Strauss

Foundation and beginnings

The company’s history began with Engelbert Strauss (*1908). His father, August, had already been working as a travelling salesman across Germany from as early as 1902, selling brooms (German Besen) and brushes manufactured in Kassel – a district of Biebergemünd known as Besenkassel.

After World War II, around 1948, Engelbert Strauss continued the family trading tradition and founded the company bearing his name. Eventually, he expanded the product range to include work protection clothing. The first products were gloves, which still remain part of the product range in 2024. In the 1960s the company switched to mail order business, and started its catalogue business in 1973. Over time, the product range grew to include clothing and footwear, such as overalls, high-visibility vests, chainsaw-protection trousers, and safety boots. In the early 1990s, the company relocated its headquarters to Biebergemünd. During the same decade, it also began developing its online shop.

Brand expansion and transformation

In 1996, Strauss expanded and opened its first subsidiary in Austria. After the founding of a second subsidiary in England in 2002, others followed, including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Denmark.

In 2008, the company began using cinema advertising as well as collaborations with bands to produce original promotional songs. In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sebastian Balster describes these measures as marking the beginning of the transformation from a retailer into a lifestyle outfitter. Strauss also supplied equipment for the television show Zuhause im Glück – Unser Einzug in ein neues Leben. In the years that followed, this transformation was further driven by sports sponsorships.

In 2015 the company was awarded the German Logistics Prize and in 2016 it was awarded the European Logistics Prize.

In 2020, Strauss opened the CI Factory, a new logistics and distribution centre with its own production facilities in the immediate vicinity of its headquarters. In 2022, the Strauss CI Factory Chattogram was added as another company location in Bangladesh. In October 2023, Strauss launched a new site in Los Angeles with the independently operated Engelbert Strauss, Inc.

In 2024, the company opened the Alea Resort in Bad Orb, featuring a hotel, spa, and flats – a project that involved an investment in the tens of millions. The same year, Strauss entered into a partnership with Bauhaus. As part of this collaboration, Strauss launched four pop-up stores within Bauhaus branches, making Strauss products available in external retail for the first time.

According to journalists such as Sebastian Balster from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Jonas Metzner from the German Business Insider, the original workwear brand has evolved beyond its initial target audience to establish itself as a streetwear and lifestyle brand. Initially, Strauss primarily supplied workwear for tradespeople, gardeners, and manual workers. This changed when the company began expanding its target audience through modern designs. As Metzner notes, Strauss transformed into a cult brand through its strategic sponsorship activities.

The brand has received awards, such as the Goldene Brandzeichen (Golden Branding Iron) in 2021, awarded by the Marketing Club Frankfurt. In 2024, the brand was honoured with the TW Forum Award, which has been presented annually by the German magazine Textilwirtschaft since 1959.

Social partnerships

Strauss has been a member of the Fair Wear Foundation since 2016, an independent, non-profit organisation that works with its members to improve working conditions in the textile industry. Another partner is the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Together with GIZ, Strauss has been establishing a chair for sustainability and textile innovation at the Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST) in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka since February 2020. A school was also opened in north-west Bangladesh in 2024 in cooperation with the Don Bosco Mission.

Other project partners are the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) and the United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES).