Sibylle magazine, founded in 1956 and named after the first editor-in-chief, Sibylle Gerstner, is celebrated in a traveling exhibition that is currently showing at the Willy Brandt Haus in Berlin until August 25, 2019. The focus is on 13 influential photographers who have shaped the magazine, including Sibylle Bergemann, Arno Fischer and Ute Mahler.
Showcasing East Germany's best photographers
When working for Sibylle in the 1960s, Arno Fischer brought the models out of the studios and onto the streets of Berlin.
But Sibylle Bergemann, who later co-founded the Ostkreuz photographers agency, put her stamp on the magazine in the 1980s with her staunch aesthetic and sometimes melancholy images, such as one of a woman with a long black dress in front of a chalk-painted wall.
Another longtime Sibylle photographer on show is Ute Mahler, whose pictures worked with individual aesthetics.
"It was about style, taste and encouraging individuality," Mahler remembers, adding that the country's best photographers worked for the magazine over the years, well-known for their signature portraits, reports, essay series and landscape photography.
Lounging in a cafe in Budapest in 1974
DIY fashion
Instead of posing between lions and elephants in faraway countries, the models would present East German fashion at subway stations, in pubs or at work, both in the GDR and locations in Eastern European states.
The fashion was not for sale, however; Sibylle provided patterns allowing women to sew the blouses, skirts and dresses.
With 40 pages filled with fashion, travel stories, portraits of artists and other culture events with a special focus on young people, from 1956 to 1995, Sibylle hit the newsstandsevery two months. In its heyday, the magazine's circulation topped 200,000 copies, contributing significantly to the image of women in East Germany at the time, as well as reflecting social conditions in the communist country.
Censorship creeps in
By the mid-60s, the governing Socialist Unity Party of Germany blamed the country's weak economic performance on enemy ideology, spelling an end to the tolerant attitude toward a magazine seen as the mouthpiece of the country's more rebellious youth. Women were presented wearing worker-style fashion in shiny, bright colors designed to symbolize a healthy economy in the socialist country that described itself as the workers' and peasants' state.
The East German working woman was featured in many articles over the years
In the early 1980s, the GDR's economic and political stagnation led to a time of social change. The magazine began showcasing ambitious artistic photography with a less conventional focus, giving readers a respite from their everyday lives.
The last issue in 1989, a time of major upheaval in East Germany that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall, marked a turning point. The series, entitled "Handschriften" (hand writing), showed fashion by East German designers who had just presented their collections at a fair on the other side of the Wall, in West Berlin — symbolically placing the models in front of crumbling old walls.
A West German company bought Sibylle, which secured the magazine's existence for a while without, however, building on the success it once had in East Germany. The magazine finally folded for financial reasons in early 1995.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
The Trabi — as popular as ever
It was the dream of many East Germans, and the butt of many jokes in the West: The Trabant, or Trabi for short. Trabis were the most popular cars in the GDR, and today they have fans all over Germany and beyond. Hundreds of them gathered at the 25th International Trabi Meeting in the eastern German town of Anklam.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
Crazy competitions
More than 800 cars from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Norway were registered to participate in the five-day convention that ends on Sunday. On the list of events: Engine throwing and pulling a Trabant through an obstacle course. The car's name means "satellite" or "companion" in German.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
Cheers to the Trabi!
But not everyone sought such strenuous activities, like these gentlemen celebrating Father's Day in retro suits. In the former GDR, receiving a Trabi was a reason to celebrate as well. If you wanted a car in the country where supply of pretty much anything was chronically tight, you had to sign up on a list and be patient. A waiting-time of more than ten years wasn't unusual.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
'Spark plug with a roof'
Trabi enthusiasts take good care of their cars, like this Trabant 600. And original owners in the former GDR also had to treat their automobiles with kid gloves. Spare parts were extremely hard to come by and construction quality was poor, with the body of the car made of duroplast, a hard plastic made from recycled cotton waste.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
Don't forget to fill up!
When you finally received your Trabant, you couldn't drive around as carefree as these guys at the Anklam convention. You had to keep track of how much gas was still in the tank — regular Trabis didn't have a fuel gauge. The only sign that the car was running out of fuel was when the engine started sputtering. That was the driver's cue to find a gas station, and fast.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
Versatile vehicle
The meeting in Anklam isn't just host to regular Trabis. The iconic car was turned into this firefighter version by Trabant enthusiasts themselves. No word on whether it has ever been used in an actual emergency.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
April fools'
The convention isn't the only place you can spot unusual Trabis. On April 1, 2018, police in the eastern-German city of Görlitz presented this Trabant 601 as part of their new fleet. Excited Trabant fans, however, were soon disappointed when it turned out the cute crime fighter was nothing but an April Fools' joke.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
Exotic colors
This Trabi convertible on the other hand is real. What would you call the color — Panama-green or Capri-green perhaps? While the Trabant was built in the GDR, which famously restricted where its residents could travel, the names of the nuances it came in were rather exotic. In addition to the greens, you could also get the car in Bali-yellow or Persian-orange, for example.
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Trabant Meeting: Celebrating East Germany's iconic vehicle
Luxury Trabi
The Trabant wasn't exactly known for its comfort. Passengers in the backseat had very little room. That's different in this deluxe version. For friends of the cult car, it's the best of both worlds: They can revel in nostalgia while also stretching out their legs. A Trabi dream come true!
Author: Carla Bleiker
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https://www.dw.com/en/rediscover-east-germanys-top-fashion-magazine-sibylle/a-49195075
2019-06-14 10:15:46Z
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