A reserved woman with blonde curls and blue eyes, dressed in black, white, beige and blue, gave women a new uniform: Jil Sander stands for simplicity instead of kitsch and proclaims functional instead of skin-tight. Here is everything you need to know about the Hamburg fashion designer.
The first steps
Heidemarie Jiline Sander was born on 27. November in a small community north of Hamburg. Her mother divorces at an early age, which is why she grows up with close ties not only to her family, but also to her stepfather. After graduating from high school in Hamburg, she embarks on a journey towards her dream career: fashion design…
The career
After leaving school, the reserved Jil decided to study textile engineering, spending a semester abroad at University College in Los Angeles at the age of 18. Fly back to Germany even though she likes the States so much? Sander prefers to stay there! After graduating, she worked in New York City for some time at the women’s magazine “McCall’s”, finally moving back to Germany in 1963, where she also worked as a fashion editor for magazines such as Constanze and Petra. She can never part with design and therefore decides to set up her own company and bring a breath of fresh air into the fashion world: “There is too much of everything. What is missing are visions and a self-evident modernity. The decisive factor in fashion is whether you feel comfortable in it”!
On your own two feet
1967 is the year: Jil Sander sells her car and takes out a loan worth DM 200,000 to finally open her own fashion boutique. Heidi or Heidemarie Sander? Sounds far too sweet and innocent for the young woman from Hamburg. The name Jil Sander quickly makes it clear: it’s all about strength and clarity in the form of androgynous and elegant fashion, made from high-quality, luxurious fabrics with a functional cut. The only problem is the right time: simply and practically in the 1980s? The fashion world tends to show pompous dresses and flashy patterns…
For Sander, there is too much of everything on the catwalks. After launching fragrances and skincare ranges together with the beauty brand Lancaster in 1979, she presented her purist and elegant fashions at the Milan fashion shows in 1981, where she met predominantly Italian and Asian buyers: the heyday of Jil Sander as a brand began!
Although Jil Sander is rather modest and reserved, she does not like to be alone. As soon as she can work with her team, she feels at ease. She is obsessed with control and spends days and nights in the studio; every fabric and every piece has to be brought from Italy to Hamburg and inspected by Jil. In addition to the fashion capitals, she spent her life in the Hamburg district of Rotherbaum, moving to Plön with her partner Angelica “Dickie” Mommsen in 1984, while at the same time teaching fashion design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna until 1985.
Jil Sander embodies a philosophy that puts an end to the cliché of the perfect 60s woman and instead stands for a gender-neutral, strong wearer image: “For me, modern is a fashion in which the individual finds her strengths”. It’s not about dressing like a man, but about showing personality and being able to assert yourself as a woman even in an elegant dress – so why should she dress up and bend?
The final steps
After years of designing elegant clothing for women in management positions and also designing menswear since 1997, Jil Sander withdrew from the fashion world several times. In 1999, she sold the company to the Italian group Prada and finally gave up her post in 2000. Prada boss Patrizio Bertelli and Sander simply don’t get on. Three years later, she took over responsibility for design at the company for a year, before withdrawing again due to disputes with the Prada boss.
While Raf Simons is now taking on the role of Creative Director at Jil Sander, Jil is designing garments for the Japanese brand Uniqlo under the +J line until 2011 after a five-year fashion break. The collection is affordable and typical Jil Sander: clever cuts with room to move and elegance at the same time and so good that it even wins the Brit Insurance Design Award in the Fashion category. In the meantime, Prada sells Jil Sander to the Japanese company Onward Holdings Co., so it is time for Jil to return to her fashion house in 2012 and present her last collection in the same year.
At the end of the same year, she said goodbye to the hustle and bustle of fashion for family reasons, as her partner Mommsen fell ill with cancer and died as a result of the disease in 2014. Since then, Sander has lived alone in Plön and has also lived in her residences in Berlin and Ibiza.
