306 CHRISTOPHER NEUMAIER AND ANDREAS LUDWIG
the rising price of coff ee on the global market, the SED tried to limit the
consumption of coff ee beans in the GDR and raised the price of coff ee ac-
cordingly. This sparked a signifi cant public outcry over the fact that coff ee
should not be considered a luxury, but rather a basic grocery item.^66 As
this example demonstrates, the consumption of “Western” brand-name
products was a very sensitive political issue, as well as a core element of
a specifi c East German consumer culture.
Clothing is the second basic area of consumption discussed here that
evolved in distinctive ways since the 1950s. Beyond its protective func-
tion, clothing also has a symbolic function that is communicated through
fashions and brand names. In the late 1960s, popular fashion and pop
culture began to merge more and more, generating market segments
exhibiting brand loyalty.^67 Most notably, the appearance of miniskirts
and women wearing long pants are often cited as a typical expression of
these kinds of changes. After blue jeans hit the market in the 1950s, the
miniskirt that arrived in 1965 was seen as a “symbol of the sexual revo-
lution,” but it quickly established itself in mainstream society.^68 By 1970,
more than half of young West German women wore them. Long pants
for women had similar symbolic dimensions. The pantsuit permanently
made its way into the wardrobes of professional women at the end of the
1960s, despite the fact that there had been protests and some women
had actually lost their jobs because of it.^69 Clothing also became a way for
young people to protest their parents’ ideals and the dictates of conven-
tional fashion, and consumers as well as designers consciously tapped
into this symbolic power. The overall trend toward individualization and
pluralization was refl ected in the choices of individual actors. Some of
these ideas were then copied a millions of times over across all of society,
which meant that rather than having the intended eff ect of individualiza-
tion, they always bore an element of homogenization. Later, especially
from the 1980s onward, parallel youth cultures developed that often com-
peted with each other and could be identifi ed by a specifi c clothing style
that was tied to an apparent preference for certain brands.^70
Just as with other types of consumer goods, the clothing situation in
the GDR was shaped by normative directives as well as production and
supply issues. The ready-to-wear clothing industry was never able to of-
fer a full range of clothing styles, despite some individual innovations.
Nonetheless, clothing in the GDR had refl ected some trends toward dif-
ferentiation and individualization since the 1970s. The individual prefer-
ences of consumers were not only offi cially recognized, but also taken
into consideration in the planned economy. For example, the concept of
“young fashion” was introduced at the end of the 1960s. A chain of shops
specialized in off ering textiles for young people, and special contracts