Schiesser Revival

Schiesser was founded on 1 October 1875 in Radolfzell on Lake Constance by Jacques Schiesser, a 27-year-old Swiss factory owner, and his wife Malwine. The couple began production by renting a dance hall inside the still-standing guesthouse 'Schwert' in Radolfzell and installing just nine circular knitting looms. The operation expanded quickly: a dedicated factory for knitting and dyeing was built between 1876 and 1880, and the workforce grew from around 100 to 280 employees in that same period. Jacques Schiesser's technical innovations — including braided-knit fabric and longitudinal-striped knitwear — won the company a Grand Prix at the 1900 Paris World Exhibition, and those same techniques became the basis for the fine-rib and double-rib underwear that made the Schiesser name in the twentieth century. The Schiesser Revival line, introduced in 2003, is built specifically to bring that archive back into current production: rib-knit vests and undershirts cut to the historical patterns rather than modernized silhouettes, aimed at customers seeking the older construction rather than a contemporary reinterpretation of it. The company remains headquartered in Radolfzell, tying the current Revival range directly back to the same town where the nine original looms started running in 1875.