“At 88, don’t stop working, just move your work to your home so you can go on for a while”. This is Jo Klomp’s motto. She has run a haberdashery shop in Nuenen with fabrics, sewing thread and zips for more than 70 years.
Jo is born in Nuenen and is a familiar face in the village. She still works five half-days a week in the shop at Park 31. ‘Since 1954 my shop has existed, I have never done anything else,’ she says. She started around the corner in a real shop. Now she lives even closer to work: the shop is in her living room.
Although, you don’t see much of the house anymore. It is completely full of fabrics, pattern paper, sewing thread and accessories. Just like in the garage and upstairs. She is living between them. ‘This used to be the living room with nine people,’ she says, while she points to the middle room of about nine square metres. ‘It went fine.’
Back in time
You go back in time in Klomp’s shop. A stove from the early last century, decorative ducks reminiscent of the 1970s. A dressmaker’s diploma from 1954 on the mantelpiece. ‘And no card payments here. I have no pin device and am not stingy,’ Klomp says with a laugh.
Klomp always tries to see whether a broken zip or buttonhole can still be repaired before she sells something new. ‘People regularly come in with ‘I need a new zip’, but often the zip is just perfectly repairable. Then I’d rather explain how, than sell a new one.’
Often Klomp then also shows it to the customers and doesn’t charges anything for it. The charm of a village business? ‘I don’t need money for it, but I do want them to pay attention to how I do it and also pass it on to the children. Because new generations often no longer have this knowledge, when it is so important to be able to fix things yourself.’
Chest
The sewing supplies – zips, buttons and sewing thread – even at this age, Klomp still just buys extra when it runs out. ‘Those things are bought the most’. But fabrics are on sale. ‘It will come to an end one day anyway, although I don’t know when,’ she says.
She laughs: ‘I fall down automatically when it ends.’ She points to the counter: ‘That’s where the coffin will stand, it’s already agreed with the children. Handy isn’t it? At least they know what I want. And I just belong here.’
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Vanya Dobrikova
