One family, one wire, nearly a hundred years

How it all began

In 1928, Richard Willy Paul was thirty years old, a merchant, and he founded "Heimindustrie Putzkau" in Putzkau. Work was done at home, at the kitchen tables throughout the region, and from the beginning the assortment was remarkably broad: decorative and vase flowers, branches made of fabric and paper, boutonnières, items made from Staffa, chenille creatures and chenille dolls, grasses for binding bouquets, and an extensive assortment of artificial flowers. Richard Willy Paul designed the patterns and sketches himself. It must have been a good idea — the business grew quickly.

What remains of that most of all is one thing: the chenille. Brightly colored artificial silk, hand-twisted onto wire, fluffy and flexible. The same material we work with to this day.

A machine as masterpiece

Nearly forty years later, his son Christian Paul took over — a trained industrial master and merchant. For his master's thesis project, he built his own machine in 1966: the Easter grass machine. From paper wool it produced Easter grass, and Paul became the only manufacturer in the region of the later new German states to produce it. From a test piece came a second mainstay that to this day accounts for roughly one third of our production.

Expropriation

In 1972, the business was expropriated. What the family had built over decades no longer belonged to them. The work continued, the knowledge remained in the family — but the company that Richard Willy Paul had founded was, for the time being, no longer an independent family business.

A new beginning

It took until after the fall of the Wall. On December 20, 1990, Dorette Paul, the company's daughter-in-law, founded the business anew. It was a fresh start — with the same materials, the same craftsmanship, and the name that has since hung above the workshop: Dorette Paul.

Ina Paul

Today Ina Paul runs the company. Over 210 different items continue to be made by hand, in renovated facilities in Putzkau — chenille, Easter grass, feather ornaments, and everything that has come along over the years. Four names, nearly a hundred years, and still the same patience at the wire.

What handcraft means here

We have no button that does the work alone. Chenille is twisted, feathers are dyed and straightened, Easter grass is plucked and packed into assortments — piece by piece, by hand. That is exactly what has not changed since 1928, and exactly why you can tell from every item that someone has touched it. That is our promise, and it is a very simple one: handcrafted production that guarantees the highest quality from the start.