The leafy Berlin suburb of Wilmersdorf is an unlikely place to imagine Hollywood’s elite. And yet, for more than half a century, Germany’s leading costume house, Theaterkunst, has been luring stars to this distinctly un-ostentatious corner of the city. With a collection of around 10 million pieces, it is one of the oldest and largest of its kind.
With a credit list spanning Weimar-era silent films and Marvel superhero hits, Theaterkunst, which has occupied a former dairy in the neighborhood since the 1950s, has worked on industry-defining films throughout cinema history. And it’s still going strong: two of the Best Picture nominees at this year’s Academy Awards, Poor things and The area of interestworked with the company to equip its cast.
“It’s a wonderful place with an old, grand soul,” says costume designer Lisy Christl, as she peruses the crowded racks in search of the perfect orange T-shirt. “I’ve been coming here for almost 30 years.” Christl has collaborated with Theaterkunst on projects for Terrence Malick and Michael Haneke; for the Netflix series All quiet on the frontcollaborated with the in-house atelier to create costumes that included a pajama set for a character played by Daniel Brühl. The pink-striped two-piece ensemble today adorns a mannequin in the entrance to Theaterkunst’s menswear department, alongside other mannequins, including one wearing a 1920s blue velvet dress worn by Hunter Schafer in the last The Hunger Games.
Theaterkunst was born in 1907, set up by a group of young entrepreneurs as theatres and cabarets were springing up in the thriving German capital. The business really took off in 1918 when Hermann J. Kaufmann, one of the original co-founders, took over sole ownership and began making costumes for the burgeoning German film industry, working on Fritz Lang’s film. Metropolis and dressing Marlene Dietrich in The Blue AngelIt also worked in the 1925 silent version of Ben Hurwhich employed some 350 costume designers to create everything from hats and shoes to swords and spears. The project involved seven tons of leather, and lead actor Ramón Novarro famously made a two-week boat trip from New York to Germany just for the fittings.
The costume house opened offices in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, New York and Stockholm. However, after the Nazi Party took power in 1933, Kaufmann, who was Jewish, was forced to sell the company in 1936. The premises on central Berlin’s Orianienburger Strasse were bombed twice during the war, destroying much of the archive. Following Germany’s defeat and subsequent division, Theaterkunst was also split in two. The GDR branch did not survive more than a few years, but its counterpart flourished alongside the German Economic Miracle, providing costumes for all the major films in the country’s post-war history, working with Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Posters from these films today decorate the walls of the Wilmersdorf headquarters, which is divided into five floors: the basement houses shoes and weapons, the ground floor is dedicated to men’s clothing and the upper three floors to women’s clothing. The sections are subdivided by era and then divided again according to occasion. A stroll through the first floor, for example, takes visitors past racks of mink stoles, technicolour polyester party dresses from the 1970s, a selection of children’s leather trousers and all kinds of aprons. One entire wall is dedicated to traditional hats and another to gloves, with boxes marked “sports”, “fingerless” and “with lace”.
This was especially valuable to Malgorzata Karpiuk, costume designer for The area of interest“There was a big party where we had to dress 400 extras,” she says. “I went to Theaterkunst because I knew they had the most amazing collection of period costumes. And I found all these beautiful dresses and tuxedos from the 1930s and 1940s.”
Karpiuk has been working with Theaterkunst since the beginning of her career. “I think I first came here when I was an assistant. We were making an advertisement and we needed clothes from the time of Louis XIV.” Today, she regards her visits as important research trips. “I use Theaterkunst a bit like a library. When I was designing the custom leather pants that the children wear in The area of interest, “I was inspired by everything I had seen in their archive.” It is not just costume designers who use the services of Theaterkunst. “Some of the world’s most important haute couture brands send teams here,” says project coordinator Svea Sanyó. “Unfortunately, we are not allowed to reveal their names.”
In 2009, Theaterkunst expanded to the two warehouses in Wilmersdorf: if all the clothing racks were arranged one after the other, they would stretch for over 6 km. A project is currently underway to replace the handwritten cards that currently catalogue the collection with digital chips – no small feat when you consider that there are more than 10 million items. Each item is equipped with a digital chip that replaces the handwritten cards.
The warehouses are mainly used to store Theaterkunst uniforms, their specialty. “It is very important that we wear these uniforms correctly,” says Sanyó. “There are many film viewers who are watching intently to spot any historical inaccuracies. We need to know everything, from which exact button went on which jacket to which direction the stripes ran on an American tie compared to a European one.”
They also have access to a reference library, with more than 4,500 books on the history of costume and uniform design, covering everything from London fire brigades to the American Revolutionary Guard.
Managing director Andrea Peters joined in 2021 “to really drive the international business,” something she says has become increasingly important at a time when Germany is struggling to sell itself as a lucrative production hub. “Places like Hungary and Romania have become very attractive to Hollywood because of their tax incentive programs, which mean they can recoup up to 45 percent of their costs. We don’t have anything like that in Germany.” (A new incentive is reportedly planned for 2025.) To combat the decline in local business, Theaterkunst has set up satellite offices in Warsaw, Vienna, Prague and Budapest.
Still, some filmmakers have remained loyal to Germany. Wes Anderson I was recently a 30 minute drive away at Studio Babelsberg filming their latest feature, The Phoenician scheme. Theaterkunst was called in to help supply the costumes. “Our workshop works at a very high level,” says Peters. “We only have three people working there, so we don’t produce clothes for extras on an industrial scale, as some facilities do.” For added authenticity, their small team sews the clothes from vintage fabrics and draws inspiration from an extensive archive of sewing patterns and old fashion magazines.
For Peters, it’s important for the company to carefully consider how to grow. “Costume designers know they can come here for historical pieces, but they might look elsewhere for contemporary styles. We want to change that.” Earlier this year, Theaterkunst launched the 1907 Curated initiative, which involves working with young Berlin-based designers such as Daniela Harsch and Helena Sölting to add new pieces to its range. “Customers can rent them out – mainly for music videos and advertising, but also for film and TV. It’s also a good opportunity for these young brands to get more visibility.”
With the threat of artificial intelligence looming over the film industry, is Peters concerned that Theaterkunst’s largely analogue way of working could be under threat? “I don’t know what will happen in 10 years,” he says. “We don’t want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend the world isn’t changing, so we’re looking at collaborating with companies in the digital effects field.” For a company that has already survived two world wars and overcome so many challenges throughout its history, this seems unlikely to be the last hurdle for Theaterkunst.