Fermob

Fermob traces back to 1890, when a family of ironworkers in Thoissey, a small town in the Ain department of eastern France, began making metal furniture. For most of the 20th century the company produced just two items: an old-fashioned scrolled chair and the folding Bistro chair. By the late 1980s Fermob was close to collapse, squeezed out by cheap plastic garden furniture. In 1989, Bernard Reybier bought the failing company for a few hundred thousand francs. His turnaround strategy was color: he launched the Bistro chair in 24 shades at a time when garden furniture came only in white or dark green. The gamble worked, and Fermob went on to supply the emblematic green folding chairs of the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris.