INTERVIEW WITH JEANETTE NIEBELSCHÜTZ AND AN UNDAUNTED FRIEND

Radio: Jeanette, you have just founded parol accessoires and created your first collection of 28 scarves. Words and short sentences like "Sans, Souci.", and "Go ahead — make my day" are knitted into the scarves, and on one stole even two verses of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. How did you come up with the idea?

↑J.N.: Before the German reunification, I made a living sewing clothes and flogging them as a "free entrepreneur" in the GDR. That was really an underground business. After 1990, I involved myself predominantly in cultural activities. I had been thinking about executing various artistic projects in and around the palaces and gardens at Sanssouci for a long time. Of course, the foundation for Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg is nearly as venerable an institution as the Vatican. Projects must be well thought out and slowly deliberated over. After a while, the new, shrewd general director, Prof. Dr. Hartmut Dorgerloh, directed my enthusiasm to the Winzerberg areal, an installation for which Friedrich Wilhelm IV. was responsible, and which has now fallen into a state of disrepair. It’s also an ideal site for artistic projects both within and in front of this historical backdrop. In the meantime, a building association and an art association have been founded by a group of devoted citizens. It occurred to me that I could market and support the project with a suitable product. At the same time I had the idea of a scarf with typography and my old friend said that "Sans, Souci.", the inscription on the palace, would make a wonderful motif…"…

Friend: Sanssouci was certainly not a project undertaken by a carefree and worry-free king. The literal translation is "without worry" ("Ohne Sorge"), perhaps a small provocation for today´s Germany which worries about everything . Friedrich’s definition of a "crown = a hat the rain falls in" underlines the monarch’s enlightened, sceptical absolutism.

J.N.: This gave me three motifs which I used on my first designs, and had sample scarves knitted based on these. Over subsequent conversations, it gradually dawned on me that this could be a promising business idea.

↑Radio: … from cultural commitment to the creation of a business, and to production and trade…

J.N.: …well-designed, memorable scarves with short, catchy sentences. We were convinced that the scarves could catch on outside Potsdam, too…

Friend: As you always said: my home is in Potsdam, the world´s my oyster.

Radio: How did you choose the sentences you used in your first collection?

J.N.: Do you want to comment on that?

Friend: There’s nothing more bleak and boring than collections of quotations. Such a concentration of intellectuality. "Every aphorism is the amen of experience". Many are instructive, erudite and even precocious, they often involve wagging forefingers, are moralistic, or enlightened-sceptical. Some are funny, some slapstick, which don’t always work out of context. What’s more, today, provoking, insolent T-shirts printed with the slogans, and clichés of a cheeky, standardised autonomy and individuality are widely available. Jeanette wanted words, sentences, which have an effect, but which make their point light-heartedly, with a wink, so to speak. I think we got lucky with Rilke, Karl Valentin, Mae West, Eric Burdon, Clint Eastwood, Katherine Hepburn, Woody Allen. My absolute favourite was "Gentlemen, you can´t fight it in here. This is the war room" from Stanley Kubrick´s "Dr. Strangelove", but Jeanette found it too biting and peculiar, now my favourite is "Go ahead – make my day " by Clint Eastwood alias "Dirty Harry". For Jeanette…

J.N.: My favourite sayings are those by Mae West and Katherine Hepburn. And is there a more exhilarating and enchanting poem than the spring poem by Rilke?

↑Radio: parol accessoires …

J.N.: … parol is understood the world over, a brand one can remember.

Friend: In America, "parole" means conditional release from imprisonment…

J.N.: It´s irrelevant, they´ll understand it there too. And accessories means that I intend to develop other products over time, too. You´re looking at the clock — may I take this opportunity to thank my important cooperation partners?

Radio: Of course.

J.N.: First of all, I´d like to thank my wonderful mentor Angelica Blechschmidt, the former editor–in–chief of VOGUE Deutschland, who moved to Potsdam last year. She helped me work on, and refine, the colour compositions. And then, of course, I owe so much to my old friend and graphic designer Jan Hülpüsch, who developed the design with me. He has typography in his blood. And, last but not least, my thanks goes to Mr. Rosner and his knitting pros in Strickchic in Apolda, who patiently showed me everything I needed to know about knitting to be able to produce wonderful, high-quality products. (To friend) Do you want a special thank you too?

Friend: No — certainly not in public!

↑Radio: Jeanette, Mr. XY, many thanks for talking to us.