100 YEARS ALBERTO – ALL ABOUT PANTS

WeAr interviewed Marco Lanowy, General Manager at the German pant specialist Alberto, which celebrates this year its 100th anniversary.

100 years of Alberto – what were the highlights?

Apart from this anniversary year, I see it as a major highlight that we grew from a 28 to a 128-people business and are still based in Germany’s Mönchengladbach. Today, we are a recognizable brand in over 50 countries with over 2300 clients. We created innovations in materials, digitalization processes, and service structure. All these years, we managed to stay a specialized brand without losing our passion. Alberto is not a brand that has been bought but grew to be very empathic.

How did you celebrate this milestone?

Our claim is “100 years of pants” because we revolutionized pants in these past years, added innovations and were, in many points first movers. We celebrated with our ‘family members’ meaning our team, and gave our customers innovations as gifts that we created with partners, whether it be a 3D-printed e-bike (with bike-expert Urwahn), a dog leash (with Tau Stil), a special espresso (with Samyu) joined with our unique ‘Barista’ pants consisting of fibers into which coffee charcoal particles have been incorporated, or a more sustainable jeans (with wash expert 140 Fahrenheit) created through new wash and water recycling systems. We also created an AR-Golden-Pant promotion so people can virtually wear the Alberto Golden Pant and congratulate us via Instagram. And we won’t stop here!

And what are you planning for the next 100 years?

We want to stay specialized. We know we have to pay attention to the product and our team, which we lead to the next generation. But I am looking forward to it. The time is right for new innovations in materials and sustainability, as well as product placement. Which revolutions can you see in the denim industry? We helped revolutionize the denim market by not only using rough denim but give it a use case – our premium business jeans shaped the market. We did so also through innovative materials. As such, we were the first to add [Ed. Lycra] T400 to 100% denim – giving it the elasticity and comfort we are used to today. We will continue to work on even greener jeans. We were the first, apart from Lee, who worked with Wiser Wash’s new washing innovation. Our goal is to give more know-how and research to the end-consumer so that sustainability will be in their mind - a given. alberto-pants.com