“Comrade Couture” is a humorous documentary about creativity as the elixir of life – and the never-ending longing for individual freedom.

“Comrade Couture” is a journey into the wild nether world of the fashionistas and Bohemians of East Berlin. It was a fantasy world within East Germany’s very restricted everyday life. Here you could break ranks, be individual and provocative. The most important identifying feature of the scene was the development of a personal style, because you couldn’t buy such a thing in GDR times. In this nether world, you had to create your individual image. This film tells of the longing, passions and dreams which were tested, experienced and lived out in the shadow of the Wall. Director Marco Wilms, who was himself a model at the GDR’s fashion institute at the time, sets out to once more resurrect this life’s unique lifestyle, economic freedom, and longing to be different, in the here and now. He finds the heroes of his youth in East Berlin: designer Sabine von Oettingen, photographer Robert Paris, and stylist and hairdresser Frank Schäfer, and explores with them their shining nether world lives. Two decades later, the members and friends of the legendary East Berlin avantgarde fashion theatres “Chic, Charmant und Dauerhaft” (Chic, Charming and Enduring) and “Allerleirauh” (All-Kinds-of-Fur) meet again at a »subversive« Eastern Bloc Party, initiated by director Marco Wilms.