Company history
How everything began...
An energetic businessman with lots of ideas, an office building in Hamburg’s historic Speicherstadt warehouse district and the courage to view the world as his oyster: this was the start of a typical Hamburg company history – our company history.
Manfred Wolff
Not just a man with a very keen business sense, but someone who was fascinated and intrigued by Asia. In 1959 he came up with an idea that could be described as the foundation stone of the Olsen fashion brand. He imported knitwear from Hong Kong. “It was a thrilling time”, he says today, “the trip took three days, and few were prepared to face such an adventure.” Luckily, Manfred Wolff was, and his adventure paid off – the woollen jumper with the article number P31 became a star and sold over one million times.
Over the next few years, Manfred Wolff and his team put together several collections, which were initially sold without a brand name. Fashion became an increasingly important segment of his business.
At the end of the 1980s the family pitched in to help the rapidly expanding company and his daughter Andrea and nephew Michael Wolff joined the team.
Andrea Wolff
The focus of each collection is still on knitwear: “Knitwear remains at the heart of Olsen”, explains Andrea Wolff who set up the company’s marketing department in 1995 and is Olsen’s marketing director. “Everything started with knitwear, and the expertise we have amassed allows us to guarantee the very best quality.”
Together with her marketing team, Andrea Wolff developed the Olsen philosophy of “Friendship and Emotional Strength”, a philosophy which since 2000 has been fronted with appealing brand ambassadors. The product range continued to grow, Olsen became increasingly well-known, more and more popular and international.
Michael Wolff
A partner since 1989 and responsible for all Olsen’s sales activities as director of sales, Michael Wolff focuses on making Olsen increasingly international. At the start of the new millennium partner stores opened in some of the world most exciting and attractive cities, including Moscow, Toronto, Riga and Vienna. Today, Olsen has 79 own stores and is sold through more than 3000 boutiques and leading fashion stores worldwide.
Olsen is already available in over 30 countries. In place of the original four collections per year, the company now presents six collections every year, which are shipped in monthly deliveries. Olsen’s design team currently numbers 14 designers.
Starting in October 2009, Olsen will be introducing another exiting new way of bringing customers closer to Olsen’s fashion and lifestyle with the launch of the Olsen online shop, which will initially be available in Germany and Austria.
We and our 500 employees are proud that we have built and expanded Olsen into a modern, international brand, a brand that stands for style and trends, for trust and dependability. We look forward to seeing how our company will progress and evolve with you.