The hair & make up artist come shop manager come sales rep talks tells us how boardsports can set you free

Interview by Anna Langer, photo by Chris Grüner

Board sports give me the opportunity to drop into a whole other world and forget about the daily grind, no matter if it’s a sick powder run, a smashing day in the park with my friends, sticking a new trick on the wakeboard or just sitting in the line-up, waiting for the next set. There’s no limit playing around and learning new tricks, motivated and pushed by my friends.

I got into boardsports about ten years ago, my boyfriend at the time was a skiier who took me to the Stubai Glacier. He wanted to put me on skis but from the first moment I wanted to snowboard. It took me four days to slowly get down the mountain on my board, fearing the height and almost killing my snowboard teacher. But I made it, and from that moment on I was hooked on snowboarding and couldn’t think of anything else that ever gave me such a heartbeat and passion….

I lived in Hamburg back then, working freelance as a hair & make up artist. The distance to the mountains didn’t allow me to go snowboarding more than twice a year so I took up wakeboarding as an alternative to snowboarding and got hooked quite quickly on that too. I spent every free minute at the cable taking the boys as a role model, no matter what weather. By the way, there isn’t much but rain in Hamburg…

Soon after the snow dome in Bispingen opened its doors, I took the chance to get closer to snowboarding and started working in the little shop they had there and did a bit of teaching on the artificial slope, besides my day job as hair & make up artist. But the desire to leave Hamburg for the mountains only got stronger and stronger and so I finally left for the south two years later.

I decided to go to Munich first. I didn’t even have to search for a job, since the first place I asked – the Zimtstern Flagship Store in Munich – gave me a part-time job straight away. I soon moved up to be shop manager, while focusing on my freelance work more and more, with shoots for several board sports magazines and snowboard photographers as well as catalogue shoots for Zimtstern, Adidas, Rhythm etc. It all kind of felt like destiny, the transition was just so smooth. I met the right people very quickly and it all felt really right.

In September 2011 I started to work for Rhythm as sales rep first and quickly became the sales coordinator for Europe. Unfortunately, after so many years really pushing my dreams and working two jobs I realised that it wasn’t the right time for me to launch yet another career. The decision wasn’t easy but I left Rhythm this Spring, badly needing a time out… Which I’m now enyoing in Eastern Tyrol, managing a snowboard shop again, which is by far the most beautiful place I have ever lived!!

It’s quite hard to say that though since you go through different phases in live. I still think the coolest place I’ve lived in was Hamburg with all its different urban districts and cosmopolitan kind of people. Munich was really nice as well, the complete opposite of Hamburg, no trash, everything is very very clean, you feel save everywhere, people are nice and it’s way calmer and not half as hectic as Hamburg. But when it comes to my passion, Innsbruck was the best city I lived in so far with all possibilities you could think of.

If I had one wish free I’d “just” ask for lifelong health for my family and me. Everything else is up to you, you create the life you want to live and everything is possible if you just want it.

A piece of advice I would have needed 10 years earlier is the same advice I still need today, over and over: BE PATIENT. Things will fall into place. When I think of something I want to do, I want to do it NOW and patience is one of the hardest things I’m learning in life… It got better, or actually, it hasn’t…