Claire Waldoff

Claire Waldoff was a Cabaret singer in Berlin. She was openly lesbian and proud of it, which encouraged many other young women to come out.

"In her songs, she eschewed the conventions of other performers of using double-entendres and suggestion, preferring to get straight to the point leaving little to the imagination. This often caused her problems with the censors."

(http://www.cabaret-berlin.com/?p=114)

Note: Her androgynous tie and shirt style

Her thin LONG eyebrows drawn on with a pencil.

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was an icon for gay women and androgyny.
She was always seen smoking dressed in mens clothing while in Berlin.

She still has a very feminine feel to her even though she's dressed in male clothing with little makeup. A lot of photos of her seem to have soft lighting which may be a contributing factor.

Anita Berber

Otto Dix portrait of Anita Berber. 1925

I love the Dix portrait because its like shes bathed in flame. Her face is not necessarily pretty, but the whole image screams sex, confidence and charm.

Anita Berber was a sex goddess in Berlin.
She had a love of sex, drugs and alcohol.
She was openly outrageous.
Her favorite drug was chloroform and ether which she swirled in a bowl and ate off of white rose petals.

Goodbye To Berlin

• Cross-dressing became the norm of caboret nightlife
• Nightlife was sexully charged - transvestites, drugs and sex were out in the open
• Club fashions were exgerted for thetrical effect
• ANDROGONY RULED
• Dance was the rage and Berlin was dubbed the new Paris
• Massive inflation sent the country into chaos, with the middle classes turning their houses into sex dens for the cheapest sex in the continent.
• There was not a sexual appetite that could not be satisfied

CHARACTERS;

- the characters have an aire of being grubby underneath all their finery and style.

"Her face was powdered dead white."

"Cigarette stained fingers"

"Sunken black eyes"

"Mouthpiece lips"

"Chipped emerald green nail polish"

Everything has a slightly grubby undertone, reflecting in the state of the economy at the time and the fact that people were desperate for money, making all the glamour slightly faked.

Sebastian Droste

Droste is interesting because he wears more makeup than the female performers. Even his hair shape around the side of his face is painted on. It's very theatrical and the sunken way of eyes are always emphasised

Theatre of the Nameless - Illamasqua

The Theatre of the Nameless collection is inspired by the Berlin Cabaret scene in the 1920s. The images do  really good job of showing gritty Berlin style in a contemporary and editorial way and looking at them has alloowed me to start thinking of how I can do my own edgy, contemporary designs based on 1920s Berlin 

Factors that inspire this collection are:

• Lace-up heeled boots
• Shiny rubber 
• Dark tones
• Complete freedom

George Grosz

George Grosz was an artist in Berlin at the time, and was known for his characterized paintings of Berlin life.

I like these paintings because they show real people, women with rolls, droopy breasts and big bottoms. I love his use of shading around and under the eyes, dirt on clothes and veins popping out of legs. There's a grubby feel to his pictures that has nothing to do with the sex part of it, and they give the same kind of grubby tone as the descriptions in Goodbye to Berlin give.