150 Years Boinas Elosegui

David Greenman sent me this link, a video (in Spanish) of the 150 years celebration of Boinas Elosegui: http://www.eitb.com/videos/detalle/36296/las-boinas-elosegui-cumplen-150-anos/ 

  

Boinas Elósegui was founded in 1858 by Antonio Elósegui, along the banks of the river Oria in Tolosa (Spain) and named La Casualidad. At this time the production was not more than some 50 berets per day, the entire process carried out by hand.

By 1915, 3500 berets were produced by a staff of 200 operators and sold all over Spain, South America, Cuba, the Philippines, the United States and Europe.

As time went by, the company moved to an industrial estate in the Usabal District (Tolosa) and automated it's manufacturing processes and adjusted staff to the up's and down's of the market. 

Presently, Boinas Elósegui has approximately 30 people in employment with an annual production of some 200.000 berets.

With the introduction of other manufacturers, from China, South Korea and India, sales have gone down, especially for the production of military berets. But, together with Béatex (France), Boinas Elósegui is still the market leader for civilian berets (and in my humble opinion, nothing beats a beret made by Elósegui).   

 

Production:

Civilian Berets	Military Berets	Peaked Caps	Caps
58%	32%	6%	4%

 

Sales:

Spain	EU	Americas	Africa	Asia
62%	15%	10%	5%	8%