Alois Frimmel
Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 43.2 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 0.3 ″ E
| Alois Frimmel - To the old button king
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| legal form | one-man business |
| founding | 1844 |
| Seat | Vienna |
| management | Gerhard Hennerfeind |
| Branch | Fashion |
| Website | www.Knopfkoenig.at |
Alois Frimmel ("Zum alten Knopfkönig") is a traditional shop that sells buttons and zippers . The old address was Freisingergasse 1 in Vienna's 1st district, Innere Stadt , today the shop is located at Wiedner Hauptstrasse 34 in the 4th district of Wieden .
history
The shop behind the Peterskirche was founded in 1844 by the master tailor Ferdinand Zambach. The business owner afterwards was Heinrich Baron Brauneker, in 1878 it was again bought by Alois Frimmel. In 1911, Alois Frimmel received the title of “ kuk court supplier ” for buttons and accessories, and his button business was called “Zum alten Knopfkönig”. The buttons were made of buffalo horn, mother-of-pearl , fine wood or metal. In addition to the imperial court, customers were also the other nobility and the bourgeoisie. The " coffee house writer " Peter Altenberg was a regular customer.
Alois Frimmel's successor was his son Max Frimmel. He married the 16-year-old fashion student Erika Frimmel, who was then 54 years old. In their time the shop had around 3,500 button boxes and button boxes with hundreds of thousands of buttons, the shop was almost 30 square meters with seven employees. The business became increasingly popular over time, also as a curiosity among tourists. Frimmel branches existed on Neuer Markt and on Wiedner Hauptstrasse. Nevertheless, over time, business became more and more difficult as the need for individual buttons became less and less with mass production and the changing taste of the time. Since Erika Frimmel had no heirs who could continue the business, she asked the city administration several times for help to somehow save the business for posterity. She thought of a museum, or at least wanted to give her buttons to a collector. Erika Frimmel gave up the business in 2004 without success. At the time of her retirement, at the age of over 70, she had already worked for the "Knopfkönig" for 45 years and had become something of an institution. The end of the traditional house on Petersplatz was very much regretted by many in Vienna.
Today there is a chocolate shop in the house, which has largely retained the 160-year-old historical interior. The interior is richly paneled with dark wood. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling, the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with cupboards where thousands of buttons have been kept in small drawers. The “Cassa” is framed with wooden pillars, a large, golden double-headed eagle as a sign of the purveyor to the court decorates the entrance to the rear storage area. According to self-promotion that could be read at the entrance, Frimmel boasted as the “first and oldest Viennese button defeat”.
Sibylle Zolles, who runs the traditional haberdashery W. Wächtershäuser in Frankfurt am Main , owned the rights to the name until the end of February 2010 .
In March 2010, Gerhard Hennerfeind and his wife took over the business on Wiedner Hauptstrasse, followed by Martina Schrutka in February 2019. There are still buttons and sewing accessories as well as repairs to zippers; Jewelery from the Juwelyn's brand is new.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The End of the Button King. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 7, 2004, accessed on February 4, 2009 (the monarchy dies a second time in Vienna).
- ↑ To the town hall, Mayor Michael Häupl. Der Standard , May 28, 2004, accessed on February 4, 2009 (The "button queen" Erika Felicitas Frimmel has to stop. One Viennese institution after another disappears ...).
- ↑ The End of the Button King. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 7, 2004, accessed on February 4, 2009 (the monarchy dies a second time in Vienna).
- ^ Vienna: Button becomes the king of chocolate. Der Standard, November 4, 2004, accessed on February 4, 2009 (Ms. Frimmel let it be known that she was happy. This is important: after all, Erika Frimmel was an institution).
literature
- Ingrid Haslinger: Customer - Kaiser. The story of the former imperial and royal purveyors . Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .
- János Kalmár, Mella Waldstein: KuK purveyors to Vienna's court . Stocker, Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 132-135.
- Braun & Co, button shop Frimmel: traditional shops are rebuilding or closing. Network for Monument Protection Austria, May 24, 2004, archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; Retrieved June 17, 2015 .
