{"id":1484,"date":"2022-05-19T14:34:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T14:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1918local.eu\/?p=1484"},"modified":"2022-05-19T14:47:38","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T14:47:38","slug":"caroline-schep-abstract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1918local.eu\/sr-sp\/caroline-schep-abstract\/","title":{"rendered":"Caroline Schep \/ Abstract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201c\u2018Wienerisch\u2019 as it lives in our day\u201d: Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte fashion and the search for a Jewish Austrian identity, 1914-1932<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether one envisions it through Klimt\u2019s paintings, Wagner\u2019s architecture, or Schorske\u2019s famous Fin-de-Si\u00e8cle Vienna (1979) \u2013 Vienna around the turn of the century is known as a place of high culture and flourishing artistic innovations. Recently, however, this narrative has been questioned heavily. An important aspect that has gained attention is the prominence and leading role of Jews in this Viennese high culture.1<\/a><\/sup>For instance: Rethinking Vienna 1900<\/em>, ed. Steven Beller (New York\/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001).<\/span> Despite the wide acceptance of their role, I will argue that it should likewise be studied in-depth in the period after the fin-de-si\u00e8cle. Using the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte\u2019s fashion department as a case study, I will demonstrate how art provided a means for Viennese Jews to search for a new position and identity in a changing political environment.<\/p>\n

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Marsha L. Rozenblit (2001) has described the transitions in identity that followed the First World War and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. She points out that these events forced Austrian Jews, once relatively comfortable in the multinational Habsburg Empire, to find new means to emancipation and new ways to claim their cultural authority in a German-dominated society.2<\/a><\/sup>Marsha L. Rozenblit, Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).<\/span> What happened to the prominent cultural position Viennese Jews had once the war broke out, and more importantly, when the empire collapsed? How did they respond to identity transitions in Austria and Vienna?<\/p>\n

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As such questions cannot be answered in a few pages, a case study can help to illustrate the transitions that the Jewish cultural elite in Vienna went through. The Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte (1903-1932) often pops up in the earlier mentioned studies, and for good reasons: Jews were associated with the Werkst\u00e4tte in all possible ways. Despite this fact, and the Werkst\u00e4tte\u2019s huge (international) influence, studies of Jewish identification and the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte have never gone beyond an occasional portrait of an individual.3<\/a><\/sup>For instance: Elena Shapira, Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture, and Design in Fin de Si\u00e8cle Vienna <\/em>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).<\/span> Yet with its long history, the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte can shed light on exactly the aforementioned questions.<\/p>\n


My analysis will therefore take the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte\u2019s fashion department as a case study for the period starting with the outbreak of the First World War until the closing of the Werkst\u00e4tte in 1932. Fashion and dress can effectively express identity, making this department a key to the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte\u2019s ideals. Moreover, it allows best for perspectives from Jewish women in Vienna as well. Using primarily newspaper articles and internal documents of the Werkst\u00e4tte, my analysis will uncover how Jewish patrons, designers, buyers, and critics of the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte attempted to be \u2018wienerisch\u2019 as it lived in their day.<\/p>\n