Valentin's Letter

High Summer 2022

Dear Friends, 

I just got stuck on page 4 while flicking through our new catalogue. You are supposed to look at the Zarifa cashmere jacket, of course: hand-knitted by wonderful women in Poland who spend days on this jacket. We would love to produce more of them, but we can hardly find enough hand-knitters who have mastered this craft. The next generation would rather sit at the computer and do business or marketing, like I am doing right now, than create something with their hands.  

And so, on page 4, I much prefer to look at her feet on the stone. I wonder how it would feel now: my bare feet on the rough stone, a few steps, the rough and pure surface of the big rocks, then a short jump into the sand, now a few shells and small stones under my feet. Now I am far away.  

Hamburg, 4 degrees, grey with a light drizzle. I have a light marble floor under my feet in the office. Very modern today. Iris put it in when we moved in 1989. She always had an eye for it. Now I find it cold and slippery right now - and yet I won't take my shoes off.  

I think you will only fully understand our sweaters when you wear them naked on your skin, really feel them, wear them for yourself and not for others. Somehow it has a lot to do with the bare feet on the stone. What a gift when you can feel that.  

I wonder if I can establish "feeling" as a hiring criteria for new employees. Now my thoughts are spinning faster again and I'm touching the sweaters, not the ground under my feet.