Falke was founded in 1895 in Schmallenberg, Germany, when Franz Falke-Rohen established the hosiery company that would go on to become an international name. Today, the fourth generation is at the helm, with Paul Falke and his cousin Franz-Peter Falke leading the family business. Together, they helped place the brand on the global map through its ergonomic socks, while also pioneering large-scale sleeve sponsorship in motorsport
Tekst Anja Van Der Borght
What kind of car fan are you? A collector, an aficionado, someone who likes rallies?
PF: “I am just a fan, not a collector at all. For me, collectors are people who chase a very specific goal, like owning the best old Porsche, and that is not who I am. I like completely different kinds of cars, from a small Fiat 500 to, for example, an old checker taxi, which I really want to buy one day as it reminds me of a great time in my life. In the eighties I lived in New York for five years. I always thought it was a great achievement to put so many people so comfortably into one taxi. For me, that car is connected to very good memories.
Apart from that I own a couple of old Fiats, and I really like the Fiat 500 Jolly series. Those are the beach cars initiated by Gianni Agnelli, who even had the front window cut in half so he could put the car on his sailboat. They also have those distinctive loom chairs inside. Just love it.”
When you started at Falke, was it your initiative to start sponsoring Formula One, or how did that happen?
PF: “I started at Falke when my father died in 1990. I had to move from New York to Schmallenberg, which was quite a step. From a big city to a small village. After his death I had to come back and take responsibility. At a certain point my cousin Peter and I, who have run the company together since then, wanted to bring the brand more international. We started step by step, initially with sponsoring in the Porsche Supercup.”
How did that Porsche Supercup sponsoring look in practice?
PF: “It was actually quite successful. At that time, most cars were colorful “circus horses,” and we came in with a completely black 911 with only our then red Falke logo, still with the little bird in it. That created a very clear, strong image on the track. It was our first step into motorsport sponsoring and it worked well.”
How did you get from Porsche Supercup to sponsoring Williams in Formula One?
PF: “In 1997 we received an offer through a good friend who was originally a sponsor of Williams. They had lost a sponsor that had promised to come on board, and suddenly there was a slot open. The timing was tight – we got the call over Christmas, and they wanted to present the car around the 10th or 12th of January. Peter and I flew over quickly, met Frank Williams, and saw the car already decorated. That is how it all began.”
You were lucky: Jacques Villeneuve became world champion in 1997. How did you position the Falke logo on the car and drivers?
PF: “We were indeed very lucky: we sponsored in 1997 and 1998, and in 1997 Villeneuve became world champion, with Williams 14 times on the podium that season. We had our logo on the front of the car, on the wings, and of course on all the clothing. I had noticed before that the drivers usually had nothing on their sleeves, and because this was not an officially sold ad position, I asked Frank Williams directly if we could have the sleeves. He said ‘no problem’, so we placed the Falke name three times on the sleeves, visible from every angle when the driver was on the podium with the trophy. We had a whole garage full of press clippings from all over the world at the time. It was a very effective move and, looking back, really cool.”
Why did you choose Porsche Supercup in the first place – because it is a German brand? Or because it was your personal preference?
PF: “Neither, actually. It was more of a coincidence. I knew people who worked in the sponsoring business, and as a brand we get offers from sponsoring agencies almost on a daily basis. One of those offers fit, and that is how the Porsche Supercup engagement started.”
You stopped a few years later. Why did Falke end the Williams F1 sponsoring?
PF: “First of all, when the season started, we were not prepared at all; we had no idea what to do beyond paying the sponsoring fee. We knew that you often have to spend about the same amount again for activation, but we had no dedicated people on the ground in Formula One. We then hired someone with experience and consulted a Formula One photographer from nearby Winterberg on how to catch journalists’ attention. His idea was smart: instead of chasing journalists like everyone else, we supported the photographers, who deliver the pictures to journalists. We set up a photo contest, produced a calendar with the best photos, and sent it to our customers. We also equipped photographers with black Falke bags with big logos, which you could see everywhere along the track. It worked very well. But in the following season, Rothmans changed strategy and the Williams car turned completely red to promote the Winfield brand, including all team clothing. That look did not fit us and was not attractive for our brand. After being spoiled by a world-championship season we decided two seasons later to stop and take a break from Formula One.”
Today you feature a ‘red line’ as part of your branding – in hindsight, would that red Williams livery not have been a good match?
PF: “No, not really. We did not have that red line element back then, and our relationship to red is a bit different. We try to preserve a bit of the original red logo with the bird, so we use a red ribbon here and there and like to have a little red everywhere as a reminder of the old logo which we had. It’s still on every packaging, because our brand is registered as a logo everywhere. On the back of every packaging, you still find the old falcon.”
Let’s go back to your childhood. You grew up in a sock‑making family business. Did you play here in the factory, between the machines?
PF: “Yes, we grew up here in Schmallenberg, and I went to school here until I was 15. This was our home turf. On weekends my father loved to walk through the production, and we went with him. The production halls became our playground, which was quite funny and special.In those days my father also looked after our carpet-yarn spinning mill. When he died in 1990, the company’s structure was very different: around half the turnover came from socks and branded consumer goods, the other half from carpet yarns, needle‑punch carpets and two carpet weaving mills. For us kids it was more exciting to play in the big carpet‑yarn factory because there were forklifts. They transported huge four‑ to five‑meter rolls of carpet with forklifts that had a spindle in front, which you pushed into the roll. My cousin and I drove those forklifts as fast as we could through the halls, and of course at some point we crashed into a machine and caused serious damage. Those things happen when you let kids race forklifts in a factory.”
As a young boy, did you do holiday jobs in the plants during summer?
PF: Only later. I left Schmallenberg when I was 15 and went to Switzerland to finish school, first a year in Lausanne, then two and a half years in German part of Switzerland, where I did my Matura, the Swiss baccalaureate. After that my father suggested I travel wherever we had business contacts, starting in New Zealand, “where the wool grows.” I spent a couple of months on a sheep farm as part of a roughly half‑year trip. We were already familiar with production here in Schmallenberg, but my father was not a big fan of us getting our training in the family factory before we joined. I agree with that: on‑the‑job training is better done elsewhere, so you can come back later with real experience and then improve things.”
You talk about a “big family,” but how large is the shareholder family actually?
PF: “In fact, we are not such a big family in shareholder terms. My cousin Franz‑Peter and I are the fourth generation, and there are just the two of us as owners, sitting at one desk, opposite each other. Our fathers were two brothers and the sole shareholders of their generation, and that structure continued. So unlike other 131‑year‑old family companies that end up with 150 shareholders, we remained very concentrated.
At what moment in your life did you know you wanted to join the company?
PF: “Honestly, there never really was a choice. The last generation was more traditional and wanted a male successor. My poor mother had to have me at 41, in 1958, after two older daughters. One sister was born in 1953, the other in 1955, and I in 1958, because they wanted a boy. Today you read that 41 is late to have a child; 65 years ago, it was even more remarkable. But everything went well, and there I was, the male successor.”
Over all these years at Falke, what is your best memory in the company?
PF: It is hard to name a single “best” memory because there are many things that made me happy. Around the millennium, there was a theory in economics that in any market you either had to be number one, two or three, otherwise you were gone. That reinforced our conviction that we had to build a very strong brand. Looking back, what really differentiates us from competitors, past and present, is our very consistent brand policy. For us, the brand stands above everything; nobody should “play” with it, especially when it is also your family name. Running a brand is also a matter of gut feeling, and I believe that responsibility belongs to the owners.”
You met many people worldwide. Can you mention one or two special occasions you will never forget?
PF: “One funny story took place in Lech am Arlberg in Austria, where there is a very famous fashion department store called Strolz. At the end of the 1990s, we had already started our ergonomic sports system, combining fashion and function, but it was difficult to convince retailers of some products, and we were not listed at Strolz. Before Christmas, they had just listed Tommy Hilfiger, who was present in the store. I knew Mr. Strolz, even though he did not buy from us, and he introduced me to Tommy. Mr. Strolz began to explain to Tommy what we do, and Tommy Hilfiger interrupted him and said: “I know. You do not have to explain, this man makes the best socks in the world.” I told him I was happy to hear that because Mr. Strolz did not seem to have understood it yet, since we were not listed. For Strolz it was “impossible,” and afterward he did list us. It was a great recommendation and a very funny coincidence.”
Talking about the best socks in the world: what is your favorite Falke sock, and why?
PF: “We try every sock we develop, so I wear many of them. But one iconic product I still like a lot is Airport. If you ask me whether Airport is the best product we have, I would say yes, in that quality, price range and performance, Airport is one of our very best socks. I do not wear it exclusively, because we have other very good products, but Airport clearly stands out.”
“In its Luxury Line, Falke also sells socks made from exclusive and super-soft ‘vicuña’ wool, which comes from the vicuña—the smallest camelid living in the Andes,” says Falke. The finer the wool fiber, the softer the wool. Vicuñas take the crown at 8 microns. “These socks only go into production after the customer has paid the full amount of 960 euros (for knee-highs, 660 euros for a pair of regular socks) and are delivered in a walnut box with washing instructions on a metal tag. “These socks are so precious that we don’t want to make holes in them by sewing a care label onto them,” says Falke.
There is a saying that well‑groomed men wear knee‑high socks. Do you agree?
PF:” I totally agree. If I do not wear knee‑high socks, I feel kind of undressed. It is really rare that I wear socks of normal length. For me, knee‑high is part of being properly dressed.”
And what about the Italian way of wearing shoes without socks?
PF: “I am not ignorant; I see that many people refuse to wear visible socks in summer. But at least they should wear an invisible sock. From a hygienic point of view it is important. You do not want to sweat directly into leather shoes, and you do not want your bare skin in constant contact with whatever chemicals come out of the leather when it gets warm. It is similar to people wearing an undershirt under a dress shirt: it is about hygiene and comfort, for men and women. I also wear invisibles with summer sneakers or piano‑style sneakers, so I understand the look, but I would always recommend an invisible sock as a minimum.”
Talking about being well groomed: I love your cufflinks. What are they?
PF: “They are from Paul Smith. I usually buy two pairs of the same model, so I can have ‘Paul’ on both sides, which fits nicely because my first name is Paul. From a distance they might look like little scarab beetles or even like something from Bulgari, but they are Paul Smith.”
How did Covid affect your operations, production and service? And what other challenges came afterward?
PF: “During Covid we invested heavily in our warehouse, we installed a completely automatic storage system here all through these three years. Our online business, which we had started building up some time before, went really through the roof during that period. Even though we produce more than 90, actually over 93 percent in our own factories, we still had supply‑chain issues because our own factories were affected: many sick people, lockdowns, sending people home. The entire performance got shaky, still maybe at 80 percent, but below our standards. Just when things became smoother, the Ukraine war started, and one of our main yarn suppliers in Germany went bankrupt, that was another big problem last year. They supplied many companies that had disappeared, and we did not expect them to stop. We tried to support them, drawing on our long experience with spinning mills, but we eventually decided we would not go back into spinning ourselves.”
With such a large assortment, how complex is your stock and planning?
PF: “It is very complex. We have more than 20,000 SKUs in our warehouse, stock‑keeping units, meaning article times size times color. Take Airport as an example: we decided we must always have it in 35 to 40 colors, and it is an NOS (never‑out‑of‑stock) article. That alone means 40 colors times six sizes, so 240 units, and then you have it in long and short versions, so about 480 SKUs for just that one article. We do not piece‑dye this quality; we buy the yarns already dyed, so for each color we need the main yarn, plus polyamide, plus polyacryl in the same color. Our purchasing department does an amazing job sourcing all that and getting it to the right factories in time. We use sophisticated IT systems to plan, but at the end of the day you still physically need the right yarn in the right place.”
Do you consider yourself as a perfectionist, you are not fully satisfied. What is missing in Falke’s current performance?
PF: “I do consider myself a perfectionist, yes. What is missing is delivering exactly what the customer wants at the time he wants it. For example, one winter we were sold out of ski socks at the beginning of December, which is ridiculous. We missed a lot of sales in January, February and March, and if you have a strong brand article, you should be able to get it whenever you want it.”
What is the best part and the worst part of being ‘Mr. Falke’?
PF: “The best part is that you do not have to pay for your own socks, and you can implement certain ideas you believe in; that freedom and responsibility are good parts. The worst part is more subtle: growing up as Falke in a small town can be difficult. I left Schmallenberg at 15 partly because whatever I did, like any crazy 15‑year‑old, was always noticed more than when others did it. Being the biggest employer in the region puts you and your family in a special position, with a lot of responsibility. We employ about 2,900 people, over 1,000 of them in Germany, which is more than one third, in an industry that is very cost sensitive and still involves a lot of handwork. Whether we can maintain all that in Germany in the long run is an open question.”
I heard you are a big fan of wine, especially Peter Falke wines. Is that something you produce?
PF: “That is my cousin Peter, not me. He lives in South Africa and owns the Peter Falke vineyard there. We also have a large factory in South Africa, so he can combine visits to the vineyard with visits to the factory. I am particularly a fan of his red wines. He also produces a rosé and a white, but I personally prefer the red wines, and the Shiraz is really good.”
Your cousin will probably retire on his vineyard. Where do you see yourself later on?
PF: “My cousin’s father just turned 100, and I myself turned 68. Franz‑Peter will be 72 on October 1st, so in theory he could have another 28 years if he follows his father’s example. I do not see myself retiring in South Africa, even though I like it a lot. I had many opportunities to go there because my father started our South African business 50 years ago.”
How did Falke get started in South Africa?
PF: My father started production in South Africa, not with socks but as a subsidiary of our carpet‑yarn spinning mill. We had a special process for space‑dyed yarn, and at that time there was only one competitor, a Belgian spinning mill, using another method. We knitted the carpet yarn into big tubes, ran them through a printing machine, and then unwind the yarn again; the Belgians printed directly onto the yarn without knitting. The European market for that type of carpet declined at the beginning of the 1970s, but in Africa it was booming, with South Africa as our biggest customer. So my father went there to see whether we could produce locally. When you opened a production in South Africa and could guarantee 25 percent of the national supply for a product, you could obtain customs protection against imports. It became a race: would the Belgians or we set up production first? Apparently we were first, and that is how our business in South Africa started.”
