Against Mass-Produced Goods: the Renaissance of Handcrafted Products
|
In the age of globalisation, the special is gaining in value. In Germany, people are sewing and knitting again – and handcrafted unique items or products made in limited series are much in demand. Diana Buß acquired her considerable skill in crocheting three years ago when she wanted to give a friend a frog for his birthday. She searched the Internet and came upon amigurumis offered at etsy, the American sales platform for needlework. In Japanese ‘amigurumi’ means the art of crocheting or knitting dolls. ‘I soon saw the geometry behind the figures, the cones, circles and spheres’, relates Buß. Her scientific background helped the biologist, who is in the midst of writing her dissertation, more than the needlework instruction from her schooldays. The frog turned out twice as big as planned, but looked very frog-like. The new handicraft generation
Since then, the Rostock resident, born in 1979, has designed mermaids, seahorses, hares and scorpions under the name ‘mygurumi’ and sold them through etsy and its German counterpart DaWanda. She doesn’t earn a lot of money. Biology is her main occupation; she produces the figures in her free time, to balance to her scientific work. ‘It’s fun’, she says. If a grandmother mails Buß about her granddaughter’s delight in a doll, Buß can duly share in the pleasure.She is young, female, has an interesting job, has only recently discovered the fun in making things herself and first tried out her skills among her friends. Buß is thus typical of the new handicrafts generation. ‘Our workers are mainly women between 25 and 45 years of age who often make these things alongside their studies or work’, explains Claudia Helming. She and Michael Pütz founded DaWanda in December 2006, which has in the meantime become by far the biggest German sales platform for handcrafted products. Anyone can put his or her work on offer at DaWanda. Those who have creative computer skills upload themselves their offerings with photos and descriptions, add short biographies together with a picture, answer customer questions and handle sales. DaWanda makes the functions available and charges a slotting fee between ten and thirty cents per article and five per cent of the price in the case of a successful sale. A great deal of positive energy
The costs for providers to find out whether there is a market for self-designed ice-cream waffle earrings are slight. Their labels are called ‘colorurlife’, ‘Miss Mollipolli’ or ‘Peppina Morgenschön’.
The names show that this is about joie de vivre. There are now about 25,000 sellers at DaWanda Germany (the platform also has branches in England and France). There are also an increasing number of customers, because DaWanda sells only products that are one-of-a kind or produced in limited series. ‘In this way a new sort of value is created’, says Helming. ‘What makes the difference about this movement is that a great deal of positive energy comes across. It’s fun to take a T-shirt from the shelf when I know who made it and that it’s unique’. Beyond global mass production
Whoever wears such a shirt becomes himself unique and experiences a ‘gain in distinction’. The expression comes from the authors Holm Friebe and Thomas Ramge, who have described the phenomenon of the new handicraft generation in their book Marke Eigenbau. Der Aufstand der Massen gegen die Massenproduktion (i.e., Self-Made Brand. The Revolt of the Masses against Mass Production). It is a gain for providers and consumers alike. The producers again find the pleasure in their work that they have lost in their alienated existence as employees. And with the special brands or one-of-a-kind products the buyers again have something special that globalised mass production cannot give them.Like the handcrafted folders with pockets and notebooks by Kathrin-Sarah Amend. The Cologne resident, also born in 1979 and a full-time project manager for an Internet agency, taught herself book-binding and now, under the name ‘paperama’, makes marvellous books with floral, graphic or classical covers designs. But although the demand is greater than her supply, ‘paperama’ remains for her a hobby: ‘I want to determine my own free time and not work like a slave processing orders’. She is herself a customer at etsy and DaWanda because she likes modern handicrafts. Old techniques, contemporary style
Although the techniques are old, the style of the new movement is contemporary. Today potholders are crocheted with death’s head motifs.
‘Handicrafts in Germany has long had the reputation of being frumpy, but now that’s changed’, explains Anne Struck. The journalist, likewise born in 1979, learned how to sew not so long ago from her grandmother and now sells, under the label ‘bozontee’, bags whose colourful patterns are enough to cheer you up. ‘I’ve had very good feedback and already got to know several people who I’d otherwise never have met.’ Struck lives in Berlin, one of the centres of the new handicraft movement, for many creative people live in the big cities. But the collective term ‘creative’ should be considered in its different aspects. Many of these creative people are autodidacts who see handicrafts as a hobby. That includes most of the 25,000 DaWanda providers, although quite a few of them want to make their hobby into an occupation. Then there are the trained designers who go independent with their own label, yet by no means necessarily make their own products but rather often work together with local companies. Nor should the craftsmen be forgot, who keep up the traditional techniques independent of the trends. Their work can be found not at DaWanda but rather in art galleries and studios, and sometimes too at specialist sales platforms such as Margot Werner’s and Ursula Kost-Schlief’s kunst-ver-bunt, where the two Koblenz residents make a targeted selection. Successful business ideas
Nina Neef does that too, according to an unusual criterion of quality. Whatever is offered at MutterParty.de has had to pass the children’s test. The Berlin resident, herself the mother of two, founded her platform in May 2006. Her more than forty providers are also mainly mothers who didn’t want to take up a profession, but felt insufficiently challenged by kindergarten talk. ‘It’s also about the confirmation you get in the job’, says Nina Neef. And, because mothers know what families want, their business ideas are successful. Like those of Tanja Rößle from Munich, the mother of two sons. Five years ago she began with personalised gifts like name bracelets and now runs loma-ist-einzigartig.de, a small but expanding business. Bags with individually embroidered names sell particularly well – at MutterParty too.
Someone who predicted the trend for handcrafted products years ago is Schnuppe von Gwinner. ‘Everything was oriented to mass consumption; a surfeit was foreseeable’, she says. At platform Craft2eu.net, the art historian, journalist and curator exhibits and sells ‘contemporary arts and crafts’ from all over Europe, that is, the works of designers who combine modern style with a craftsman’s mastery. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
‘Family and friends play a great role for our clients’, says the Hamburg resident, ‘and it is part of their sense of themselves that they give others or themselves something beautiful’. Even if she long saw the trend coming, ‘now the thing’s really gaining momentum’. Literature
Friebe, Holm; Ramge, Thomas: Marke Eigenbau. Der Aufstand der Massen gegen die Massenproduktion, Frankfurt, Campus, September 2008 |
Stefanie Dörre
is an editor at the Berlin city magazine tip.
Translation: Jonathan Uhlaner
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion
March 2009
Do you have questions about this article?
Write to us:
online-redaktion@goethe.de
is an editor at the Berlin city magazine tip.
Translation: Jonathan Uhlaner
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion
March 2009
Do you have questions about this article?
Write to us:
online-redaktion@goethe.deRelated links
- Marke Eigenbau The web site for the revolt of the masses agaisnt mass production
- Video on the book Marke Eigenbau. Der Aufstand der Massen gegen die Massenproduktion
- Marke Eigenbau – der Aufstand der Massen gegen die Massenproduktion, Auszug aus dem Buch (i.e., Self-Made Brand. The Revolt of the Masses against Mass Production)
