BüRSTENHAUS REDECKER - MorningCalM March 2019

SWEEP DREAMS

Dirt is a guaranteed part of life. Bürstenhaus Redecker, a family-run German company that’s been crafting brushes and brooms since 1935, shows that there’s in fact an art to the chore of chasing dirt away.

It was in winter that Gernot Redecker turned to his father’s brushes. Friedrich Redecker had passed away recently, leaving behind a cache of his life’s work — wood, bundles of bristles, machinery — in their family home in Germany. Gernot was a landscaper, but work was hard to find when nothing outside grew. “So he made brooms and brushes over the winter,” recalls Felix, Gernot’s son. “In March, he went to a weekend market. It was from Friday to Sunday, and on Friday afternoon he needed to leave, because he was sold out.”

The whirlwind success of that weekend in 1987 wouldn’t have been possible without 1935, when Friedrich founded Bürstenhaus Redecker. “He taught my father, who taught me,” says Felix. Friedrich, who lost his vision as a young child, learned his craft at a school for the blind, where it was common to be taught tactile skills.

“He was all by himself making brooms and brushes for the farmers in our local area,” Felix says. “Once or twice
a week, my grandma drove him, putting all the brushes in the trunk and driving to the farmers. Or they came to him — it was very nice for him to get company. People came to him, friends came to him, talking, sitting together.” Friedrich became a renowned figure in his community. “Everybody knew him.”

Redecker brushes had to be tough enough to clean up yards, sheds and farming equipment. Cleaning tools for these purposes feature bristles made from tough plant fibers rather than horsehair or goat hair. “Goat hair is very soft and sensitive, and this is for dusting. Dust from picture frames, sculptures, furniture. Horsehair is stiffer, and this is for sweeping,” says Felix. “Pig bristle is very special for bath brushes, nail brushes, massage brushes. Horsehair is for hand brushes and indoor brooms.”

To attach the bristles, a wire is threaded through the holes in the brush’s wooden body. Then, carefully measured bundles of bristles are inserted into loops formed by the wire. When all the bristles have been fed, the wire is pulled so that the loops close. Putting the bristles in is Felix’s favorite part of the crafting process, because it’s the moment when the wood fulfills its destiny. “It’s like a wedding — the wooden brush body meets the bristle.”

The Redecker expertise comes from Friedrich’s five decades of making brushes, but he never had the chance to pass it on to anyone other than his direct descendants. “There was no sense for them to make brushes,” says Felix. “It was just typical work for blind people.”

But the revelation of 1987 was realizing that making brushes was as enduring a craft as there could ever be. The universality of the need to clean has ensured a global market for Redecker and has supplied crucial materials. Its animal hair is mostly sourced from Asia and South America, and the plant fibers are generally imported from Indian, Sri Lankan and Mexican types of palm trees.

“No matter where we are in the world, we wander around and look for things,” says Felix. “Home care and body care are so different around the world in their habits, in the brushes they use.” It’s true that there are differences of habit and method all over the world. A 2013 survey of
23 countries found that Koreans, for example, were by far the most enthusiastic vacuumers, with around 40 percent vacuuming at least once a day.

In 2017, Redecker introduced a sorghum-straw hand broom after noticing how hand brooms enjoy greater popularity in South America and Asia compared to Europe, where long-handled brooms are more common. Meanwhile, the brand’s category of wellness and massage products reflects the widespread passion for the sauna in Germany. “Me and my wife, we have a sauna, and my parents have a sauna, and then in our holiday house we have a sauna,” Felix says.

Given the current trendiness of organizational philosophies of life like Marie Kondo’s or Swedish death cleaning, it might feel like tidying up is suddenly about reorganizing your psyche as well as your home. But we’ve long observed the meditative rituals of cleaning. Almost every culture has some custom of undertaking a major house cleaning around the New Year or right before winter’s end, to prepare yourself for a fresh new start and to bring good luck. “Maybe it’s a little spiritual thing,” says Felix.

Two Redecker generations run the company today. While the whole family is involved in designing products, Gernot is the head of development. Along with a lush range of traditional brushes and brooms, the Redecker catalog covers the minutiae of keeping life neat, like mushroom brushes — as mushrooms get waterlogged when washed — or a book brush, or a duster on a key chain. This winter, the company added a slew of new items — including a brush for waffle lovers. “You may know,” says Felix, in the tone of someone with plenty of firsthand experience, “it’s a pain to clean the waffle iron.”