Sibylle (magazine)

Sibylle was launched by photographer Sibylle Gerstner in 1956.[3][4] She was also the funding editor-in-chief of the magazine of which the goal was first to educate women on how to dress.[5] In 1961 she was replaced by Margot Pfannstiel in the post.[5] Following this change the goal of Sibylle became to encourage feminine elegance and fashion with no political concern.[1] The magazine was published on a bimonthly basis[1] first by the Modeinstitut Berlin and then, by the Verlag für die Frau.[6][7] Therefore, the headquarters of the magazine moved from Berlin to Leipzig.[8]

Sibylle covered brands from East German and other communist countries without featuring those reflecting the Western consumerism.[3] In other words, it never focused on stimulating consumption or creating incentives to buy.[9]

However, the magazine did not always represent the official approach of the state, particularly by the late 1960s and during the 1980s.[1] Each issue of the magazine was controlled by the women's commission of the party's central committee before the publication.[10] Ute Mahler, a photographer and curator who worked for Sibylle, has argued that the East German authorities did not consider the magazine as a significant publication and therefore, censorship was not strict.[10] Nevertheless, some of the issues of Sibylle were not permitted by the East German authorities due to its coverage of women wearing blue jeans or mini skirts[8] and due to featuring smiling models.[4]

Although Sibylle was a fashion-oriented magazine, it also covered articles dealing with art, literature, travel, theater and included interviews.[6] The magazine allocated forty pages for fashion-related themes and the remaining forty pages for culture-related subjects.[10] The work by German photographers Roger Melis, Günter Rössler, Werner Mahler and Sibylle Bergmann was frequently featured in the magazine.[4][6] Arno Fischer was another photographer who worked for Sibylle.[8] His revolutionary fashion photographs showing the models in the middle of the street were first published in the magazine.[8] Dorothea Melis was one of the fashion editors of the magazine.[4] Following her assignment to the post by Margot Pfannstiel she redesigned and modernized the magazine.[5]

In addition to fashion photography, Sibylle included daily life photography which featured not only East Germany but also Eastern Europe countries and the Soviet Union.[1] Those taken in Moscow were very frequent.[1] The magazine became very popular among women due to its coverage of sophisticated self-sewing articles which was very popular in the country at that time.[4]

For a long time the circulation of Sibylle was 200,000 copies.[8] Following the reunification of Germany the magazine continued to be published. However, due to financial reasons Sibylle folded in 1995.[3]

In 2001 a documentary film was made about Sibylle.[7] It has also been subject of several exhibitions in different cities of Germany, including Rostock, Rüsselsheim and Cottbus.[11] One of them was in Dresden which opened in April 2018.[11] In June 2019 another exhibition entitled Sibylle – Die Ausstellung was held in Berlin.[1][3]

In 2016 Ute Mahler published a book covering the photographs and other items published in Sibylle.[10]