“I was an esthete as a child,” said designer Uli Richter. He shaped post-war Germany – with fashion and style.
Berlin – If women like Rut Brandt, Hildegard Knef and Monaco’s Princess Gracia Patricia looked really chic, it was also thanks to a man: Uli Richter. He was one of the most important designers in post-war Germany.
On his 90th birthday in December 2016, the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts honored him with an exhibition. It showed what Richter was: “Fashion thinker, teacher, inspiration”. Richter died on Thursday at the age of 94, as his longtime lawyer announced on Friday, referring to Richter’s closest circle.
Started as a textile merchant
“I was an esthete as a child,” Richter once said. After a sheltered childhood in Potsdam, he began training in a drugstore. Then he was called up for military service and for health reasons could not continue his apprenticeship after the war. He became a textile merchant and in 1949 designed his first model dress as a volunteer at “Horn”: “Marcelle” became a bestseller.
Richter later became an entrepreneur and shaped Berlin as a fashion metropolis for years. His archive, which is kept by the state museums, is huge. These include more than 650 model dresses, coats, costumes and accessories as well as 11,000 collection drawings. A tomato-red evening dress, for example, a design of radical simplicity, is typical of his sporty, elegant style. In a picture for the Berlin exhibition, a lady wears a skirt and cape in a houndstooth pattern.
Alternative to haute couture
Richter was the first German designer to opt for a cheaper line (prêt-à-porter) in 1962. “Haute couture was getting more and more expensive, I wanted normal women to be able to pay for my fashion too,” the Berliner Zeitung quoted him as saying.
Richter traveled internationally: he regularly traveled to the shows in Paris. He had a long friendship with the designer Hubert de Givenchy. At the 1970 World Exhibition in Japan, he dressed the hostesses for the German pavilion.
After more than 30 years, he gave up his company in 1982 and later looked after important customers as a privateer. Allegedly there was a customer who filled 38 cupboards with his collections.
He inspired the next generation
At today’s University of the Arts in Berlin, Richter shaped young creative people. In his seminars he worked with the photographer FC Gundlach. For the exhibition on his 90th birthday, Nobi Talai, Michael Sontag, William Fan and Philomena Zanetti were inspired by Richter. Names that are known today from the Berlin fashion week.
After a visit to Richter’s Grunewald villa, the “Berliner Morgenpost” wrote the following advice: “Everyone should – as the famous Coco Chanel once said – stand in front of the mirror once a day and ask themselves: What kind of guy am I? How do I want to look? As much as possible? Or do I care whether I look sloppy or sloppy? ”Dpa
