Hugo Boss Fights Its Nazi Past With Combination Of Fashion... AndÂ Love
In 2011 German fashion firm Hugo Boss AG apologized for its maltreatment of forced workers during World War II when it supplied the Nazis with uniforms.Â  Hugo Boss hoped its apology would bury its sordid past, but it only called more attention to it.Â  Now Hugo Boss seeks renewal and redemption through what it knows best: fashion.Â   In a new Hugo Boss line of apparel dubbed âHeil Lieben!â (or âHeil Love!â), the Teutonic apparel titan leverages its bold WWII-era designs while recasting them for a different age. Still evident in the Heil Love! line are the rakish lines and menacing dark colors of the SS and Gestapo uniforms.Â  In Hugo Bossâ early years, these uniforms were the pride of Germany and their essence remains.Â  Gone, however, are swastikas, iron crosses and black eagles.Â  These have been replaced by the universal symbol of love: a heart. Claus-Dietrich Lahrs,Â CEOÂ of theÂ Hugo BossÂ AG, personally conceived of and directed production of Heil Love.Â  Lahrs openly admits that his primary objective was to improve the German apparel giantâs image. Â A 2011 book â Hugo Boss, 1924-1945 â detailed the companyâs collaboration with the Nazi government and created the companyâs current PR problems.Â  In fact, the book describes how Herr Hugo Boss himself was an ardent Nazi and how Nazi Party support of the fledgling design house kept it afloat.Â  Most alarming, Hugo Boss profited from slave labor during WWII.Â  Its factory used 140 Polish and 40 French forced workers. Today, Lahrs hopes to recast the company.Â  âJust like Germany herself, Hugo Boss has been reborn,â said Lahrs.Â  âIf one zeitgeist prevails in our company, it is love.â The fashion press has responded to Heil Love! with some adulation but also some skepticism.Â  âThere is no denying that some of these Nazi uniforms had sex appeal,â said New York Times fashion critic Brenda Holmes.Â  âIf I were a peasant girl in a small Polish village, I can only imagine how these SS officers must have look bursting through the front door,â she said.Â  Holmes believes Boss has successfully melded âold military flairâ with âmodern amenities.â Ted Hornyn was less adulatory.