Jockey International

Jockey company logo (2010)

Jockey International , Inc., is an American international manufacturer , wholesaler and retailer of clothing . The company was founded in the Midwest as ST Cooper & Sons in 1876 and has been family-owned ever since .

The Jockey brand has been on the market in Germany since 1951.

history

Older Jockey Logo with the 'Jockey Boy'

In 1876 the retired pastor Samuel Thrall Cooper (* 1824, † 1892) founded the company ST Cooper & Sons in St. Joseph, Michigan with his sons Charles and Willis, who both died in fire in 1903 , and Henry († 1924) in St. Joseph, Michigan . Two years later, 90 people were already employed. For the first 22 years after it was founded, the company successfully produced wool socks and stockings - initially for forest workers for whom there were no robust quality socks on the market - and finally for men, women and children. At the end of the 1890s, the company's headquarters were relocated to the other side of Lake Michigan to Kenosha , Wisconsin , where the company's international headquarters are still located today. It was not until 1898 that the portfolio was expanded to include men's underwear. At the turn of the century , the company traded as the Cooper Underwear Company . After the death of Charles and Willis, Henry was the sole owner of the company. A bestseller at that time was the so-called Union Suit , one-piece shirt trousers with long arms and legs made of knitted fabric . After very successful years, the company name was changed again in 1929 to Cooper's Inc. The company produced a short, sleeveless one-piece suit in shorts called the Singleton . In 1934 it introduced a tightly cut, modern slip without a top under the name Jockey Brief , which was named after the jockstrap and was inspired by a postcard from the French Riviera , on which a man with a tight men's swimsuit was depicted. The company had the Jockey brand name legally protected. The sensational sales success of this model paved the way for new models and the company's international expansion. In 1935 the Y-Front Brief was presented, a further development of the Jockey Brief with engagement and reinforcing seams in the form of an upside-down Ypsilon .

The first foreign license was granted to Canada in 1936 , followed by Great Britain and Australia in 1938, and finally other European markets. The company operated a liberal licensing policy, albeit subject to high quality standards. This led to different brand appearances in the different markets. 1938 held Cooper's commercial appeal on a technical fair the 'Cellophane Wedding' (dt .: "Cellophane Wedding '), the appearance of an as newlyweds clothed model -Paares consisting Cellopahn -made, transparent solid clothes and including highly visible Jockey wearing undergarments . In the following years the company won prominent advertising media such as Babe Ruth , Yogi Berra and Bart Starr . Nevertheless, the American economic crisis made the company difficult. From 1940 Cooper's led a stylized Jockey -Figur, the Jockey Boy , as a hallmark of the company and acted as sponsor in horse racing . During World War II , Cooper's manufactured knitwear for the US Army. In the following years, the brand name Jockey was embroidered on the outside of the underwear band for the first time , active print and finally television advertising (1958) was carried out for the brand and numerous new models were presented. The European licensees often acted as fashion pioneers. It was not until 1971 from the Cooper's, Inc. , the Jockey Menswear, Inc. and finally in 1972 Jockey International , after the since 1930 active in the company and since 1961 as managing director of Cooper's acting Harry S. Wolf had bought the company.

For the cover of the Rolling Stones - album Sticky Fingers created Andy Warhol , who himself as a jockey was known support coated 1971, with a $ decorated character Y-front letter of jockey who still considered artworks remained. After the death of the company owner Harry Wolf in 1978, his daughter Donna Wolf Steigerwaldt took over the management of the company. From the beginning of the 1980s, women's underwear and stockings from Jockey were added to the American market . Popular baseball player Jim Palmer became the prominent face of the jockey advertising campaign in 1980 . In 1981 Jockey made underwear for the designer brand Yves Saint Laurent . Innovations in the following years included the use of elastane in underwear, models without seams or shape-supporting 3D underwear. The first own jockey shop abroad was opened in 1991 in Strasbourg . The mid-1990s was the slogan "Jockey or nothing" having two trailing stick figures , one of them dressed in boxer shorts, launched . In the mid-1990s, Jockey was licensed to manufacture underwear in the USA for Perry Ellis and Tommy Hilfiger and, from the 2000s, for Liz Claiborne as well . The company's own range had been expanded to include sportswear clothing such as shirts, sweaters , trousers , jackets and hats since the 1960s . In the mid-1990s, four production facilities in the USA were closed and relocated to Central America . The company's website went online in 1997 , and from 1999 it was also possible to shop . From 2000 Jockey was available on the Chinese market. Donna Wolf Steigerwaldt died in 2000 and her daughter Debra Waller took over the management of Jockey in 2001 . In the same year, the company, together with the cosmetics manufacturer Parlux Fragrances, launched the Jockey Physical perfume for women and men. The collaboration with Parlux was ended again in 2004. In 2004, the factories in Kentucky were also closed, the sites in Millen , Georgia and North Carolina remained.

2006, on the occasion of 130 years of company's existence , was the Jockey Boy as a trademark by the so-called Jockey Swirl , a circle , surrounded by three stylized seedlings replaced. The Jockey brand is available in more than 120 countries worldwide. The company's biggest competitors in the American market are Calvin Klein (underwear division), Fruit of the Loom and HanesBrands ( Hanes , Champion , Playtex , Wonderbra , L'eggs etc.).

Jockey in Germany

'Jockey or nothing'

In 1951 VOLMA Wirkwaren GmbH , which was founded in Hechingen in 1950 (named after the founders Hans Vollmöller - a Swiss manufacturer and grandson of Robert Vollmöller - and Reinhold and Christian Maute - sons of the tricot factory founder Heinrich Maute from Bisingen ) acquired the license for the production and the Sales of jockey articles on the German market, later also for the Benelux . Vollmöller had already obtained the license for the Swiss market in 1942, but a collaboration only came about after the World War. The 1980s in particular represented the economic heyday of VOLMA and the Jockey brand, which was located in the mid-price segment . In 1990, VOLMA launched the premium Moonday brand, which was about 25% more expensive than Jockey . In the mid-1990s, production was mainly carried out in Portugal, Italy, Hong Kong and Thailand; from the end of the 1990s, production was increasingly relocated to other Eastern European countries. Over the years, from the 1970s onwards, the German jockey portfolio added swimwear, men's nightwear, a knitwear collection and finally even shirts . In the KaDeWe in Berlin there was a jockey / Moonday shop-in-shop. From 1999 onwards, Volma tried her hand at jockey lingerie for several seasons. From the 2000s, VOLMA was also allocated to Poland as a license market.

VOLMA went bankrupt in 2002 after a crisis in the lingerie market and the increasing dwindling of lingerie retailers . In the same year was Jockey Europe GmbH was founded with headquarters in Hechingen, a subsidiary of the American Jockey - parent company , which since then as a European headquarters for Jockey acts. The approx. 120 VOLMA employees were laid off because the new Jockey subsidiary, which was supplied by Jockey International with regard to production and procurement , required very few staff. Most recently VOLMA made 50-60% of the total turnover of 30 million euros with jockey underwear, the rest was accounted for by jockey sportswear and its own Moonday brand . The sportswear collection (sweaters, shirts, polo shirts , and swimwear) was discontinued with a few exceptions. The Moonday brand was spun off in 2004 as Moonday-Fashion GmbH in Hirrlingen, independently of Jockey . The four licenses issued by Jockey International for Europe, which had not been managed uniformly until then, were brought back and coordinated uniformly. From 2004 for some time and again from 2008, women's underwear from Jockey was presented again in Germany ; however, this segment was given up again in 2010. In 2011, a jockey online shop for Germany was started in cooperation with on-web AG in Bietigheim-Bissingen . In the mid-2010s, DePauli AG from Garching near Munich took over the management of the online shop. In Europe there was also the high-priced Jockey by Coopers Heritage collection from 2007 , a number of reissued classics such as the one-piece from the company's early years, which was subsequently offered worldwide and finally discontinued. The Coopers by Jockey classic collection exists in the USA . From the mid-2010s, women's jockey underwear was again added to the range in Germany.

Michael Dodt from Munich , a former underwear product manager at Triumph International , Huber Tricot and Tommy Hilfiger, was the general manager of Jockey's European headquarters in Hechingen from mid-2010 . In 2014 he was replaced by Marc Meyer. Germany represents the largest sales market for jockey in Europe with 50% of European sales. In Germany there are around 20 jockey shops-in-shops, mainly in Karstadt department stores. The company operates outlets in Hechingen and Uster.

The Huber Tricot GmbH (now Huber Holding ) was in 1954 the Austrian Jockey licensees and since 1972 also the Swiss after the previous licensee, the Swiss Vollmoeller AG from Uster , had been bought up.

See also

• Schiesser
• Calida
• Woolrich, Inc.
• Burlington (textile brand)

Web links

• German official website
• American official website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jockey company history ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2010 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. , jockey.de, accessed: October 8, 2010. 
2. ↑ Jockey Brand History - 1930s ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2011 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. , jockeygear.com.au, accessed October 8, 2010.  
3. ↑ Disassembled - Left or Right Carrier? In: NZZ Folio . May 2005.
4. ↑ Jockey 75th Y-Front Letter Anniversary ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2011 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. , dianepernet.typepad.com, December 12, 2008.  
5. ↑ Volker Goerhardt , Drapers Online, April 18 of 2009.
6. ↑ Jockey Brand History - 1980s ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2011 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. , jockeygear.com.au, accessed October 8, 2010. 
7. ^ Fashion fair Düsseldorf: Whoever has, may show , Stern, July 24, 2006.
8. ↑ Jockey unveils new logo  ( 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. , Insider Retailing, June 30, 2006.  
9. ↑ Jockey Brand History - 1940s ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2011 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. , jockeygear.com.au, accessed October 8, 2010.  
10. ↑ Jockey manager Michael Dodt: "The strongest power came from Hechingen"  ( 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. , Südwest-Presse, July 16, 2010.  
11. ↑ Jockey: New ways in sales, intensive advertising even in times of declining sales  ( page can no longer be accessed , 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. , Textile Industry, October 10, 1996.  
12. ↑ Volma is cutting 60 jobs , Zollern-Alb-Kurier, September 22, 1999.
13. ↑ Jockey licensee Volma insolvent , textile industry, December 18 of 2002.
14. ↑ Jockey Europe discontinues lingerie line , Textilwirtschaft, May 20, 2010.