"The last time he'd visited the store was in 2018, when Derian first invited him to New York after encountering his work at an ornament fair in Frankfurt, Germany, on a tip from a Martha Stewart staffer."
"Originally from Lauscha, a small German town where the glass bauble is said to have been invented, in the nineteenth century, Flessa is a third-generation glassblower and the owner of Nostalgie-Christbaumschmuck, an ornament-making outfit founded by his grandfather."
"As legend has it, a glassblower in Lauscha, nestled in a valley at the base of the Thuringian Forest, could not afford the fruit that affluent Germans hung in baskets on their Christmas trees, so they made their own."
Steffen Flessa lit a blowtorch inside John Derian's Holiday Shop just before Thanksgiving to demonstrate ornament-making. He last visited in 2018 after Derian invited him to New York following an encounter at an ornament fair in Frankfurt on a Martha Stewart staffer’s tip. Flessa is originally from Lauscha and is a third-generation glassblower who owns Nostalgie-Christbaumschmuck, founded by his grandfather. He arrived with his partner, Olina Cmielova, who paints while he blows. Derian invited him back because of renewed demand for vintage-style ornaments and classic-tree decorations. Lauscha produced the majority of U.S. ornaments by the 1930s.
Read at The New Yorker
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