Fia Wille

Fia Wille (24 May 1868 – 20 September 1920) was a German designer and interior architect. From 1900 to around 1914, she ran an interior design company in Berlin with Rudolf Wille. Her work included, in addition to interior design, embroidery, illustration, and the design of furniture and clothing within the context of the fashion reform movement. Her award-winning designs appeared in numerous exhibitions. at a time when, in the German Empire, women only emerged as professional creators toward the end of the 19th century.

Dress reform movement

Wille actively participated in the dress reform movement of the late 19th-century, which campaigned for abandoning the tightly laced corset in favor of looser-fitting garments that allowed women to move more freely. At the exhibition devoted to "artistic clothing" in Berlin in 1905, Wille presented a loose-fitting summer dress that she designed so it followed the natural contours of the female body, instead of a tightly laced waist and torso.

For an article about the exhibition titled The Woman in Home and Work, Fia Wille was photographed in her office at a drawing board, bent over an architectural image and wearing a reform dress that she had designed. In another photograph for the widely circulated women's magazine The German Woman, she was photographed with her baby son dressed in a similar garment. She thus asserted herself as both a professional and a mother. Together, these two photographs challenged stereotypes that considered the practice of architecture ill-suited to women.

Selected awards 1902 Rudolf and Fia Wille: Third prize in the competition of the wallpaper factory Flamersheim & Steinmann 1903 Rudolf and Fia Wille: Edler & Krische poster competition, Hanover 1903 Rudolf and Fia Wille: Diploma of Recognition, International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts, Turin, Italy 1903 Rudolf and Fia Wille: First prize at the Wurzen carpet factory competition, Smyrna carpet design competition 1903 Rudolf and Fia Wille: Third prize and purchase in the linoleum pattern design competition 1906 Rudolf and Fia Wille: First prize at the competition of the Deutsche Modezeitung, Leipzig, for artistic creations for crafts 1914 Fia Wille: City of Leipzig Prize for Interior Architecture