For 150 years, Zimmerli of Switzerland has represented timeless values. These values were shaped by our founder Pauline Zimmerli (1829-1914). As a mother of seven children and a smart entrepreneur, she combined traditional craftsmanship with innovative technologies, sustainable creation with global orientation, and a family business culture with professional organization.
Pauline Zimmerli was a passionate knitter. She provided the whole family with stockings and socks, carefully created by hand from the highest quality materials. She put a lot of time and heart and soul into her creations: Quality was always in the foreground.
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Pauline Zimmerli and her craftsmanship, knitting, which was used for her family from an early age.
Traditional craftsmanship & innovative technologies
Pauline's care and passion led to the need to distribute her creation beyond the family. Together with one of her sons, she purchased a knitting machine and further developed it to automate her unique knitting technique. Thanks to this innovation, the resulting knitted fabric looked as if it had been made by hand, but could be produced in much larger quantities. Demand in the surrounding area increased, but the quality remained incomparably good. Thus, in 1871, the family business Zimmerli of Switzerland was born.
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Together with her son Adolf, Pauline Zimmerli converted the knitting machine she had acquired into a family business.
Sustainable creation & global orientation
Choosing natural products that will last us a long time and do us good - a value that a mother instills in her children, because she wants only the best for them. Pauline Zimmerli also cultivated this attitude in the early days of her textile craftsmanship and passed it on to the whole family, which became ingrained in the culture of the family business.
Zimmerli of Switzerland still strives for quality like hardly any other company. Naturalness and durability are paramount in the manufacture of products make them incomparable: 90 percent of the raw materials used are natural and renewable, and are handcrafted into a long-lasting product.
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Quality since 1871: At Zimmerli of Switzerland, products are made by hand from natural raw materials. Creations that stay with us.
While in production the focus was on local, in distribution global thinking. Zimmerli of Switzerland's quality products thus found their way to distant countries even in the early days of the company. The underwear manufactured in the Swiss factory was advertised in the hottest trade fairs and department stores in New York and Paris, for example.
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Zimmerli of Switzerland goes global: the Paris sales office in the early days of the company.
Family business culture & professional organization
Not only Pauline's claim to put quality first is maintained in the company to this day. The family flair has also been with us for 150 years. It fills with a certain pride that employees of several generations work in the Swiss manufactory and carry on tradition and craftsmanship.
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The knitting machine led to a family business: the founding Zimmerli family in 1921.
Today, Zimmerli of Switzerland, with around 80 employees, is one of Switzerland's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The employees know each other, the communication channels are short and the exchange is personal. This lean and agile organization still makes the difference today: trends and changing customer needs can be recognized and implemented easily and quickly.
150 years of defining values
Pauline Zimmerli had a significant influence on her environment in her time. Not only because she created the most exquisite goods with her craft, but also because she passed on formative values to her family and the company.
Pauline continues to shape Zimmerli of Switzerland 150 years later. The values she cultivated as a mother and entrepreneur are still lived on today. They make the company what it is today: a small family-owned manufactory that creates styles of the highest quality and has been constantly reinventing itself for 150 years to make customers happy worldwide.
