Bleyle

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Bleyle's boy suits (1905)
Formerly Bleyle headquarters in Stuttgart's Lindenspürstrasse (until approx. 1912)

The Bleyle company ( Wilhelm Bleyle oHG ), based in Stuttgart , was founded in 1889 and was one of the largest German manufacturers of knitted and hosiery products in the first half of the 20th century .

The company was already well-known at the end of the 19th century for its popular sailor suits for boys . After a long period of economic success up to the late 1970s - with its own branch network from the 1950s - Bleyle had to file for bankruptcy in 1988 . The Bleyle brand name was continued by two remaining subsidiaries in Pinggau in Austria and in Brackenheim in Swabia . Bleyle women's outerwear from Pinggau was discontinued in 2009 after the local subsidiary went bankrupt ; Bleyle underwear from Brackenheim is still there today.

Company history

Founding years

The Bleyle company was founded in 1889 by Wilhelm Bleyle (1850–1915) from Feldkirch (Austria). After training as a retail salesman in the cigar trade in Ulm and professional experience as an accountant and sales representative for a Stuttgart company, Bleyle first had to continue running a brother's general store in Feldkirch when he emigrated to the USA . In 1885 Bleyle bought a knitting machine , initially only for private use, in order to dress his six children cheaply. This led to a business idea that he implemented in Stuttgart in 1889. He opened a yarn business "with the manufacture and sale of knitted goods". At this point in time, Bleyle had five knitting machines, about 5,000 gold marks in equity and eight employees. In contrast to other knitwear manufacturers of the time, Bleyle did not have complete garments knitted in one piece, but rather large strips from which he cut the individual parts and then sewed them together. This procedure subsequently proved to be very successful.

Years of success

One of the first products the Bleyle company made was knitted sailor suits for boys, which were very popular at the time. Production soon expanded, and in 1901 the company moved into its first own factory hall . A branch in Brackenheim followed in 1903, and in Ludwigsburg in 1905 . In 1912 the company moved into a new company headquarters on Rotebühlstrasse (corner of Rötestrasse and Seyffertstrasse) in Stuttgart. A year later Bleyle handed over the management to his sons Max and Fritz; the company was now a general partnership . In 1905 the company's turnover was already one million gold marks, in 1913 it was five million. The number of employees had also increased rapidly. In 1910 Bleyle had around 1,000 employees, in 1918 there were a good 2,000. The First World War did not bring about a decline in demand, but it had a noticeable effect on the quality of the wool . Bleyle's supplies had been confiscated from the army in the fall of 1914 . The wool allocated thereafter was mostly of relatively poor quality, so that the company no longer sold any clothing under its brand name from 1916 until the 1920s in order not to damage its reputation. The most important product was still the sailor suit.

After the Second World War , women's clothing was in the foreground, including underwear . Starting in the 1950s, Bleyle stores with clothing for the whole family were opened all over West Germany, as well as in West Berlin. Bleyle now employed 3,200 people, had five production sites, exported to 35 countries and in 1955 achieved an annual turnover of 75 million DM . From the early 1960s, Bleyle began building a network of franchise stores. In the 1980s, Bleyle ran elegant retail stores, for example on Königstrasse 68 in Stuttgart, in Osnabrück, Baden-Baden or Konstanz, where high-priced clothing was recently offered in a purist, elegant atmosphere. Bleyle positioned itself in the premium segment and tried to compete with high-priced brands such as Escada , Rodier or Bogner .

Times of crisis

From the beginning of the 1980s, the company found itself increasingly in a crisis. At that time there were over 45 Bleyle stores and 60 franchise stores. Attempts were made to fashionably rejuvenate the collections, which were perceived as somewhat old-fashioned. However, this strategy was abandoned after the regular customers reacted frightened and younger customers could not be won. In 1985, Hans Dieter Steinke, a former IBM manager and restructuring company at Aigner , was the first non-family member to take over management. In the mid-1980s, Bleyle had just over 1000 employees and, with a total turnover of 230 million DM, achieved a loss of 25 million DM. In May 1986 the company headquarters was relocated from Stuttgart to Ludwigsburg. Salaries were cut, staff downsized, 17 separate subsidiaries were combined in Wilhelm Bleyle KG and production sites near Karlsruhe , Ireland and Alsace were closed. Family disputes among the 22 heir partners (four personally liable partners and 18 limited partners ) prevented the rapid implementation of a restructuring plan . The losses rose in the following year to 70 million DM. In January 1987 a settlement administrator was assigned to the company after the Bleyle banks had terminated the existing loans.

Bankruptcy and sale

In 1988 Bleyle filed for bankruptcy. The Sindelfinger MVG Modevertriebsgesellschaft AG took over the operation including the subsidiary founded in 1978 in Pinggau (originally as Sprint-Sportmoden GmbH ) and also acquired the trademark rights. The main plant in Ludwigsburg was shut down. In 1992, Bleyle was transferred from MVG to Sindelfinger Werbevertriebs-GmbH (WVG), which in 1995 - together with the two licensees Bleyle Classic GmbH (women's and men's outerwear) in Sindelfingen and Bleyle Underwear GmbH (underwear and nightwear) in Brackenheim - Filed for bankruptcy. MVG filed for bankruptcy in 1992. Another licensee was Bleyle USA for North America . Zurich-based Arabella Verwaltungs-AG has owned the Bleyle brand name since 1995 . Bleyle Classic GmbH was dissolved and Bleyle Underwear GmbH continued. During this time, the actress Iris Berben promoted Bleyle Underwear . In the mid-1990s, only a few factory outlets were left of the former Bleyle branch network . In 1996 Bleyle Underwear in Brackenheim, where 25 employees still worked, was taken over by a management buyout . The company still exists today. In Pinggau, where contract manufacturing was mainly carried out for other brand manufacturers and around 40 employees were still working in the mid-2000s, primarily knitted women's clothing was brought onto the market under the name Bleyle. From the end of the 1990s, fashion lines from Pinggau were called Bleyle Classic or Bleyle en vogue . In June 2009, Pinggauer Bleyle GmbH became BWP Bekleidungs ​​GmbH , which filed for bankruptcy in August 2009 after the bankruptcy of its main client.

Products

Bleyle sailor suits from the 1920s.

The most important product of the Bleyle company was the sailor suit for half a century. In addition, from 1889 men's suits and trousers for gymnastics, riding and cycling were made. After 1900 gymnastic clothing and underwear for women as well as girls' dresses were added. However, knitwear for adults was far less in demand than those for children. At that time it was propagated in Germany by Gustav Jäger as reform clothing ; However, Jäger founded his own company in England. The success of Bleyle was based primarily on the sailor suits, which were standard clothing for boys around 1900. In 1915, twelve different suit models were made. The company not only manufactured the knitwear, but also offered a repair service to customers.

During the time of National Socialism , however, the demand for sailor suits experienced a collapse, because the NSDAP wanted a different form of children's uniform during this time. After the Second World War , the days of sailor suits were largely over; Bleyle made the last model in 1957. In the post-war years, Bleyle adjusted to a full range of clothing for women, men and children. The Bleye brand was not only known throughout Germany, but also internationally. Blouses , sweaters , dresses , costumes , jackets , coats , etc., as well as nightwear and underwear for women, outerwear for men and children's clothing in the upper price segment were offered in a branch network of their own sales rooms and through retailers . From the 1970s, however, the name Bleyle was associated with conservative, even old-fashioned clothing, which the company was ultimately unable to get rid of despite some countermeasures.

Market environment

Stuttgart had a number of large international companies in the knitting and warp knitting sector. An important competitor was, for example, the Paul Kübler & Co. company. Half of all 15 companies of this type in Germany were based in Stuttgart. Today this branch of industry has died out in Stuttgart.

  • "The best are"

  • "His first Bleyle"

  • "Real Bleyle Sweater"

  • "We wear Bleyle"

  • "Bleyle's boy suits"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bleyle in Berlin , zeit.de, December 15, 1955
  2. ↑ Difficult to understand , spiegel.de, January 26, 1987
  3. ^ A family must abdicate , zeit.de, January 30, 1987
  4. ↑ Heard ?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , absatzwirtschaft.de, April 10, 1995@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.absatzwirtschaft.de  
  5. ↑ 1.3 million euro debt: Textile producer BWP is insolvent , kleinezeitung.at, August 21, 2009
  6. ↑ Bankruptcy: 36 jobs at the Pinggau textile company BWP are massively endangered ( memento from November 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) ,wirtschaftsblatt.at, August 24, 2009
  7. ↑ Gabriele Kreuzberger, p. 125 (see lit.)

literature

  • Gabriele Kreuzberger, factory buildings in Stuttgart, their development from the middle of the 19th century to the First World War , Klett-Cotta 1993, ISBN 3-608-91629-6 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 46 ′ 12 ″  N , 9 ° 9 ′ 19 ″  E