When I was doing an interview about style and fashion with a German newspaper last year, the NWZ, I told them about something my father and I have in common: we literally wear our clothes, our favourite items at least, until they fall apart. No matter what people think. People being Mrs Peters, my parents’ Bügelfrau doing their ironing once a week. For years and years, actually it’s been decades, not years, she has been ironing a particular shirt of my father’s that simply refuses to fall apart. The only existing proof it wasn’t bought lately, even all of its buttons never had to be replaced, is the brand’s logo on the collar. The dissolving logo, that is. Hermès, it used to say. The little carriage and its little horseman above the name left first for good when the material declined entering the 21st century. Mrs Peters never commented on it. Way too discreet a woman. But I guess this continuity in her work must be of some comfort to her. Maybe she holds this shirt dearly by now, after all these years. They grew old together. Just like my father did with this shirt. But not in public, just in Mrs Peters’ Bügelzimmer, in a privacy of their very own, her ironing room. How romantic. Oh my God, they’ve been having an affair behind my father’s back in that room. I can’t believe it!