Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture in the volunteer editorial office.
Bodo is 65 years old and lives in Neukirchen in the Ore Mountains. The former group and project leader has been a "volunteer from the very beginning" and has been involved with Chemnitz 2025 for several years. He uses his organisational expertise in the volunteer editorial team and takes care of archiving the texts. This article was written on his initiative in collaboration with Ms Jenus.
On 13 August 2024, two employees of Kulturhauptstadt gGmbH and I, as a volunteer representative, had the opportunity to visit our sponsoring partner, Strickmoden Bruno Barthel GmbH & Co. We were excited to experience the production of our volunteer caps up close.
Strickmoden Bruno Barthel produces clothing, headwear and accessories for the whole family. With the children's fashion brand "maximo", the Chemnitz-based family business is well-known in Germany and many other European countries and stands for the best quality and fit, especially when it comes to headwear. Beatrice Jenus, product manager and responsible for design and development, gave us a tour of production.
From the knitting machines to the cutting and finishing, we observed every step of the process and were impressed by its complexity. We recognised the bright blue knitwear immediately. Ulrike Veith explained to us what is important when knitting and how the knitted pieces are separated from the machine. Then the reflective C_THE_UNSEEN_ logo was ironed on, which not only looks cool, but also makes you really visible. The cosy, soft inner lining made of turquoise-blue fleece was cut so quickly with electric textile scissors that it was almost impossible to follow. At the sewing machine, Anett Bachmann showed us how to sew everything together in no time at all and how to apply the logo labels. After a short time, we were holding the first two volunteer caps in our hands.
We were impressed by the many steps it takes to produce a cap, by the professionalism, but above all by the attention to detail with which each individual cap is made. Strickmoden Bruno Barthel is sponsoring 1,000 knitted hats and 500 baseball caps for the Capital of Culture gGmbH and all the volunteers, which were designed in collaboration with the volunteer team and Luisa Sophia Grätz from the Capital of Culture gGmbH. Peter Rossner documented the production process photographically.
Visitors to Chemnitz, the European Capital of Culture 2025, will soon be able to admire the caps sponsored by Strickmoden Bruno Barthel at the Volunteers.
