Jil Sander
Encyclopedia
Heidemarie Jiline 'Jil' Sander (born 27 November 1943) is a minimalist German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 fashion designer and the founder of the Jil Sander
Jil Sander AG
Jil Sander AG is a fashion house founded by Ms. Jil Sander in Germany in 1968. Its minimalist trademarks include striking silhouettes, high-end fabrics, and meticulous detail, emphasizing quality over flash...

 fashion house.

Sander's trademark look, a contemporary, somewhat odd, New Look – originally intended for women conquering executive positions in the 1980s – was that of a precisely cut pantsuit
Pantsuit
A pantsuit or pant suit, also known as a trouser suit outside the USA, is a woman's suit of clothing consisting of trousers and a matching or coordinating coat or jacket....

, a slim blouse
Blouse
A blouse is a loose-fitting upper garment that was formerly worn by workmen, peasants, artists, women and children. It is typically gathered at the waist so that it hangs loosely over the wearer's body. Today, the word most commonly refers to a woman's shirt but can also refer to a man's shirt if...

 and a form-fitting coat
Coat (clothing)
A coat is a long garment worn by both men and women, for warmth or fashion. Coats typically have long sleeves and are open down the front, closing by means of buttons, zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners, toggles, a belt, or a combination of some of these...

 made of luxurious fabrics in plain grey, beige, blue, black or white. Jil Sander enjoyed almost cult-like followings for her fashions that could all be easily coordinated and have always ranged in the top price segment. For her single-minded focus on understated
Understatement
Understatement is a form of speech which contains an expression of less strength than what would be expected. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression....

 elegance, high-end materials and refined tailoring, Sander has been described as the Queen of Less, Cashmere-Queen, Master of Minimalism, Cool Blonde, Gentle-Jil or Fashion Reductionist.

Sander's eponymous fashion label still exists today but has been carried on without her involvement since 2004. In early 2009, Sander, after years of absence from the world of fashion, announced the creation of her own fashion consultancy, and her employment by Uniqlo
UNIQLO
is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.The company was originally a division of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.. On November 1, 2005, it was restructured as a separate wholly owned subsidiary called Uniqlo Co., Ltd. , which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock...

 of Japan.

Background

Jil Sander, born in Wesselburen
Wesselburen
Wesselburen is a municipality in the district of Dithmarschen in the German Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein. It is situated near the North Sea coast, approximately 11 km west of Heide....

, Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

, grew up with her mother and later studied textile design in Krefeld
Krefeld
Krefeld , also known as Crefeld until 1929, is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its centre lying just a few kilometres to the west of the River Rhine; the borough of Uerdingen is situated directly on the Rhine...

 from where she graduated as a textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

 engineer in 1963. Having spent two years as an exchange student
Student exchange program
A student exchange program generally could be defined as a program where students from secondary school or university choose to study abroad in partner institutions...

 at University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

, she worked as a fashion editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 at German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 women's magazine Petra before opening her first boutique
Boutique
A boutique is a small shopping outlet, especially one that specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing and jewelry. The word is French for "shop", via Latin from Greek ἀποθήκη , "storehouse"....

 in a Hamburg suburb in 1967, at age 24. She started out selling fashion designed by Thierry Mugler
Thierry Mugler
Thierry Mugler is a French fashion designer and creator of several perfumes.-Childhood:Mugler was born in Strasbourg, France on 21 December 1948. His passion led him to focus more on drawing than on school and at the age of 9, he began to study classical dance...

 or Sonia Rykiel
Sonia Rykiel
Sonia Rykiel née Flis is a French fashion designer.Ethnically a Polish-Romanian Jew, Sonia Rykiel was born in Neuilly a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France, the eldest of five daughters of a Polish mother and a Romanian father. At the age of 17, she was employed to dress the window...

 and also a few of her own designs. And, with few ups and downs, she founded her eponymous fashion house, Jil Sander GmbH in 1968.

Showing her collection in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1975 proved a complete failure, though. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the fashion world was dominated by lavish, colorful and glitzy Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...

-style designs by the likes of Claude Montana
Claude Montana
Claude Montana is a French fashion designer. His company, The House of Montana, founded in 1979, went bankrupt in 1997.Born in Paris in 1949 to a Catalonian father and German mother, Montana began his career by designing papier-mâché jewelry covered with rhinestones...

 with his broad-shouldered leather look, Jil Sander's minimalist collections, with a focus on fabric quality came close to a revolution in the fashion world and were not accepted next to the Parisian catwalks. Her style only started gaining attention in the 1990s.

Success and expansion

Since 1978, Sander marketed her first perfume
Perfume
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and/or aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces "a pleasant scent"...

 prominently featuring her countenance. The owner of Lancaster Cosmetics allowed her financially to run ads in glamorous magazines on a large scale for her fashion. The fact that her creations were coordinates which could all be easily combined with each other became a popular characteristic. Sander created the so-called onion look (German: 'Zwiebel-Look') layering various pieces of clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

 in one outfit. Later, licenses would be given for eyewear and leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

 accessory lines. In the 1980s, Sander's collections were first shown in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 to tackle the international markets more efficiently. As a result, sales were steadily increasing. More fragrances were added to the cosmetics line. The label's luxurious minimalism was a hit in the later 1990s.

Jil Sander AG went public in 1989 and was sold to shareholders on the Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

 stock exchange
Stock exchange
A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...

 among the first fashion houses to venture on such a step. Sander used the new capital to expand in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. Her success overseas resulted in expensively furnished flagship stores
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

 in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, and Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

 among a number of others. Michael Gabellini
Michael Gabellini
Michael Gabellini is a renowned minimalist architect and interior designer. He has won the progressive architecture award as well as awards from the American Institute of Architects and three Decade of Design Awards from the International Interior Design Association.In 1991 he established...

 was commissioned to design the showrooms as well as office spaces in Hamburg. Sander personally oversaw the design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

 of her stores and strict guidelines were implemented for the sales staff on how to behave and where to stand in the boutiques. At the Paris store, opened in 1993, the Jil Sander collections could be shown on more than 9000 square feet (836.1 m²) and four floors. The space at 52 Avenue Montaigne in Paris used to be French fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet
Madeleine Vionnet
This article is about the haute couture designer. For the fashion label, see Vionnet Madeleine Vionnet was a French fashion designer...

's atelier and showroom, a designer whose work has influenced Sander's. In 1998 Jil Sander and German sportswear house Puma
PUMA AG
Puma SE, officially branded as PUMA, is a major German multinational company that produces high-end athletic shoes, lifestyle footwear and other sportswear. Formed in 1924 as Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik by Adolf and Rudolf Dassler, relationships between the two brothers deteriorated until the two...

 jointly launched a successful sneakers collection.

New ownership

Jil Sander's success continued into the mid-1990s. Her company survived the economic crisis in Asia. She found success with a newly launched men’s collection that had been postponed several times before in 1997 and was described as "precision-cut with an emphasis upon light fabrics." A desire with Sander to concentrate more on the creative design rather than the business, resulted in much praise and acclaim from the critics. Nevertheless, Jil needed a financially strong partner realizing that her company was steadily growing. Jil Sander AG was no longer a small privately owned business.

In 1999 Prada Group
Prada
Prada S.p.A. is an Italian fashion label specializing in luxury goods for men and women , founded by Mario Prada.-Foundations:...

 bought a 75% share
Share (finance)
A joint stock company divides its capital into units of equal denomination. Each unit is called a share. These units are offered for sale to raise capital. This is termed as issuing shares. A person who buys share/shares of the company is called a shareholder, and by acquiring share or shares in...

 in her company. Sander remained creative designer and became chairwoman in the new joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

. Six months later, in January 2000, Sander unexpectedly resigned abruptly as chairwoman and shortly thereafter as chief designer after confrontations with Prada CEO Patrizio Bertelli. An uncompromising perfectionist, Sander had refused to use cheaper fabrics and to bring the traditionally slim fits in line with standard sizes, as demanded by Bertelli in the context of drastic cost cuts and a more affordable mainstream approach. Bertelli also insisted on giving up the contributary workshops in Germany in favor of the shops in Italy owned by Prada. Thus, for the first time in many years, Sander was able to indulge in extensive travelling, sailing, going to the opera and taking care of her gardens after her resignation
Resignation
A resignation is the formal act of giving up or quitting one's office or position. It can also refer to the act of admitting defeat in a game like chess, indicated by the resigning player declaring "I resign", turning his king on its side, extending his hand, or stopping the chess clock...

 but the fashion house floundered both creatively and financially without Sander. Nearly all the design and production staff left after her departure. For 2001, the Jil Sander Group reported a net loss of $9.4 million, its first ever. The brand lost 26 million euros (about $30.4 million) in 2002 on flat sales, in part because of the costs of adding retail stores in London and in New York.

Comeback and abandonment

Sander returned to the company as head designer and partner in a surprise decision in May 2003, after her noncompete clause had expired. Officially, Bertelli "approached Ms. Sander and began negotiating a truce". Bertelli had, with regard to Sander's departure in 2000, boldly stated before: "A brand as strong as Jil Sander doesn't need to rely on the name of a designer". She was rehired under a six-year consulting contract and also received an undisclosed stake in the company and a seat on Prada's strategic committee. With much anticipation from the public and press, the designer showcased her signature staple pieces, this time with strokes of color (sherbet-hued dresses, white jackets painted with blue streaks) and flourish (fringed separates, sequined numbers). Sander's return was celebrated unanimously by the international press. Sander's designs, bearing the Jil Sander signature with a more feminine look, were a hit with both customers and critics. Designing two collections which were both showcased in Milan, Sander altered Prada-appointed designer Milan Vukmirovic’s existing sketches
Sketch (drawing)
A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work...

 for the men’s collection, redesigned some of the boutiques and audited the books
Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions. Transactions include sales, purchases, income, receipts and payments by an individual or organization. Bookkeeping is usually performed by a bookkeeper. Bookkeeping should not be confused with accounting. The accounting process is usually...

 herself.

However, in November 2004, Sander terminated cooperation with Prada for good and resigned from her post again after insurmountable differences with Mr. Bertelli. Prada announced in an official statement that "the decision by Patrizio Bertelli [...] and Ms. Sander to end her involvement in the company was amicable." Sander subsequently withdrew from the fashion world.

Uniqlo

On March 17, 2009 Sander announced the creation of her own fashion consultancy. The new company's first client was Fast Retailing
Fast Retailing
is a Japanese retail holding company. In addition to its primary subsidiary Uniqlo, it owns several other brands, including Aspesi, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Foot Park, g.u., Princess Tam-Tam and National Standard....

 of Japan with its Uniqlo
UNIQLO
is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.The company was originally a division of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.. On November 1, 2005, it was restructured as a separate wholly owned subsidiary called Uniqlo Co., Ltd. , which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock...

 label for whom Sander is overseeing the design of womenswear and menswear collections called +J. The first collection for the 2009-10 Autumn/Winter season was launched worldwide on October 1, 2009 consisting of "about 40 pieces for men and 100 for women, including coats, jackets, knitwear, T-shirts and accessories" featuring the minimalist aesthetic and demure colors typical of Jil Sander.

The second line of +J designed for Spring and Summer wear, was launched on December 23, 2009 throughout Asia including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China and on January 7, 2010 in the London stores. It is to be launched in Uniqlo's sole US store in New York city on January 14, 2010. This collection will see more retail drops during the Spring and Summer seasons.

After a successful run of 3 years, Jil Sander and Uniqlo's parent company, Fast Retailing, announced that the partnership agreement will not be renewed at the end of 2011, thus marking the end of +J. The last collection from the collaborative label will be for the Fall/Winter 2011 season. The split between the parties is said to be mutual.

Recognition

Jil Sander was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz
Bundesverdienstkreuz
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has existed since 7 September 1951, and between 3,000 and 5,200 awards are given every year across all classes...

 by the Federal Republic of Germany for her achievements in the fashion industry.

Pictures of Jil Sander


Sources


External links

  • Jil Sander (company) official website
  • Jil Sander collection at Uniqlo
    UNIQLO
    is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.The company was originally a division of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.. On November 1, 2005, it was restructured as a separate wholly owned subsidiary called Uniqlo Co., Ltd. , which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock...

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