Die Dame

Die Dame (English: The Lady) was the first illustrated magazine in Germany to cater to the interests of modern women. It was also considered the "best journal of its kind in the world market" after the First World War. The lifestyle magazine began in 1911 and ended in 1943. Die Dame consisted of essays, illustrations, and photography. The magazine was most active during the shift from the early 1920s, when the magazine celebrated the independent The New Woman, to the mid 1920s when women were portrayed as cold and masculine uniformity.

In 1912, the Berlin publishing House Ullstein bought out Illustrierte Frauen-Zeitung (English: Illustrated Women's Newspaper) because the company founder Leopold Ullstein's five sons had already recognized that many women were affluent consumers but that Ullstein had no products specifically for them. The newspaper's content was thrifty advice on fashion and housekeeping. In 1912, the Illustrierte Frauen-Zeitung became Die Dame.

In the early 1920s, the magazine promoted independent and career driven women. Most of the original fashion layouts and cover pages were created by mostly female designers and artists such as Erica Mohr, Hanna Goerke, Martha Sparkuhl, Julie Haase-Werkenhin, Gerda Bunzel, and Steffie Nathan. Renowned male commentators such as writer Friedrich Freksa and costume historian Max von Boehn were granted a large amount of space in Die Dame. The article discussed the phenomenon of fashion within a broader and cultural-historical frame in hopes of enlightening women. In 1923, Petra Fiedler, the daughter of the well-known modernist architect Peter Behrens, joined Die Dame's design team which caused the magazine to become more popular.

In 1925, a Viennese designer, Ernst Dryden, was named chief artistic director of Die Dame , which caused a shift from the previous positive tone of modernity. In 1925-26, Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle (English: Rhapsody: A Dream Novel) was serialized in Die Dame before being published in book form. By 1927 the photographs of female fashion editors and illustrators disappeared from the pages. Their work was given less and less visible space in the magazine, while Dryden's drawings and essay took over the magazine. His fashion layouts denied the individualization of the modern women, showing geometrical silhouettes arranged in a chorus line. In his works illustrated that women's experience of fashion are completely detached from the understanding of everyday life. They carried the markers of self-centered arrogance that invited many critics of the New Woman to misunderstand the New Woman.

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