Hugo Boss Fights Its Nazi Past By Blending Fashion And Love
Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 5:39PM 
METZINGEN, GERMAN -- In 2011 German fashion firm Hugo Boss AG apologized for its maltreatment of forced workers during World War II when it supplied the Nazi regime with military uniforms. Hugo Boss hoped its apology would bury its sordid past, but it only called more attention to it. Now Hugo Boss seeks renewal and redemption using what it knows best: fashion.
In a new Hugo Boss line of apparel dubbed “Heil Lieben!” (or “Heil Love!”), 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. In Hugo Boss’ early years, these uniforms were the pride of Germany. Their essence remains. Gone, however, are swastikas, iron crosses, black eagles and other icons of Nazism. These have been replaced by the universal symbol of love: a heart.
Claus-Dietrich Lahrs, CEO of the Hugo Boss AG, personally conceived of and directed production of Heil Love. Lahrs openly admits that his primary objective was to improve the German apparel giant’s image. A 2011 book – Hugo Boss, 1924-1945 – detailed the company’s collaboration with the Nazi government and created the company’s current PR problems. In fact, the book describes how Herr Hugo Boss himself was an ardent Nazi and how Nazi support of the fledgling design house kept it afloat. Most alarming, Hugo Boss profited from slave labor during WWII. Its factory used 140 Polish and 40 French forced workers.
“If one zeitgeist prevails in our company, it is love.”
Today, Lahrs hopes to recast the company. “Just like Germany herself, Hugo Boss has been reborn,” said Lahrs. “If one zeitgeist prevails in our company, it is love.”
The fashion press has responded to Heil Love! with adulation but also skepticism. “There is no denying that some of these Nazi uniforms had sex appeal,” said New York Times fashion critic Brenda Holmes. “If 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,” she said. (Holmes later clarified her statement by noting she would never want to be sexually assaulted by a soldier but was focuing on the uniform itself.) Holmes believes Boss has successfully melded “old military flair” with “modern amenities.”
Ted Hornyn was less adulatory.
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