Hastur wrote:Hanarchy Montanarchy wrote:We need to abandon these decadent US fashion designers in favor of a proper, European menswear designer like Hugo Boss.
Slick, Hugo, very zazzy.
Not again.
We've already been through this once on the DCF. Hugo Boss didn't design any uniforms. They were just one of many small clothing manufacturers supplying uniforms for the German army.
Ummm... Looks like you might be wrong on that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss
In 1923, Hugo Boss founded his own clothing company in Metzingen, a small town south of Stuttgart, where it is still based. In 1924 he started a factory along with two partners. The company produced shirts, jackets, work clothing, sportswear and raincoats. Due to the economic climate of Germany at the time, Boss was forced into bankruptcy. In 1931, he reached an agreement with his creditors, leaving him with six sewing machines to start again.[2]
That same year, he became a member of the Nazi Party, receiving the membership number 508,889, and a sponsoring member ("Förderndes Mitglied") of the Schutzstaffel (SS). He also joined the German Labour Front in 1936, the Reich Air Protection Association in 1939, and the National Socialist People's Welfare in 1941.[citation needed] After joining these organizations, his sales increased from 38,260 RM ($26,993 U.S. dollars in 1932) to over 3,300,000 RM in 1941.[citation needed] His profits also increased in the same time period from 5,000 RM to 241,000 RM.[citation needed] Though he claimed in a 1934–35 advertisement that he had been a "supplier for National Socialist uniforms since 1924", it is probable that he did not begin to supply them until 1928 at the earliest.[citation needed] This is the year he became a Reichszeugmeisterei-licensed supplier of uniforms to the Sturmabteilung (SA), Schutzstaffel, Hitler Youth, National Socialist Motor Corps, and other party organizations.[citation needed]
By the third quarter of 1932, the all-black SS uniform was designed by SS members Karl Diebitsch (artist) and Walter Heck (graphic designer). The Hugo Boss company was also one of the companies that produced these black uniforms for the SS. By 1938 the firm was focused on producing Wehrmacht uniforms and later also uniforms for the Waffen-SS.[3]
During the Second World War Hugo Boss employed 140 forced laborers, the majority of them women. In addition to these workers 40 French prisoners of war also worked for the company briefly between October 1940 - April 1941. According to German historian Henning Kober, the company managers were fervent National Socialists who were all great admirers of Adolf Hitler. In 1945 Hugo Boss had a photograph in his apartment of him with Hitler, taken at the Berghof, Hitler's Obersalzberg retreat.[4] [3]