DIRNDl and BRAID - what is it about these traditional FASHION PHENOMENA, and how much has wearing them changed in the present?

Erich Traxler works at the Funeral Museum of Vienna’s famous Central Cemetery. Before he was a coffin bearer and later an arranger at the funeral parlor. Even though his métier is death, he has remained a person with a sense of humor. A conversation about selfie coffins, decomposition, and the question of who we are when we are dead. 

We humans are nothing but stardust and, like the Earth, we like to spin in circles. What does a roundabout have in common with the universe and why is the Milky Way provincial? We spoke with the German astrophysicist, FAZ editor, and philosopher Sibylle Anderl.  

Leopold Hödl got up at one-thirty this morning to personally select “his animals,” from which he will later make sausages, steak, and schnitzel. He isn’t bothered by killing them or the smell of blood. As a little boy he was already helping out his parents Leopold and Leopoldine. Now in its second generation, the butcher’s shop in the 23rd district is the last in Vienna to still slaughter its own animals. His greatest passions are butchering and his wife.

The roots of fashion designer Andreas Kronthaler, husband of Vivienne Westwood, are in the Tyrolean Zillertal valley. We could have asked him what it was like to have tea with Prince Charles. But we didn’t. Instead, we had a chat about his grandmother’s blueberry patties and the fur coats of his old aunt in Graz. This interview was written in the summer of 2022; Vivienne Westwood has since passed away. We have not changed it and have left it as it was held. We send our heartfelt condolences to the Westwood and Kronthaler family.