WASTED GERMAN YOUTH
My art project dressed up as a fashion imperium. My baby. And hopefully not my swansong.
As history goes. I was in a club: "i was sitting some sunday morning, in the garden at tresor, it was love parade, it was hot, and the buzz was very good and all around, me, everyone, so super wang. i turned to my friend and said... these kids, all so fucked up. all of them, so off their fuckin faces. just wasted german youth. its just... wasted german youth."
That was 1999. Six years later, time was right for a logo and some stickers, the first t-shirts were printed up, and history was written. With a couple of ideas and a zero euro marketing budget, WASTED GERMAN YOUTH exploded in true underground style and has since reached iconic status.
WASTED GERMAN YOUTH was a good idea, executed at the right time. I doubt if it could ever be duplicated, with such little effort. Futura extra bold condensed set at 90% and spaced tight on 3 bars, arranged in black and white to sit right. It hit a nerve and captured a burning desire to rave, rave, fucking rave, and that, on a global level. It was DIY punk, inspired by the t-shirts I used to print for my brother's favourite band each week; it was direct contact and interaction with thousands of people worldwide. It was a love song to german techno I oh so loved and all those punters who celebrated it too.
It brought bags and bags of t-shirts, all individually packed and boxes and boxes of stickers to the post office and sending it everywhere. It delivered t-shirts to people at 3 in the morning, dragging suitcases full of t-shirts across borders. Going to lots of parties and generally just going large and hard. it was sticking stickers everywhere and been threatened to fucking dare stick any stickers up at all. It was the cleaner-uppers worst nightmare. It was a beer, lighters, sweaters, dresses, sticker books, a shop, a hangout; it was worn by DJs, ravers, fashionistas everywhere. It was damned as the ed hardy of Berlin Mitte, the unofficial Berghain t-shirt. We held talks, made parties, donated money. It was interactive, tailorable to your city or country, a community, a company, a family, an identity, a party, collaborations, posters, sponsor, co-sponsor, co-branding, ripped off and, stolen and copied, copied and copied and celebrated and celebrated and celebrated. WASTED GERMAN YOUTH was a lot. Simply, it was a lot of fun.
And then it became a drag, the stress of running a company overtook the fun. I had made my statement, the patent battles were a nightmare. I couldn't top it, and that was my problem. I didn't have any more ideas or energy and wanted to sink the whole thing. And I couldn't sell it to no one. So after a long drawn out conflict with myself, I closed the shop, shut down the website and let all the patents run out. The show was over. the party was dead. And it was finally finally finally time to go home. My gift to the world. Good morning, good night. Rip.