Hitler’s darling during World War II and who shot one shallow romantic comedy after another during the Nazi dictatorship? What kind of fashion did she adapt to and which role models did she have?
In the press statements from the text accompanying the exhibition, Jenny Jugo is consistently portrayed as an enchantingly natural, funny, endearing and innocent person – which probably made her exactly what the German people was still able to bear under Hitler: an ideal, untroubled character. A delicate, dark-haired woman with “petite” lips and big eyes, yet still not beautiful enough to make men afraid of her. Thus, one could summarize her appearance as “cute”. While Marlene Dietrich indignantly turned all the tempting offers from Nazi Germany down, Jenny Jugo gladly accepted them and freely started her career. During the contract negotiations with Ufa, she was able to put through that all film costumes would become her property as soon as shooting was finished.
The garments displayed in the exhibition are from the 1930s and 1940s – the time during which Jenny Jugo performed on the screen – with the exception of one piece that has been dated to the 1950s. Seen from today’s perspective, it doesn’t seem to be exceptional that an actress is allowed to keep her costumes after shooting has been finished. Yet the 1930s were an especially glamourous and important time for film costumes: Film influenced fashion. Women and men were geared to the fashion they had just seen in the latest feature films. Never again would film costumes become more elaborately designed, and never again would they gain more significance. Maybe this was a result of the silent film period during which elaborate costumes instead of gripping dialogues impressed spectators. The big film production companies hired couturiers for the stars and their film costumes. Almost every piece was tailor-made. A single costume worn by a star on the screen could trigger a new trend throughout Europe and the USA. Frequently, costumes were copied in order to be sold in department stores and on the mass market.

Currently, costume designers are only needed when a film is set in a past period or in a fantastic world (e.g., “The Lord of the Rings”). Otherwise, a costume de­signer is more of a stylist. His job is not to create something of his own but rather to simply compile a certain style from up-to-date international collections (see, e.g., “Desperate Housewives”). Dreams have been produced in Hollywood since the 1930s. However, at that time as well as today, the ideas for the costumes have always come from the renowned couture houses. Yet today these ideas are copied so fast that it be­comes difficult to figure out who the creator of an idea actually is. It is remarkable that there is only one pair of trousers among the exhibits. The reason is not that this exhibition exclusively displays evening costumes without any use in everyday life but that trousers were actually still considered pornographic at that time. In 1933, the mayor of Paris wanted to banish Marlene Dietrich from the city because she had worn a trouser suit in public. The exhibited trouser suit, which was worn by Jenny Jugo in the film “Fräulein Frau”, is a piece of clothing designed for skiing. This is exemplary for the history of women’s trousers as they were indeed predominantly accepted because of their use in sports (particularly in skiing) in Europe. Half of all exhibits do not have a label. Presumably, the clothes were made by unknown employees of Ufa’s costume department. It remains unclear how they were created and, most of all, who participated in their creation. Maybe some fashion magazines provided the patterns for some pieces; maybe someone from the costume department went to the movies to see the big Hollywood role models in order to skilfully imitate them.