Film stars like Romy Schneider loved his creations. But German fashion designer Heinz Oestergaard didn't just dress high society. Along with clothes for the average woman, he also designed uniforms for the German police.
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Heinz Oestergaard: High fashion to affordable design
Everyone has a right to be fashionable - this was the motto of Heinz Oestergaard, the couturier born 100 years ago. He not only dressed film stars like Romy Schneider, but also post-war German women and the police.
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Fashion for the Trümmerfrauen
When Oestergaard returned home from Soviet captivity in 1946, Berlin was in ruins. Along with the men, the so-called "ruins women" rebuilt the city. "I wanted to design for these women - create something beautiful," Oestergaard said later in an interview. For his first creations, he processed old army uniforms or curtains until he finally could afford new fabrics.
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Elegant and feminine
His first customers: prostitutes. Only they had the opportunity and courage to cause a stir, according to Oestergaard - and, of course, the disposable income. Oestergaard was one of the first fashion designers to work with new synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester, creating elegant contours like those seen here in his 1963/1964 collection.
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Couturier to the stars
Thanks to his unusual creations, Oestergaard soon made a name for himself in Berlin's high society. Romy Schneider (above, center), Maria Schell, Hildegard Knef and many other movie stars of the postwar period came to his studio, housed in a grand villa in the Grunewald district.
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Fashion for the average woman
But Oestergaard didn't only want to dress the elite - he believed every woman had a right to chic fashion. From 1967 on he began working for the mail-order company Quelle. Though his choice was ridiculed by many, Oestergaard's nearly 20-year cooperation with company boss Grete Schickedanz (photo, left) turned out to be very successful.
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Tirelessly creative
From 1967, Oestergaard was based in Munich but kept his fashion house under the name Studio for Creative Design, where he continued designing unique haute couture. Here, he can be seen with TV presenter and model Petra Schürmann, who was trying on a black and white summer dress with a short jacket from the spring-summer collection "black lilies" from 1970.
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Redesigning the police
In the early 1970s, a young policeman from Baden-Württemberg thought it was time for new uniforms. The old style was militaristic and far too varied - there were 120 different models. And so, after the policeman collected 5,000 signatures to support his cause, it was up to Oestergaard to design new uniforms. Various designs, practical and wrinkle-free, are seen here. Some are still worn today.
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Functional design
Previously, Oestergaard had designed the bright orange jumpsuits for the German ADAC motoring club. They were functional and without buttons, so that a car's paintjob wouldn't be scratched when employees had to bend over the hood for repairs.
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Versatile artist
Heinz Oestergaard stayed creative, even in old age. Although he retired from the fashion business in the mid-1980s, he would later take up the art of glassblowing and also designed furniture, vases and carpets. On May 10, 2003, Oestergard died at the age of 86 in a retirement home in the Bavarian city of Bad Reichenhall.
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What would have happened, had Heinz Oestergaard followed his father's wishes and carried on with the family business publishing schoolbooks?
Actress Romy Schneider and singer Zarah Leander would certainly have found other designers for their gowns, and the mail-order business Quelle would have found another couturier for its creations - but where would the German police be without their classic moss green-mustard yellow uniforms? Oestergaard, born in Berlin on August 15, 1916, was the man behind all that, and seen as the most influential German fashion designer of the postwar period.
Oestergaard showed an early interest in fashion, often telling his mother, with little tact: "Mommy, what you're wearing today looks hideous." After an apprenticeship as a draper, Oestergaard attended art school in Berlin and studied under graphic artist Otto Arpke. He began his career at the Erich Vogel fashion house in 1938.
Style for the masses
Oestergaard's police uniforms were considered practical, authoritative and instantly recognizableImage: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Hoffmann
After the war, Oestergaard revolutionized the sedate world of German fashion with his unique designs, making use of the then new synthetic fabrics like nylon and polyester.
From 1967 to 1985, he would be responsible for the women's fashion produced for the mail-order business Quelle.
But he continued his work in haute couture with his own fashion house, Studio for Creative Design, first in Berlin and then in Munich.
But Oestergaard also helped transform the world of workwear, designing uniforms for Mercedes truck drivers and ADAC road service employees. Perhaps his most famous work was the distinctive green-yellow uniform for the German police, which he developed in the early 1970s. He designed the uniform with the officers in mind, ensuring that the clothes were practical, authoritative, instantly recognizable - and even sexy.
In the mid-1980s, Oestergaard left the world of fashion behind but continued to be creative, painting, blowing glass and designing carpets and furniture. He died at the age of 86 on May 10, 2003.