Hugo Boss is a luxury fashion brand associated with wealth, elegance, and status - but this fashion icon has done all it can to hide its dark business past from the public eye. This is the story of how Hugo Boss supported Hitler, made the uniforms for the Nazis, and yet somehow re-branded and built a global fashion empire.
Welcome to the INSANE story of Hugo Boss & the history of Hugo Boss's luxury fashion business empire. We'll look at:
- How did Hugo Boss begin?
- Why is Hugo Boss' history controversial?
- Did Hugo Boss make nazi uniforms?
- Why did Joe Lycett change his name to Hugo Boss?
- Why is Hugo Boss so successful?
- What business and marketing lessons are there from Hugo Boss?
Plus lots more in this business mini movie about the story of Hugo Boss!
The Hugo Boss story all begins when a boy named Hugo Boss was born in Germany in 1885, in Metzingen, who developed an interest in the fashion business from an early age... He wanted to create his own fashion company - and before long managed to turn a small local shop into a whole factory, Hugo Boss' apprenticeship as a merchant made him a great salesman, and before long, the company’s clothing became fairly well known around Germany.
However, after World War I Germany had been ordered to pay a huge amount of money in reparations. The debt was set at 132 billion gold marks, the equivalent of about $270 billion US dollars in today’s currency. This began to cripple the German economy.
As the US, UK, and France enjoyed extravagant spending on behalf of Germany’s debt, a time known in America as the Roaring 20s, Germany struggled to pay off the war. As a result, German citizens saw high inflation and business closures - and therefore even though Hugo Boss’ clothing had been pretty popular, his company began to suffer. No amount of good reputation could help the fact people were struggling to afford his work.
And then, the Great Depression only made Germany’s bleak economic situation even worse - food became scarce, jobs were nowhere to be found, and some families even burnt their money to provide heat during the harsh winters.
Hugo tried to save his business, but was forced to lay off most of his work force and shut down his factory. Eventually, he filed for bankruptcy, and all Hugo Boss was left with were 6 sewing machines. It seemed like the Hugo Boss clothing brand would be nothing but a short-lived dream...
But of course, we all know that’s not the case - in present day Hugo Boss is a multi-billion dollar clothing empire.
So, what happened?