A simple shirt dress in azure blue hangs in the shop window, next to it are scarves in beautiful pastel colors – anyone who walks past the fashion boutique on the Fünffingerplätzchen in Frankfurt might think: Everything as usual.

Petra Kirchhoff

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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That's largely true, but the beautiful corner shop with its large shop windows is now missing a familiar face.

Ingrid Lennerts-Pohlmann retired on April 1st.

But as the retailer had wished – according to her own statements, she was also economically satisfied with her concept over the past ten years – things are continuing on the spot.

Nathalie Paschke is the successor, a young woman from Cameroon who has been living in Germany for 15 years, studied business administration and languages ​​here, earned her money with temporary jobs in fashion shops and became self-employed as a leather goods dealer after her studies.

That was seven years ago. The thirty-eight-year-old currently runs four shops selling bags and shoes in shopping centers in small towns in southern Germany.

Since she is now a mother and doesn't want to be on the road as much anymore, she decided to take over the Lepo boutique.

“I felt like I was in a living room”

It's now called Bunt.

You love colors, says Paschke.

Colors are like a language, fill spaces, spread life.

"Perhaps that has something to do with where I come from." It was a rather rainy, gray Sunday in February when the candidate for the successor stood in front of the shop door in Frankfurt for the first time.

She immediately liked the facility.

"I felt like I was in a living room."

And so she left everything as is - in the spirit of the families and women who shop here and, according to Paschke, make it clear that she should continue just like her predecessor.

– The two women hit it off straight away.

Lennerts-Pohlmann still helps in the background and sometimes warns, for example, to be more active on social media.

But that's not at all in the nature of the rather reserved successor, as she makes clear.

"But you have to do it."

The transition was not easy insofar as it was actually already too late to order the spring goods.

There are also delivery problems due to Corona.

0039 Italy, for example, had nothing left in stock, Essentiel Antwerpen only delivered to its own shops.

Cheerful colors, gloomy forecasts

A lot of colorful things – blouses and dresses – from Seidensticker are currently hanging in the store.

The brand fits well into the concept of mid-priced brands that are not found everywhere.

New are jeans from the sustainable brand Feuervogl (99 to 125 euros), sandals and slippers from Softclox and fashionable oversized shoes (42 to 45) from the Dutch brand Babouche Lifestyle, which Paschke also has in its range because, although otherwise more dainty, lives on big feet.

In the children's department, too, much remains the same with brands such as Nickel, Hummel, Vingino and Sanetta.

The shop is known for a good selection of children's shoes.

As cheerful as the colors are, the times in brick-and-mortar retail are currently so gloomy.

The trader herself describes her step as "extremely courageous".

But she is not naive.

Retail stores like hers also meant a piece of quality of life for them.

"I just like the contact with people."

Bunt, Rendeler Strasse 54, Frankfurt;

Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.