Wolfgang Alber, Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Saturday the 12th June 2004

What academic studies can't move people to take note of, art can at least symbolically do. Four years ago there was public debate about the firm Hugo Boss and its treatment of forced labourers during the Nazi era. The cultural studies academic Dr. Elisabeth Timm from Tübingen was employed by the elegant tailors of Metzingen to undertake the research "Hugo Ferdinand Boss (1885-1948) and the firm Hugo Boss". Her plainly explosive and highly rated study was never published by the Boss successors. In the meantime it has been published in the Internet, together with Henning Kobers piece "Der Umgang mit Zwangsarbeitern in Metzingen (The Treatment of Forced Labourers in Metzingen)" (www.metzingen-zwangsarbeit.de).
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Tanya Ury reappraised the theme in quite a different way. The English artist, who grew up in a German-Jewish family and now lives in Cologne has created a man's coat, German size 56, made of small plastic bags; the sachets contain samples of the artist's hair. The design is similar to that of a leather Lufwaffe Coat but also closely resembles the Boss leather coats of the 1998-99 winter collection. This exhibit is being shown in an exhibition entitled "Dresscodes" at the former supermarket in Neuhausen/Fildern until the 27th June. The "Hair Shirt" might be interpreted as a sign of atonement, on the other hand it points to the fact that the Nazis sheared and filled mattresses with the hair of female concentration camp inmates. "Who's Boss" asks Tanya Ury and thus provokingly reflects on the relationships between fashion and the military, fashion and politics.

(English translation Tanya Ury)