Rabe

Rabe was founded in 1920 in St. Egidien, in Saxony, Germany, by Albert Rabe as a family-run knitwear factory originally producing garments for women, men and children. The company relocated in 1955 to Bad Rothenfelde, in Lower Saxony, and is today headquartered in nearby Hilter. Over the following decades the business narrowed its focus toward women's fashion specifically, building a reputation in the German, Austrian and Swiss markets for comfortable, well-made ready-to-wear rather than fast-changing trend pieces. Rabe has remained under family ownership through multiple generations since Albert Rabe's founding. The company now operates through a network described as covering roughly 249 shop-in-shop locations, 227 'soft shop' partner arrangements and nine of its own stores, spread across more than 38 countries, with turnover reported at around 104 million euros in the 2014-15 financial year. Rabe has also pursued sustainability certification, including the ZNU Standard for Sustainable Management, and has worked on production process improvements such as fine-knit manufacturing optimization highlighted in European retail trade coverage. The brand today trades under the Rabe Fashion Group and continues to position itself around comfort-oriented womenswear built on the company's century-old knitwear manufacturing base.