Signum (company)
Signum (Latin for "characters") is a German fashion label that focuses on the production of shirts. The label is the umbrella brand of Dittmar GmbH & Co. KG, based in Braunschweig .
| Signum - Dittmar GmbH & Co KG | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH & Co. KG |
| Seat | Braunschweig |
| management | Owner: Jörg Dittmar |
| Branch | Textile industry |
| Website | signum.de |
history
The family business has its origins in Berlin in the 1920s. Together with a partner, Alfred Dittmar founded the Alfred Dittmar KG lingerie factory, a manufacturer of shirts, men's and boys' clothing. After surviving the chaos of war, Alfred and his son Frank Dittmar relocated the company to Wolfenbüttel in 1948 .
In 1959 Frank Dittmar took over the management and radically changed the style of shirt production under the then brand name Herzog - away from the pure standard character of the shirts to a fashion brand with individual requirements. In doing so, he met the spirit of a time when the shirt was developing into an independent fashion item with which you could stand out from the crowd.
In the 1960s and 1970s, shirt production made it one of the companions of the hippie culture with some extravagant creations . Since then, at the latest, the company has had a reputation for being different and not submitting to current trends.
When eye-catching sweaters , T-shirts and polo shirts became popular in the late 1970s and more and more textile entrepreneurs relocated their production to low-wage countries , there was enormous price pressure in the shirt segment. Frank Dittmar saw a need for action and, following an extensive creative phase, radically changed direction in the mid-1980s. Inspired by Italian fashion designers on the one hand and the emergence of a more casual and expressive attitude towards life on the other, he relied on a novel mixture of first-class materials and what he called Shirt Makers Fun . His goal was to offer high quality but unconventional clothing with a casual touch. Specifically, this meant expensive, unusual fabrics, generous fits, elaborate detailed work, special buttons with a decorative character, unusual colors, careful processing and special attention to the finish, i.e. the washes and colors of the sewn shirts.
The unclassical designer shirt from Dittmar hit the nerve of a generation that had discovered the non-conforming for themselves and attached importance to having fun both in their free time and in everyday life. As a counterpart to the usual men's and suit shirt, it developed into one of the defining textiles of the no wave , pop and yuppie scenes of the 1980s. The New German shirts remained after a well-received premiere at the Cologne Fair It's well into the 1990s successfully and are among the precursors of the casual shirts era.
The new direction - initially only under the Packard brand - was subsequently adopted for the entire shirt production of Alfred Dittmar GmbH & Co. KG and ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Signum brand. The naming - Signum is the Latin term for sign - had its origin in the search for a finger pointer, for a sign, but is now mostly interpreted as an appeal and a signal fire. With the start of Signum, the Herzog brand was discontinued. Both Signum and Packard henceforth occupied the niche of the expensive, well-produced, expressive and out of line designer shirt. They are still some of the most copied shirts today.
In 1993 the company relocated to Braunschweig.
A few years ago, Frank Dittmar's son Jörg initiated another relaunch, which divided the range of Dittmar GmbH & Co KG - while retaining the brand name Signum - into three lines with different silhouettes and degrees of fashion. In the course of this realignment, the Packard label was discontinued. In its place came the slim and most fashionable line Slim Cut, with a waist size in size M of only 100 cm. This enabled new sales potentials to be tapped in the younger fashion market.
Signum now has 15 flagship stores and around 1000 sales outlets worldwide. In addition to Germany, the label is particularly well represented in Switzerland, Canada, Russia, Austria and the USA .
Style and collaborations
Signum combines European qualities and a completely inner-European production with the approach of non-classic, expressive shirts known from North America. The designs and designs are designed and implemented in close cooperation with the preliminary stages and various external and internal designers.
In 2012, a limited designer shirt was created in collaboration with the Berlin fashion blog Dandy Diary, which was launched for Berlin Fashion Week with the presentation of a fashion video specially produced for this shirt.
Headquarters
The headquarters in Braunschweig serves as the company's hub. This is where the administration sits, the designers work on the new creations and the fabrics and materials arrive, which are then sent on to the clothing manufacturers. Every single Signum shirt is sent from here to retailers and dealers all over the world.
Web links
- Official website of the company at signum-fashion.de.de
- Company profile on signum.de
- Smaller buttons, slimmer cuts on textilwirtschaft.de
- Interview with managing director Jörg Dittmar We stand for sporty opulence on textilwirtschaft.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ History - values that last. on signum-fashion.de
- ↑ a b c d e Textil-Wirtschaft No. 13 of March 31, 1994, p. 40.
- ↑ a b Wirtschaftsspiegel Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 03/1995, p. 48.
- ↑ a b Österreichische Textilzeitung 11/2010, p. 39.
- ↑ Wirtschaftsspiegel Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , "Wanderer between the worlds", p. 88.
- ↑ a b c d Textil-Wirtschaft No. 12 of March 25, 2010, p. 28.
- ↑ Textile Communications No. 22/1995, p. 26.
- ↑ Textile Revue No. 25/26 of July 9, 2010.
- ↑ SIGNUM X DANDY DIARY on youtube.com
- ^ Textile economy of July 4, 2012.