Fashion from Paris: A donation of Erika Hoffmann 

Kunstgewerbemuseum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 

Runtime: Thu, 27/02/2025 to Sun, 07/06/2026 

A compact but eloquent selection of 1980s avant-garde power dressing is on display at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin in the exhibition Fashion from Paris: A Donation of Erika Hoffmann. Curated by Dr Katrin Lindemann, fashion and textile curator at the Kunstgewerbemuseum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the exhibition celebrates a recent donation from renowned art collector Hoffmann’s personal archive, dating from the late seventies into the nineties. The garments are not only emblematic of the era they were designed and worn, but have further fascinating and rich connections.  

Charles de Castelbajac, and Jean-Paul Gaultier; described at the time as the Jeunes Createurs, a group working at the forefront of the fashion avant-garde. An exception is Belgian Martin Margiela, whose work encompassed both art and fashion and was shown in Paris. The 22 items displayed, therefore, provide a resonant window not just into Erika herself, but also a dynamic era when the very silhouette of a woman was being radically redefined. Replacing the fluid tailoring and romantic ruffles of the seventies were the V-shaped, sharp shoulders, sleek jumpsuits, and futuristic fabrics that aligned with the growing concept of women entering the boardrooms; a wardrobe for the corporate Amazon.

The revolutionary spirit of the designers aligns with Erika’s own approach. Within the art world, Erika Hoffmann, now 85, occupies a unique position. Recognised as more of a collaborator and facilitator than just an acquirer or investor, particularly in her relationships with female artists, Hoffmann studied art history in Freiburg, Vienna, and Bonn from 1958 to 1963 and worked as a research fellow at Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. In 1963, she married textile industrialist Rolf Hoffmann, who was then reorienting his family’s small garment company Van Laack into a global luxury concern. Using her art background, working as a fashion designer for the brand Erika also introduced and helmed the ‘Lady Van Laack’ department for over 20 years. 

After crossing art world paths with Andy Warhol, the Hoffmanns commissioned a double silk screen portrait in 1980. The portrait is one of the rarer silk screens coated in ‘diamond dust’, putting the Hoffmanns in the company of Grace Kelly and Mickey Mouse. The relationship between the Hoffmanns and Warhol led to further art/ fashion collaborations. Warhol walked in a 1981 New York fashion show for Van Laack and was photographed for the brand, later featuring in an advertisement in Kunstforum in 1989. Erika was also interviewed and featured in the Warhol magazine Interview. 

The Thierry Mugler dress and coordinating shoes that Erika wore during the Warhol portrait sitting are featured in the exhibit, alongside behind the scenes photos and Erika’s personal account of the day. The element of personal storytelling through a wardrobe was one of the strongest aspects of the show, but also one that was underdeveloped. One of the most exciting possibilities of a wardrobe donated by a living donor is exploring the life lived in the clothing; the experiences and sensations they created in the wearer, and the interwoven threads of experience that constitute the fabric of a life.  

Alongside the 22 items on display, Hoffman also donated 21 other pieces of clothing produced from designs based on the Russian Constructivists. This short-lived avant-garde artistic movement erupted alongside the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century. Mirroring and incorporating what was happening across Europe with the added optimism of sweeping the old tsarist ideals and designing for the newly formed proletariat, the radical concepts carried into clothing and design as well as traditional art forms. Initially, the Soviet government supported the movement, but as Stalin’s regime cracked down, the avant-garde was declared a bourgeois enemy and brutally suppressed. It was only towards the middle of the twentieth century that the wider art community began to rediscover it, and by the 1970s its popularity had surged. It was during this time that Erika added works by associated female artists Ljubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova to the collection, both of whom influenced her designs for Van Laack.

Seeing the Van Laack garments incorporating the designs of the Soviet Constructivists prompted the Cologne gallerist Krystyna Gmurzynska to ask Erika in 1979 to participate in her seminal exhibition Women-Artists of the Russian Avant-Garde 1910-1930 (December 1979-April 1980). Gmurzynska asked Hoffman to reproduce some of the garment designs initially created by female artist Liubov Popova, intended to be worn by the newly envisioned proletariat after the Russian Revolution in 1910, which had never been realised. 

The growing popularity of the Russian Avant-Garde movement resulted in a series of exhibitions in the US in the early eighties. The first was ‘The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1930: New Perspectives’ showing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (July 7 -September 28 1980), before moving to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC (November 25 1980 – February 15 1981) followed by ‘Art of the Avant-Garde in Russia: Selections From the George Costakis Collection” Gugenheim in New York City (16 October 981 – 3 January 1982). Stephanie Barron, one of the curators of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art show, had heard of Erika’s collaboration with Galerie Gmurzynska and asked if she’d like to contribute the designs. Erika and Rolf created a full-scale collection of garments and staged fashion shows for each of the exhibition’s opening nights. It was these items that, alongside the 20 on display, made up the remainder of the recent donation. 

Revisiting the press coverage for the three American-held Russian Avant-Garde art exhibitions makes it clear that the fashion element contributed by Erika and Rolf was incredibly valuable in terms of added publicity. The exhibitions were widely covered in a range of publications due to the surprisingly contemporary designs, as well as the glamorous opening night fashion shows held to display them.  The Los Angeles Times writes, ‘Silk sheaths printed with black and white stripes. Baggies that grip the ankles. Streamlined jumpsuits that look custom-made for astronauts. It’s a wardrobe made for the eighties. In fact, these clothes were designed more than 50 years ago by a group of Russian avant-garde artists. Ljubov Popova, Alexandra Exter, Nadeschda Lamanova.’ (July 18, 1980). Noting the dissociation from Marxism, the Village Voice bemoaned ‘Constructivist clothing, designed by Soviet women of the 1920s and intended as mass-produced items for working women, into silk and linen one-of-a-kind collector’s items. One of the dresses, a long, tubular design with a boat neck and sleeves, bordered with stripes and belted low, has been multiplied-well, not exactly mass-made but repeated 149 times-and sells for $750. It comes with a scarf that the museum is selling for $46…From the Hirshhorn fashion show, one could catch only a glimpse of the passionate energy behind these designs. The models were the gaunt, pale corpses of today’s haute couture, not the robust women of a bright, utopian society.’

Looking at the items in the compact display in Berlin, it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between the Paris fashions of Erika Hoffmann and the Soviet inspired garments she helped realise. The bold triangular silhouettes and graphics are remarkably similar. Thierry Mugler was well known for his concept of the ‘glamazon’, the fierce Valkyrie-like female warriors that populated his runways, while the name for the women of the Russian constructivists was amazonki. Both celebrated the concept of a liberated, fierce woman. 

Reinforcing these links is a photo of Erika fitting a model for the Los Angeles show, where she is seen wearing her Mugler beige dress. (WWD IMAGE IN FOLDER )  A future presentation of the Russian-inspired items is planned, but the failure to acknowledge the salient and powerful links between the two sets of garments is a missed opportunity to explore the discourse between Hoffman’s everyday wardrobe and her active professional life.  

After Rolf died in 2001, Erika continued collecting, eventually donating 1200 works of art to Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in 2018. The upper two floors of her home in Berlin currently serve as a gallery open to the public every Saturday. Together, the Hoffmanns built an immense legacy, but Erika has continued and arguably built on this. Unfortunately, the museum fails to flesh out these details of Hoffmann’s life and cultural influence. Based on the information presented by the museum, it would be easy to misconstrue her as the wife of a wealthy businessman, with an expensive art collecting hobby and chic shopping habit. 

Pictures from the exhibition: