Hugo Boss

The HUGO BOSS Group is one of the leading companies in the premium and luxury segment of the apparel market. The Group focuses on the development and marketing of premium fashion and accessories for men and women. Headquartered in Metzingen, the Company generated with almost 12,500 employees net sales of EUR 2.4 billion in fiscal year 2013, making it one of the most profitable listed apparel manufacturers in the world. The brand world of HUGO BOSS comprises the collections of BOSS, BOSS Orange, BOSS Green and HUGO. The brands cover a comprehensive product range encompassing classic to modern apparel, elegant eveningwear and sportswear, shoes, leather accessories as well as licensed fragrances, eyewear, watches, children’s fashion, home textiles and mobile accessories. HUGO BOSS leverages targeted marketing measures to raise the appeal of its brands. Apart from above-the-line marketing instruments such as print and out-of-home media, the relevant target groups are increasingly reached using digital channels. In light of the expansion of the Group’s own retail business, the importance of point-of-sale marketing is also mounting. Sports sponsorship campaigns focus on premium sports such as Formula 1, golf or sailing that ideally convey brand values such as dynamism, perfection and precision. In its art sponsorship activities, the Group underscores the common ground that art and fashion share with respect to design, aesthetics and creativity. The Company emphasizes these attributes further with high-profile fashion events in the world’s fashion capitals that raise the desirability and acceptance of the Group’s brands among key target groups, while adding emotional appeal to the HUGO BOSS brand world. HUGO BOSS produces a substantial share of its classical clothing range like prototypes, sample pieces, individual orders and especially its “Made to Measure” suits in-house in Metzingen. Further company owned production facilities are located in Turkey (Izmir), Poland (Radom), Italy (Morrovalle), and the USA (Cleveland). These manufacturing plants produce in particular the HUGO BOSS core product, the suits, and womenswear collection pieces as well as a broad spectrum of accessories and bags. By using its own production facilities, the Company can secure crucial know-how, while enabling development activities to be closely geared to subsequent industrial manufacturing. In addition, for selective product groups, HUGO BOSS conducts business with trusted partners worldwide who provide long-lasting expertise of textile processing and modern technologies. These partners not only meet the Company’s high quality standards but comply with internationally recognized labor and social standards. To ensure the compliance of these standards regular audits are conducted by both the Company’s own auditors and external, experienced service partners. In the past HUGO BOSS AG has often been confronted by vague statements regarding its history. Hugo Ferdinand Boss established his workshop in 1924, as a consequence of which his company operated during the Third Reich and the Second World War. During this period the factory employed 140 forced laborers (the majority of them women) and 40 French prisoners of war. When the Group became aware of this fact, it made a contribution to the international fund set up to compensate former forced laborers. Out of respect to everyone involved, the Group has published this new study with the aim of adding clarity and objectivity to the discussion. It also wishes to express its profound regret to those who suffered harm or hardship at the factory run by Hugo Ferdinand Boss under National Socialist rule.

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