The Skill: Daniel Löffler

Daniel Löffler, brush hair production manager, crouches over the machine. Complete concentration is etched into his posture. His hands hover over the belt like a pianist’s over the piano keys. The hair and fibres are blended in the special machine, which only one company in the world produces in Italy. A perfect brush needs just the right composition of different fibres, longer and shorter, wavy and smooth. Several jiggling belts mesh the hairs together.

It takes great skill to insert the hairs correctly at the beginning of the bands so that nothing slips. Just as carefully, they have to be removed at the end with long-tined forks and placed in boxes for further processing. If you watch this process for a while, your fascination for the precision of Löffler’s handiwork grows. And it’s clear that it’s not what you do that matters, but how you do it.

This article was first published in the fall 2022 print edition of 30 Grad.