PETTICOAT & FLOWERPOWER

First it was fun, then it became passion – the mid-century fashion has lost none of its fascination: Bobbing petticoats and ponytails or brightly coloured miniskirts and flashy polyester, sometimes sweet, sometimes shrill, sometimes elegant, sometimes daring.

Over time, my wife and I have accumulated a collection of about 150 outfits from the early 1920s to the 70s. So it made sense to use them for a vintage photo shoot.t the beginning, there was research.

Not only did I need the matching dresses and accessories, but also the appropriate make-up. But the right models also had to be found. Because I was using original dresses, the models had to be chosen not only according to their appearance but above all according to their figure. Zero size was not an issue. Instead,

I was looking for a variety of figures – petit and tall, slim and curvy. So we did several castings and fittings to find the right women who matched the look, dresses and attitude of my project.

Of course, the right locations had to be found. Here, ironically, I was helped by the fact that Würzburg was completely destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in the 1950s.

So, I could fall back on many original locations and even my photo studio at the time was still originally furnished with a bar, except for the modern photo technology.

To create the right atmosphere for some images, I used my analogue camera and then scanned the images. This gave the pictures a slight vintage touch.

Despite all the preparations, the hardest thing was to create the right atmosphere. I searched in old books for inspirations that could help me.

Contemporary witnesses also helped me, such as the rubble women who had cleared the city of rubble after the war.

And Ilse Schiborr, who was a top model in Würzburg in the 1950s and 1960s and who gave me advice, as did my mother, who had worked as a clothes saleswoman in those decades.

What emerged was a journey back in time to the buoyant era of the German economic miracle with its Fräuleins.

Soon this passion about the mid-century time turned serious: when the State of Bavaria held an exhibition in Würzburg about the post-war period and reconstruction of Germany, my pictures were exhibited as part of the supporting programme.

We organized the opening as show with a catwalk where the models wore the dresses that were also in the images.

It was a success.

So I did a couple of vintage images, combining the models with classic cars or taking a location in an amusement park. I was booked for several opportunities, including press conferences or performances. Many of my images were printed in media, radio, and TV reported on my exhibitions.