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The Story of Gerry Weber

The family business of Gerry Weber in Halle, Westphalia, plays in the Champions League of international fashion companies.

13.01.2014
picture-alliance/dpa - Gerry  Weber
picture-alliance/dpa - Gerry Weber © picture-alliance/dpa - Gerry Weber

Halle in Westphalia, 20,000 inhabitants, half-timbered houses, a pedestrian zone with cobblestones, a lot of agriculture and two small publications that report about what moves people in this idyllic place. Nothing of the great, wide world. Paris, Milan and New York are far away. Yet Halle plays in the same league with these fashion capitals. For the clothing company Gerry Weber ranks in the top 100 of the world’s largest fashion firms, along with Hermès, Prada and Tiffany.

Who is “Gerry Weber”? And what makes his business so successful? “Gerry Weber” is Gerhard Weber. The story of the 72 year-old entrepreneur reads like the American dream. It leads, however, not from dishwasher to millionaire, but tells instead of the rise of a textile salesman from the Westphalian provinces. In 1965 Weber opened his first fashion shop. The clothes racks stood in his parent’s garage. Initially Weber continued to work as a clerk in a fashion company. There he discovered his passion for design, colours and fabrics. He expanded with his own fashion shops. In 1973, together with a childhood friend, he founded a company for the production of women’s pants. This was the birth of “Gerry Weber”.

Today the company is thriving. It is one of the fastest growing businesses in Germany, has over 4,500 employees, earned in the last fiscal year 800 million euros and increased its profits by almost 20 per cent. Contributory to this was above all the expansion of its own retail shops and the build up of its international sales. Within one year alone, the Weber Group doubled the number of its own shops around the world, making it now 490. In the medium-term, Gerhard Weber wants to break the billion sales barrier.

Gerhard Weber managed a real coup along this path in 1986, when he succeeded in gaining the tennis player Steffi Graf as his brand ambassador. In addition, the Gerry Weber Stadium in Halle, built in 1992/93, made the company known worldwide. Every year the best tennis players in the world compete in the most important European grass-court tournament after Wimbeldon. It is broadcast to 150 countries and will be raised, in 2015, into the second highest category of ATP tournaments.

Berlin Fashion Week, 14 to 19 January 2014

Bread & Butter, 14 to 16 January 2014 in Berlin

www.fashion-week-berlin.com

www.gerryweber.com

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