Alpha Industries
| Alpha Industries
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 17th October 1959 |
| Seat | Chantilly , Virginia |
| management | Michael Cirker |
| Branch | Textile industry |
| Website | www.alphaindustries.com |
Alpha Industries Inc. is an American apparel manufacturer founded in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1959 with headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia . He mainly produces military clothing for the US military but also for the military in Argentina , Australia , Belgium , Chile , Ecuador , the Netherlands , Jordan , New Guinea , Saudi Arabia , Singapore , Taiwan and Uruguay . Alpha has also been making its products available to civilians since 1982 and manufacturing fashion clothing with a military look . In Germany , the brand is sold by Alpha Industries GmbH & Co. KG, founded in 1993 and based in Neu-Isenburg .
history
Alpha Industries was founded on October 17, 1959 by Samuel Gelber in Knoxville, Tennessee. Gelber chose the name during a preliminary meeting with his lawyer. When asked for the name of the new company to be founded, Gelber paused, pointed to a document of an association of law students called Alpha Phi Delta on the office wall and named the company name Alpha Industries. The new company was the successor to the clothing companies Superior Tags Corporation, Rolen Sportswear and Dobbs Industries. A major contract from the US Department of Defense helped the company gain employment and sales. Alpha Industries mainly produced jackets for US Air Force pilots .
After the death of the company's founder, Gelber, Alpha decided in 1982 for the first time to offer its clothing items to civilians .
Products
The best - known product is the MA-1 bomber jacket , which Alpha Industries has been producing since 1963 and of which it has delivered over a million copies to the US Department of Defense . The Alpha Industries MA-1 is worn by US stars from the entertainment industry such as Mark Wahlberg , the Kardashian ’s, Kanye West , Kylie and Kendall Jenner , Victoria Beckham , Rihanna , Bradley Cooper , etc., for private or professional purposes.
Alpha Industries has also been producing the well-known M-65 field jacket (so-called Schimanski jacket) since 1965 and the CWU-45 / P flight jacket since 1980 .
The Swedish clothing manufacturer Stutterheim produces waterproof Alpha Industries rain jackets in a cooperation .
Remove-before-flight tape
A red ribbon with the inscription REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT has become a trademark , which Alpha Industries has attached to the zipper of the sleeve pocket of almost every jacket since the 1990s or the inscription on other products such as B. T-shirts , sweaters and socks are used.
In the air - or space are red ribbons with the inscription in much greater execution only temporarily used as security alerts on landed aircraft. The sealing plugs or sleeves attached to the straps are intended to prevent sensitive parts or openings (e.g. on the pitot tube ) from becoming dirty or clogged. Pilots must ensure that all red ribbons are removed before each flight, otherwise a plane crash may occur.
This so-called RBF tag was produced by Alpha Industries on the occasion of collaborations with other companies (e.g. Playboy ) or company anniversaries (e.g. 50th and 55th) in other colors and with different labels.
Popularity in subcultures
Although Alpha Industries has no connections to the neo-Nazi scene and distances itself from this scene, the brand experiences popularity in the scene, probably because the logo introduced in 1992 bears a resemblance to the banned civilian badge of the SA . However, some neo-Nazis also reject the brand because it is not a German, but an American brand. Furthermore, followers of the scene tend to dress more inconspicuously.
In the late 2000s , the brand experienced greater popularity, especially in the hip-hop scene. The brand was also enjoying increasing popularity among groups from the biker and hard rock scenes, due to the wide range of possible combinations with alternative clothing.
Web links
- The timeline. alphaindustries.eu, accessed January 18, 2020 (History of Alpha Industries).
- Alpha Industries MA-1: REVIEW & COMPARISON: ORIGINAL bomber jacket. Netzbeitrag.de, November 1, 2019, accessed on January 18, 2020 .
literature
- Alan D. Cirker: The Alpha Story: 50 Years of an American Military Clothing Company . Baker Hill Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-615-29181-9 .
- Hans-Christian Dany: MA-1: Fashion and Uniform . Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-96054-089-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Company history of Alpha Industries ( Memento of the original dated February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 17, 2014.
- ↑ HISTORY EXPLAINED: REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT. alphaindustries.eu, November 1, 2018, accessed January 6, 2020 .
- ↑ http://www.taz.de/1/berlin/artikel/1/rechte-klamotten-sorgen-fuer-aerger/
- ↑ Joachim Wolf: Symbol change - neo-Nazis and their lifestyle . In: Federal Center for Political Education (Ed.): Dossier right-wing extremism - focus on youth culture . April 21, 2007, p. 3 ( HTML ).
- ^ Anton Maegerle : Right-wing extremist symbolism . ( PDF ).
- ↑ Neo-Nazis are in new clothes - 7th castle talk with young people about the new strategies of the right . In: State Parliament News Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . No. 4 , 2006, p. 3 ( PDF ).
