Authenticity part of one\u2019s personality, something innate that we should preserve, Jil Sander<\/a> emphasizes right at the beginning of our conversation. An attribute that has fundamentally shaped the designer, born in 1943, and her work for almost six decades. She explains why some people find it easier to access this inherent human authenticity than others by saying that it manifests itself early in childhood but can be suppressed by education. She herself was fortunate that her parents allowed her to pursue her determined ideas. MODERNITY AS AN ATTITUDE<\/p>\n When we ask her about the origin of her creative drive and the moment when she realized that she herself had become a formative force in the cultural landscape, both her sense of culture-shaping tendencies and her capacity for self-reflection become clear: \u00bbI was not alone in my ideas, I only applied the modern vision that prevailed in contemporary architecture and product design to fashion,\u00ab Sander clarifies, initially situating temporality and her own role within a broader context, as if she wanted to pay tribute to those who came before her. If one wants to understand this statement as an expression of modesty, then this does not indicate a failure to recognize one’s own influence, but rather a matter of proper perspective. According to the designer, the driving force of modernization was palpable everywhere, pointing to the omnipresent atmosphere of optimism of the 1960s. She drew not only inspiration for her own work from this, but also a strong awareness of material, sculptural design and the need to develop innovative fabrics. \u00bbIn my hometown of Hamburg, the British tailoring tradition was still very present, so I was familiar with outstanding fabric and craftsmanship. I simply modernized them to achieve interesting new effects,\u00ab explains Sander.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Left: The Paris flagship store on Avenue Montaigne, designed in close collaboration between architect Michael Gabellini and Jil Sander, closely reflected her aesthetic vision and set new standards for the relationship between fashion and space\u2014for instance through a spiral staircase inspired by the Bauhaus; Right: The importance the designer places on technology, proportion, and the creative use of three-dimensionality also initially led her toward architecture; Showroom San Francisco.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is precisely this idea of modernization that has always driven Sander. But a focus on the future and a positive engagement with modernity are no longer highly valued, says Sander, and explains:<\/p>\n \u00bbI am an advocate of modernity, an attitude that is rarely discussed today. By that I don’t mean a fixed style, but the need to optimize things according to the state of the art and a contemporary aesthetic.\u00ab<\/p>\n This personal drive for continuous development already shaped her vision as a young fashion designer. While in the Paris of the 1960s the classic, ladylike image of women in Parisian couture still dominated, Sander preferred to look forward. With her designs, she sought to spare women from having a traditional idea of femininity imposed on them. According to Sander, it was always about a commitment to the present and an understatement that creates attention and respect. The personality, she emphasizes, must not be overshadowed by clothing and she adds personally: \u00bbAs a businesswoman, I was my own test case, it was important to me that I be taken seriously as a negotiating partner.\u00ab And she was: The fact that in 1989 she was the first woman to take her own company public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is certainly a demonstration of this conviction. PERSPECTIVE IN A NEW CONTEXT<\/p>\n Regardless of the development of the eponymous company over the decades, Jil Sander’s own attitude to design remained uncompromising. Her vision of clothing as an expression of personality and a focus on the present is reflected in her fundamental rejection of the routine and the predictable. As an advocate of a new approach to the familiar, it becomes clear why Sander vehemently rejects everything that is predictable and formulaic. \u00bbMy design has no formula,\u00ab she clarifies. Calculability is even a particularly sensitive issue to which she reacts strongly. \u00bbWhen things become too familiar and predictable, they are overdue for a revision in the spirit of the times. I am very sensitive to that. Design is also the risk of trying out something uncertain. Collections are suggestions, they have to dare to be relevant. For me, it was a great appeal to clear the table in the studio four times a year and start from scratch.\u00ab For Sander, design work is always an exploration of possibilities that have not yet been explored. \u00bbThis bet on the future requires alert, attentive senses, a quality that no artificial intelligence can replace,\u00ab she adds. \u00bbYou only need to read Karl Popper to understand that truths and formulas are always provisional.\u00ab<\/p>\n One believes her when she says: \u00bbI have a strong educational instinct, I never dictate, but try to convince.\u00ab Through personal persuasion, she has gathered a team around her that understands and embodies her idea. \u00bbThis requires ongoing dialogue and a shared understanding of quality criteria,\u00ab she elaborates the continuous exchange that ensures that Sander’s artistic expression is preserved in the execution, whether in campaign photography or in the design of her now-iconic perfume bottles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A masterpiece of craftsmanship: the flacon for her fragrances Woman Pure and Man Pure from 1979, designed in collaboration with Peter Schmidt, follows a formal language inspired by modern architecture and art. Weeks of experimentation in Italian glassblowing workshops were required to render the sharp edges of the double cube unbreakable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her uncompromising commitment to preserving her own integrity is likely one of the reasons for Sander\u2019s continued relevance as a designer. Integrity, she emphasizes, is all that designers, artists, and architects truly possess. She equates the loss of one\u2019s own signature with a loss of meaning\u2014a statement that reflects respect for cultural heritage and a deep understanding of its continuation. When asked about the relationship between artistic expression and personal growth, Sander responds: \u00bbMany find it difficult, in the face of the great, often depressing challenges, to maintain the initiative and engage their creative imagination. But we need visions to convey confidence,\u00ab Sander moves away from the actual question in her answer, but the message remains unmistakable.<\/p>\n A SENSUAL EXPERIENCE<\/p>\n When speaking of Jil Sander\u2019s work, following a linear chronology does not seem especially fitting. This is largely because everything she creates centers on a conceptual core with a claim of timeless relevance. The urge to categorize her work is nevertheless difficult to shake off\u2014which raises the question of whether she believes that her vision of modernity demands more explanation today than it once did?<\/p>\n \u00bbExplanations alone are not enough. People have to try on my designs to understand what I’m getting at. Because sensual experience is a powerful argument,\u00ab she responds matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n According to Sander, the aesthetic instinct is also shaped through sensory experience. A culturally stimulating environment can play a significant role in the early development of taste, she says, at the same time, she cautions against defining the concept of \u00bbgood taste\u00ab too rigidly\u2014because an overly fixed understanding can either dull the senses and intuition or sharpen them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00bbExplanations achieve nothing\u2014sensual experience is a powerful argument,\u00ab says Sander; Campaign image, 1998.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What the senses first absorb is later shaped by experience. Taste is not something rigid, but unfolds and changes with experience\u2014if this process fails to unfold, one easily loses touch with the present. \u00bbI\u2019m not saying that the spirit of the times is always right. Beyond formulas, there exists a sensitivity to proportions, material innovation, fresh harmonies and balances that characterizes successful design and creates new classics,\u00ab she adds critically.<\/p>\n REFINING CLASSICS<\/p>\n The designer’s most recent collaboration with the heritage brand Thonet also resonates with this sensibility\u2014a company whose role in furniture design of the 19th and 20th centuries continues to have an impact to this day through figures such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe or Marcel Breuer. A cornerstone of design culture which Sander encountered as early as her school years: \u00bbThe aesthetics of the Bauhaus in architecture, in objects, in graphics were very present in my youth and had a profound influence on me.\u00ab<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n New interpretation of Marcel Breuer’s cantilever model S 64, shot at the Jil Sander showroom in Hamburg.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Breuer\u2019s late-1920s tubular steel classic, she finds her own design principles in a new form and on a new scale: harmonious proportions, thoughtful three-dimensionality, understatement, and dynamic elegance. It therefore comes as little surprise that the new interpretation for the JS. THONET Signature Collection seems more like a visually contemporary homage to Breuer’s iconic design. \u00bbHis construction and basic structure are convincing and deserve a contemporary appreciation,\u00ab says Sander. Following the principle\u00a0\u00bbwhy fix something when it\u2019s not broken,\u00ab she focuses on subtle refinement. The cantilever chair looks as if it has only been thoroughly polished, says Sander\u2014despite the redesign, it is immediately recognizable. Jil Sander references the lacquer of Steinway grand pianos, the leather upholstery of elegant English cars and the matte nickel silver of architectural elements\u2014a metal alloy she had previously used in the interior design of her flagship stores\u2014as sources of inspiration for her new interpretation of the S 64 model.<\/p>\n ON A LARGE SCALE<\/p>\n The importance Sander places on technology, proportion and the creative use of three-dimensionality not only informs this collaboration, but also initially drew her to architecture. For the design of her first flagship store at 50 Avenue Montaigne in Paris in 1993, she commissioned the American architect Michael Gabellini. The concept, developed in close collaboration with Sander, precisely reflected her ideas on light, proportion, and materiality and set new standards for the relationship between fashion and space.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Jil Sander flagship store in London.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the exhibition catalogue \u00bbJil Sander. Present\u00ab, curated by Matthias Werner K, it reads: \u00bbWhen designing the interior, Jil Sander resists the temptation to completely dissolve emptiness.\u00ab In this context, we ask about the importance she places on the purely visual experience of a space:<\/p>\n \u00bbI have great respect for spaces experienced primarily through their visual presence in a memorable way and that you don’t forget. They intensify our sense of being alive and make architecture an art form in its own right.\u00ab<\/p>\n She sees emptiness in the room as an opportunity\u2014and one senses the fearlessness with which Sander has consistently approached new possibilities\u2014as a space for self-assured individuality. A defining feature of the interior design are the \u00bbflying walls\u00ab and the atmospheric lighting inspired by the work of the artist James Turrell, resulting in a floating, almost immaterial spatial effect. Matthias Werner K remarks: \u00bbFor Jil Sander, shaping the walls through varying degrees of brightness is more fascinating than an expressive play of light and shadow.\u00ab He views the gentleness of light as a medium of light as ideally suited to conveying the designer’s intentions.<\/p>\n ABSENCE AS A MESSAGE<\/p>\n The idea of structuring through light also arises in our interview\u2014but in connection with art. One of the earliest lasting impressions on her came from the work of the painter Robert Ryman (1930 \u2013 2019), says Sander. He is best known for his largely monochrome, restrained paintings, which vary subtly in texture, technique and support material and create structured surfaces through the irregular application of paint, making the presence of light tangible. \u00bbHis white paintings confirmed my skepticism about strong colors. He has shown that you can also paint white on white without being boring.\u00ab She understands that effect does not require a pronounced graphic rhythm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A video installation created for the exhibition \u00bbJil Sander. Present\u00ab at the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt (2017\/18), offers a poetic glimpse behind the private garden walls of Jil Sander\u2019s home on Lake Pl\u00f6n, not far from her hometown. Here, nature is presented as an intuitive space that renders the present moment\u2014so central to the designer\u2014more tangible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is the interplay of light and shadow that makes a space compelling for Sander\u2014she even draws parallels between successful spaces and a garden. \u00bbEven in inspiring spaces, nature can be felt through its sense of proportion and, not least, through the direction of light and shadow,\u00ab she observes. Sander’s private garden on Lake Pl\u00f6n in northern Germany can be seen as a contemporary interpretation of the traditional English garden of Sissinghurst Castle in Kent\u2014the historic garden created from 1930 onward by writer Vita Sackville-West. A video installation created for the exhibition \u00bbJil Sander. Present\u00ab at the MAK \u2013 Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt<\/em>, offers a poetic glimpse behind the garden walls. Here, nature appears as an intuitive space that renders the present moment\u2014so central to Sander\u2014more tangible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For Sander, the interplay of light and shadow gives a space its appeal, and she draws parallels between successful spaces and gardens, where nature becomes tangible through proportion and the use of light. Her private garden can be read as a contemporary interpretation of the garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The exhibition catalogue accompanying the show contains the following description: \u00bbIn an English-style landscape, there are four square rooms, framed by hedges. One is dedicated to roses, one to an apple orchard, the next to berry bushes, plants for cutting, and a kitchen garden. But the fourth room remained empty: a square lawn\u2014Jil Sander’s homage to the cultivation of emptiness in East Asian traditions, which finds its most pronounced expression in Zen temple gardens. These austere, spiritual spaces made of rough stones, gravel, and moss are dedicated to meditation. Far removed from Western notions of paradise, they are intended to foster an acclimatization to nothingness.\u00ab Against this backdrop, it may be surprising when she explains in our conversation that any worldview is, by definition, a limitation\u2014and she is therefore reluctant to commit to it. She qualifies this idea with a personal distinction:<\/p>\n \u00bbWhen I sometimes recognize aspects of myself in Zen thought or even in astrological ideas, it is something playful, and I forget it immediately. But I subscribe to the gentleness valued across many spiritual traditions.\u00ab<\/p>\n PRESENT<\/p>\n Jil Sander’s \u00bbworldview\u00ab seems to have always aligned with an open system of possibilities\u2014worldviews are provisional, certainties fleeting, and theories vulnerable. Her work, often described as timeless, as it moves within her and works through her\u2014reflected, present, open to the new. To engage with this work meaningfully, it requires intellectual flexibility\u2014the willingness to make conceptual and mental leaps through times, contexts, and meanings; after all, we have encountered her work in its numerous aspects for almost six decades, again and again on new levels\u2014always on equal terms with the present. At the end of our interview, she briefly engages in a thought experiment, which she frames as a playful possibility rather than a certainty:<\/p>\n \u00bbPerhaps time does not move linearly or in circles, but as a spiral. We do not know where it leads.\u00ab<\/p>\n
\nAnd indeed, Heidemarie Jiline Sander, which is her birth name, seemed very determined in her ideas about life even at a young age. \u00bbDoubts only came to me during my school days, which were marked by strict teachers. But then it was already too late to deter me,\u00ab she tells us. In 1964, after graduating from the Textilingenieurschule Krefeld, she went to Los Angeles as an exchange student. At that time, this was an undoubtedly a self-confident decision, which\u2014made by a 21-year-old woman\u2014would have been considered unconventional. It is reasonable to assume that such steadfastness later also found expression in the integrity of her creative signature.
\nAfter returning to Hamburg, she initially worked as a fashion editor for various women’s magazines. This experience sharpened her visual sensitivity, but what she encountered \u00bbaligned with neither her understanding of proportion and material nor her idea of femininity, or her intuition for the seismographic shifts in the aesthetic needs of a rapidly changing society,\u00ab as stated in the catalogue for Sander’s first solo exhibition worldwide \u00bbJil Sander. Present\u00ab in the MAK \u2013<\/em>\u00a0Museum f\u00fcr Angewandte Kunst<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Frankfurt (2017\/18). In 1968, she decided to open her first boutique in the P\u00f6seldorf district of Hamburg. She initially sells selected ready-to-wear\u2014a then new concept that democratized fashion with a strong design focus, away from the exclusivity of haute couture. But Sander decides early on to expand the offering with her own collection in a limited capacity. She probably did not yet suspect that her personal vision of a new way of dressing would set new standards.<\/p>\n![\"Jil](\"https:\/\/chapter.digital\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chxii-jilsander-2-500x332.jpg\")
\nA clear sense of direction also determined the strategic decisions she made over the course of her career. In 1999, she enters into a joint venture with Prada, but leaves the company she founded shortly thereafter. In the following years, she returns several times to reassume creative leadership before finally retiring in 2013 for private reasons. Since 2021, the \u00bbJil Sander\u00ab brand has been owned by the Italian fashion group OTB after several changes of ownership.<\/p>\n
\nWith this last remark, Sander touches on the fundamental difference between lifeless formulas and the pulsating intuition in the creative process. \u00bbFormulas belong to the what has been exhausted, which fashion and design must go beyond. I am far too closely engaged, very tactile and equipped with an ultra-critical eye,\u00ab she emphasizes and also refers to a philosophical reading:<\/p>\n![\"Jil](\"https:\/\/chapter.digital\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/js-cosmetic-1979-woman-pure-@-photographer-m1-@-high-res-1-8953-001-rechts-354x500.jpeg\")
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