s, this living legend of the hip-hop scene won the Battle of the Year multiple times with his Battle Squad crew. Today he serves as a judge for the leading breaking competitions and is revered as a top expert in the field of urban dance.

When drawing up the points system, Storm modelled the scoring on three linguistic disciplines from the seven liberal arts of the Classical era: grammar, logic and rhetoric – also known as the trivium. As a consequence, the judges now award points in three categories – mind, body and soul – which cover the artistic, physical and interpretative quality of a dance routine. During each round of a one-on-one battle, the judges enter their scores on a tablet. As a result, spectators can follow how individual judges are rating each dancer, and see which dancer is leading and whether a matchup is one-sided or too close to call. Storm attaches great importance to having head-to-head battles between two dancers. He also empha-

sizes that the juries should focus on coherent performance and overall impression, i. e. on style, rather than simply grading individual moves performed in a largely arbitrary sequence.

Based on this new points system, three qualifying tournaments have already been held for the 2018 Youth Olympics, with the top 90 qualifiers facing off in the final round on May 25, 2018, in Kawasaki, Japan. At this event the leading twelve exponents from a dozen different countries will be nominated for Buenos Aires. After the Games, the IOC will decide whether breaking is a viable Olympic discipline, and conceivably include it as early as the 2024 Paris Olympics. So far, Hergenröther and Storm are satisfied with the progress of their project. As a major companion event, the Youth Olympics are helping to establish breaking – and therefore contributing to the further spread of a youth culture whose main goals are fostering international exchange and authenticity. Since its emergence 40 years ago, breaking has enjoyed consistent popularity. So there is nothing to lose: “It’s the Olympics that need us,” says Storm, “not the other way around.”

Axel Zielke is a music scholar and hip-hop expert.

He runs the urban arts agency Büro A bis Z in Hamburg, where he is organizing the German qualifiers for the Taipei Bboy City World Breaking Championship in Taiwan this December.

71

Fashion, courage and compromise HARALD MARTENSTEIN

The key feature shared by all fashions is their limited duration. Unfortunately, the same also applies to our lives. They too do not last as long as we might hope although, thankfully, they endure far longer than any desire to twirl a Hula-­Hoop around our waists or tend Tamagotchis. While the length of a ­human lifetime is predictable – we are ­never granted more than 110 years – some trends successfully survive beyond their assumed maximum. As might have been expected, the small, folding bikes that business­people once rode are now a ­ra­rity. But they do still exist. Similarly, I ­in ­ itially classed snowboarding as a fad.

But it is now a sport in its own right, and there is evidence it will have plenty of fans 50 years hence.

I try to steer clear of every type of trend, partly for reasons of age. Sea­ soned ­­adults can appear faintly ridiculous when they use college slang or emoticons, even if everyone knows what they mean. What’s more, people pride themselves on not becoming fashion ­victims. Rather than being mugged by marketing campaigns, they can present themselves as remaining true to themselves. Sadly, after some consideration, I am compelled to admit that I am far from being authentic and an individualist. I simply adopt fashions that most ­others have long abandoned. So, in my own way, I too am a dedicated follower of fashion. I say “great” or “super” when I like something. Occasionally I play boules, although – unlike modern Ger-

many’s first Chancellor Konrad Adenauer – I’ve never dabbled in boccia. I wear black T-shirts and still enjoy eating fondue. I too am a slave to fashions, albeit not to the latest ones.

Being an individual is likely an impossibility. Individualism is a myth. We are always part of something; we acquiesce to trends and fashions because we want to belong. After all, our ancient ­ancestors too were gregarious. Tigers, which only meet to mate and otherwise patrol the jungle alone, could pass as credible anti-fashionistas. But they lack the intelligence to articulate their convictions, and ultimately conform to other species’ behavior patterns anyway.

They never change their stripes. And if a male decided to twitter rather than roar – a truly stunning statement of in­ dividualism – it would be spurned by poten­tial female partners. The biggest individualist I ever knew always wore a British blazer complete with a pocket square; he used snuff and joined Ger­ many’s exceptionally unfashionable Young Conservative Party during the

mid-1970s, a time when everyone else seemed to be a communist and prefer­ red the drugs popularized by rock stars.

But he was simply doing what his parents expected of him, rather than following the example of his contemporaries.

Are anti-fashionistas brave or timid? It’s impossible to generalize. It may simply be that the young lad’s parents were more intimidating than any of his peer groups. When our family went to the beach, my father always wore a hat with a zippered pouch. That was where he kept his spare change. Back then I thought that was chic. I always need coins today so I am tempted to wear one too. But I can’t muster the courage.

To me, ironically, the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld seems immune to trends. He says what he thinks, lives life as he wishes, wears a ponytail although it’s scorned as plebby, and doesn’t seem to care much what others think of him.

The clothes he designs sell well and might be described as fashionable mainstream. Maybe he doesn’t even like them. But to survive we all need to compromise.

Harald Martenstein authors the column “Martenstein” in Germany’s ZEIT magazin and is an editor at the ­Berlin-based newspaper Der ­Tagesspiegel. His most recent book is Nettsein ist auch keine Lösung: Einfache Geschichten aus einem schwierigen Land.

The next ATLAS : Aspirations

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fashion statements some come with seams, some come with hems, and others come with plackets, some look like tents with voluminous vents, and others like straitjackets. some styles delight and some offend and others signal sorrow whatever comes is just a trend there’s always a tomorrow smart, severe, retro, even cute we don them all with passion for nothing changes faster than our fickle taste for fashion

INGO NEUMAYER

Translated from the German by Mary Fran Gilbert & Keith Bartlett.

With news, views, interviews and pictures galore powered by a fascination with a world on the move.

ATLAS No. 10