Back to the Future!

Home office is great when you have the choice - and a bore when it is mandatory. Now spring is in full swing, the pandemic takes a break, and the Netural crew assembles for the first team photo shooting in a very, very long time. Even Santa Claus rose to the occasion and joined us.

Digital invention is a mind game and therefore more often than not a very lonely occupation. All the more important for Netural is motivating, agile, real-live, person-to-person teamwork. The sun is up, spring is here and we enjoy coming together again to chat over a drink coffee, to brainstorm over tricky tasks, and to collectively conjure up the next big innovation thing.

Netural celebrates the arrival of spring and the departure of home office isolation by shooting the first team photo since...- since...? Well, never mind. Anyway, we all showed up and showed our happiest smiles. Even Santa Claus was there, and here is why:

Last winter, when taking long walks in the wet cold was the biggest, and sometimes only, legally available pleasure, the Netural Santa went out to hunt for an exceptional gift to fit exceptional times. To his, and our, lasting surprise, he came home with the Troyer.

Say what?

Troyer. We learned that this is a Middle High German word. It translates as “jacket”, but Middle High German has not been an official language since about 1500 AD. Nowadays, Troyer is the word for a sweater with a zipper in the turtleneck.

It is fitting that this garment originated in northern Germany, where there are three seasons per day - everything except summer - and the wet wind blows so hard that the cows fly off the dikes. A Troyer is a knitted home for those who have to be outside in such a climate. It´s warmth and joy you can put on. Comfort on dark, cloudy days. Springtime come early. A garment to love. Sustainable and built to last for generations.

The Netural Santa has discovered such Troyers. Not just really good ones. The really very best ones. A small manufactory in Hamburg knits them from five-thread wool yarn in a double stitch, equips them with zippers with a seawater-resistant double coating, and more windproof than this would qualify as bulletproof. The manufacturer is called Rymhart, which is Northern dialect and means "wide heart". You could call Rymhart the Netural among sweater makers: clever, in love with quality, and proud of products that look quite simple and simply beautiful, but a hide a lot of complexity beneath their beauty.

Therefore, when last Christmas rolled around, Santa laid, among other things, one Rymhart Troyer for each Netural under the Christmas tree, so we could all enjoy the coziest winter ever. Commemorating this happy surprise, we are all wearing our Rymhart Troyer on the first group photo since… - since… - never mind. Thank you, Santa! Hello, Office! We wish all friends of Netural a wonderful spring and a summer, so warm and sunny that the Troyer may have a long deserved rest in the wardrobe.