Steiff
| Steiff Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH
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|---|---|
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1880 |
| Seat | Giengen an der Brenz , Germany |
| management | Dirk Petermann |
| Number of employees | 1,705 |
| sales | EUR 103.01 million |
| Branch | Toys |
| Website | www.steiff.com |
| As of December 31, 2017 | |
Steiff is the brand name of Margarete Steiff GmbH in Giengen an der Brenz , a manufacturer of toys that are sold worldwide, especially teddy bears and soft toys ("Steiff animals").
history
In 1877, Margarete Steiff opened a felt clothing store in her hometown, where she sold self-sewn clothes and household items. Over the years this has developed into a small company with several permanent seamstresses. Shortly afterwards (1880) Margarete Steiff GmbH was officially founded, in which the first softly stuffed textile toy was developed: Margarete Steiff made a small elephant out of felt using the pattern from a fashion magazine. This “little elephant”, originally intended as a pin cushion, quickly became very popular as a children's toy.
The first factory building was built in Mühlstraße in 1890, which also housed a handicapped-accessible apartment for Margarete. The illustrated Steiff catalog appeared shortly afterwards in 1892 to give customers an overview of the range that has now been created. A year later, the company presented itself for the first time at a trade fair in Leipzig. The company was entered in the commercial register as a toy factory. In 1895 foreign business relations were established with Harrods in London.
Richard Steiff , Margarete's nephew, joined the company in 1897. In 1902 he developed a toy bear made of shaggy mohair fur called Bear 55PB (55 cm standing, P = plush, B = flexible). In March of the following year, this bear was presented for the first time at the Leipzig spring fair. At the beginning the interest of the visitors was limited. Towards the end of the mass, however, Hermann Berg, a brother of the composer Alban Berg, was found . As the chief buyer of Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. he ordered 3000 bears from Steiff. Just one year later, Steiff was already selling 12,000 of them. Thanks to the American President Theodore Roosevelt , the initially nameless bear was given the name Teddy, which is still known today. He refused to shoot a tethered bear while on a hunting trip and was always portrayed with a bear by the cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman in the Washington Post because of this incident. This was the best advertisement for the teddy bear - the teddy boom began and the Steiff brand achieved worldwide recognition. In the same year, the east building, popularly known as the “Jungfrau aquarium”, was built in a double-glass steel construction. Other buildings of this type followed, all of which are now listed.
In 1904, Franz Steiff developed the trademark, the famous “button in the ear”, which was protected until the beginning of 2014, to protect Steiff animals from imitation. This button was initially provided with an elephant, but was replaced over the years by the word "Steiff". Richard Steiff fundamentally revised the design during this time. The basic design that is still valid today was created. Margarete Steiff GmbH was founded in 1906 and one year later it was placed under the management of Margarete's five nephews. This year the 400 employees and 1,800 home workers produced 1,700,000 toys and 973,999 teddy bears.
Margarete Steiff died on May 9, 1909 at the age of 61 with her family of complications from pneumonia. The company was continued in their interest and the range of toys and plush animals was further expanded. Well-known examples from the historic Steiff range:
- Flight kite Roloplan (1909)
- Teddy Clown (1926)
- Comic character Mecki and teddy bear Zotty (1951)
- Teddy Bear Jackie for Teddy Bear's 50th Birthday (1953)
- Cuddly teddy Petsy (1984)
After the end of the Second World War, the company ventured a fresh start. In 1948 it employed almost 1,000 people, five years later it already had twice as many. The design of the teddy bears was also changed and developed into a funny bear child. Steiff began manufacturing limited numbers of replicas for Steiff enthusiasts in 1980. The Steiff Museum in Giengen was opened to mark the company's 100th anniversary. The company founded the Steiff Club for enthusiasts and collectors in 1992.
For the 150th birthday of the company founder Margarete Steiff in 1997, the first Steiff Festival for lovers and collectors was held. As part of the Steiff franchise concept, the first Steiff gallery opened in Hamburg in February 1999. The 100th birthday of the teddy bear in 2002 was celebrated with the world premiere of the musical "Teddy - a musical dream" by Uli Brée in Giengen. The house where the company founder Margarete Steiff was born has been open to the public since 2003.
On the occasion of the company's 125th anniversary, “ The World of Steiff ” opened in 2005 , a museum with an experience character and show production. One year later, the first S teiff summer for employees and friends of Margarete Steiff GmbH took place. During the fourth Steiff summer in 2009, the Teddy Bear Clinic and Spa was opened, where Steiff animals are repaired.
In 2018, Peter Hotz, a great-great-great-nephew of Margarete Steiff , became managing director of Steiff Beteiligungsgesellschaft . In order to also sell furniture with the Steiff logo, Hotz entered into a license partnership with the furniture manufacturer Wellemöbel .
Products
The company's main products are plush toys. Until the end of the 1970s, wooden toys and other items such as carts and kites were also produced . The most famous was a single-line kite specially developed by Steiff , the Roloplan . In recent years children's clothing has also been increasingly produced. Special manufacturing features are the different colored flags and different buttons in the ears of the plush toys. Older Steiff toys have become coveted collector's items and some of them are fetching high prices.
The trademark of the Steiff animals is the mostly metal button in the ear, invented in 1904 by Franz Steiff , and the associated flag, as well as a shield mostly on the chest. Over time, the button (introduced on November 1, 1904) changed greatly in shape and size. The flag and shield (probably from 1897) also changed. Those in the know can use these characteristics to determine the exact time when an animal was created.
After a judgment of the European Court of Justice ( Court of the European Union , Luxembourg) on January 16, 2014, the manufacturer Steiff can no longer claim Europe-wide protection of the trademark "button in ear" (Az. T-433/12 and T-434/12) . It is now also possible for other producers to use this designation. The court based its decision on the fact that this trademark lacked distinctive character, as buttons and small signs were "common design elements" for stuffed animals. If only a button in the ear with a flag hangs on a stuffed animal, it is not apparent to a consumer that it is a special Steiff product and not from another manufacturer.
Roloplan dragon
Steiff button in ear, advertisement 1913
Advertisement 1938 (archived in the Ida-Seele archive )
organization
The structure of the Steiff Group - with Steiff Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH as the holding company of Margarete Steiff GmbH - has existed since 1981. Margarete Steiff GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of Steiff Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH. Aigo-Tec GmbH (until June 2020 under the name Alligator Ventilfabrik GmbH) in Giengen / Brenz and Steiff Schulte Webmanufaktur in Duisburg also belong to the Steiff Group. The Steiff Group is a family company.
The distribution of children's clothing is multi-track: own shops (here the clothing takes up about the same space as the stuffed animals), own web shop, retail and also online mail order companies like Zalando .
Significance in building history
The vernacular found the name Jungfrauenaquarium for the company's highly modern steel and glass factory halls, which offered well-ventilated rooms with daylight - a rarity back then. These factory halls have been preserved to this day and are under monument protection. The architecture critic Falk Jaeger wrote in 1985: The listed buildings "leave Walter Gropius ' famous shoe last factory in Alfeld far behind in terms of consistency". Recognition from the professional world was initially denied to "these pioneering buildings of the modern age": "Even before well-known architects and engineers developed the first pioneering solutions in modern industrial construction, the eastern part of the Steiff toy factory is a building that is structurally in perfect harmony with the new It reacts to technical production requirements and impresses with its radical modernity. The innovative facade construction is particularly important. It is a double-glazed curtain wall that is probably being used here for the first time in the history of industrial construction. " Also significant is the extensive, partly autodidactic input from Margarete Steiff's nephews, especially Richards and Hugos, who shaped the new buildings and the later direction of the company in a not inconsiderable way.
literature
- Jürgen and Marianne Cieslik, "Button in the Ear" - the story of the teddy bear and his friends, Verlag Marianne Cieslik, Jülich 1989, ISBN 3-921844-16-9 .
- Jürgen and Marianne Cieslik, Steiff teddy bears , Verlag Marianne Cieslik, Jülich 1994, ISBN 3-921844-39-8 .
- Steiff range 1947–2003 , Günther Pfeiffer, Taunusstein 2003, ISBN 3-9804712-4-1 (also published in 1995 and 1999).
- Steiff range 1897–1943 , Günther Pfeiffer, Taunusstein 2002, ISBN 3-9804712-3-3 .
- Günther Pfeiffer: 125 years of Steiff company history Heel, Königswinter 2005, ISBN 3-89880-387-2 .
- Rolf and Christel Pistorius, Mecki, Zotty and their friends , dolls and toys, Duisburg 1995, ISBN 3-87463-223-7 .
- Edith and Johan Koskinen: Steiff Price Guide 1998/1999 , Wellhausen & Marquardt Medien , Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-921844-54-1 .
Web links
- Margarete Steiff GmbH website
- More information and pictures in the article Steiff's animal life at Monuments Online
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2017 of Steiff Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH in the electronic Federal Gazette.
- ^ State film collection Baden-Württemberg: Factory railing of the Steiff company around 1910
- ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 59.
- ↑ Welt am Sonntag No. 44, November 4, 2018, p. 40.
- ↑ Welt am Sonntag No. 44, November 4, 2018, p. 40.
- ↑ “EU court ruling on Steiff: Everyone is allowed a button in the ear” (Spiegel report from January 16, 2014) .
- ↑ The ALLIGATOR valve factory becomes AIGO-TEC. Retrieved June 15, 2020 .
- ↑ Falk Jaeger 1985, quoted from Axel Föhl: Buildings of Industry and Technology, undated, series of publications by the German National Committee for Monument Protection, Vol. 47, p. 131.
- ↑ Bernhard Niethammer and Anke Fissabre: The Steiff toy factory in Giengen / Brenz. An unknown masterpiece of the early modern era . Geymüller, Aachen 2017, ISBN 978-3-943164-03-9 .