In 1980, Werner Grau founded ALPINA. In 2011, the company headquartered near Augsburg is one of the leaders in the ski and bike helmets plus the snow goggles and sports eyewear markets. The 30 years in between saw a number of highlights.
1980: In the United States, a western movie hero becomes president. And in Germany Werner Grau and colleagues found ALPINA. Their plan: to produce the best possible helmets, snow and sports goggles. Not at the other end of the world, but right in Bavaria.
1981: IBM invents the PC. And ALPINA a pair of snow goggles called TURBO with lenses sporting a gray tint – a revolutionary concept that soon makes the snow goggles of established brands look like old school.
The wild 1980s:
Style icons make indelible marks on our
collective memory
1983: Apple invents the mouse while ALPINA’s SWING sports eyewear starts a march of triumph through the world of outdoor sports. In addition to those of Tour de France winner Stephen Roche and Mountain Bike World Cup winner Mike Kluge it has been protecting as many as three million pairs of eyes to date – a world record!
1987: Gorbi says “Glasnost.” Mathias Rust takes this new Soviet openness literally and heads for Moscow in a small plane. ALPINA, meanwhile, takes a high-flying market share of 40 percent with snow goggles. But keeps its feet firmly planted on regional ground.
1988: The tennis euphoria around Steffi Graf and Boris Becker reaches its pinnacle. Contrary to expectations, ALPINA does not develop tennis eyewear but BEL AIR, its first goggles for bike riders. A smart decision as the tennis hype disappears while the bike boom is here to stay.
1989: The Berlin wall comes down. And ALPINA, too, expands. The company goes south and founds two subsidiaries, ALPINA Austria and ALPINA Swiss. Combined, they account for about 30 percent of the company’s sales today.
World Wide Web und QUATTROFLEX
– the decade of revolutions
1992: Bill Clinton becomes the most powerful man in the world. And ALPINA the leading eyewear brand in Europe – thanks to its new unbreakable, hard-coated CERAMIC-LENS technology.
1993: In Germany, new zip codes send letters and mailmen on an odyssey while snow goggle wearers keep heading in the right direction. Thanks to polarization filters ALPINA’s new Quattroflex technology delivers sensational contrast enhancement even in extremely poor weather conditions.
1996: Coca Cola brings the Olympics to the land of limited impossibilities. ALPINA brings bike helmets to its product range. And makes a flying start right away due to the RUN SYSTEM: a novel type of rotary closure at the nape of the neck.
Into the third millennium with ALPINA
What separates Majorca sun worshipers from skiers? The former are upset with the eco-tax that starts to be levied there in 2002 while the latter are pleased with ALPINA’s launch of back protectors.
2004: Britney Spears’ marriage lasts two days. The ski helmets’ march of triumph continues in full force. ALPINA attains German market leadership. The RUN system, yet again, is crucial for this success.
2007: After the iPod, iBook and iTunes Apple now revolutionizes the cell phones market with the iPhone. But the champagne bottles not only pop in California but also in Derching – as ALPINA’s sales have doubled in just seven years, mainly due to the breath-taking growth of its bike helmets business.
2010: A volcano with an unpronounceable name grounds over a hundred thousand planes. ALPINA keeps its feet on the ground too – despite 2009/10, with almost 40 million euros, being the year of the strongest sales in its 31-year-history. With ski helmets and snow goggles ALPINA today is best-in-class in Germany. With bike helmets it has at least clinched a podium place, looking upward.
