A little about Rosenvinge's history
Rosenvinge as a company is approaching 100 years!
In 1933, Carsten E. Rosenvinge started selling caps and hats. The company was started in Torggata in Oslo. To begin with, there were two employed seamstresses, and they mostly produced children's hats.
In the 1930s, when Rosenvinge started up, there was a lot of unemployment and recessions, and buying new clothes was expensive. But there was also the need to renew at that time. And a new hat was cheaper than a new coat and it renewed the outfit. And not least, wearing headgear was a large part of the fashion image. During the war, there was rationing on many things, but not on hats. You could buy as many hats as you wanted. The problem was that it was not easy to get hold of drugs. Carsten E. Rosenvinge solved it by offering to make hats from the customer's own fabric.
In 1951, he established himself at Kongsvinger, and employed ladies and young girls who wanted a job. They started out by sewing caps and hats for children and adults. Carsten E. Rosenvinge had also worked up a factory on Økern.
Rosenvinge had a sense of trends and the changing hat and hat fashions of the times. The company was also skilled at marketing. Most towns in Norway had one or more hat shops, so the market itself was good. But Rosenvinge wanted to expand, and therefore built up significant exports. They already had many customers in Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA in the early 1950s.
The 1970s were a hard decade for the clothing industry in Norway. Summer sales of hats and caps fell more and more, and sales of winter hats and scarves faced increasingly strong competition. 1972 was the last good year for the production of caps and hats and it was necessary to think again. The solution for Rosenvinger was the production of uniform caps, which the company at Kongsvinger developed as its special.
In the 1980s, caps and hats for the military and other agencies were the main product. They also started shop operations in Oslo.
Rosenvinge established his first TipTop hat and hat shop in the Vika terrace, later shops were also established at GlasMagasinet and at Steen & Strøm in central Oslo. Carsten E. Rosenvinge left the company in 1999. In 1998, Rosenvinge was sold to Odd Salte. Since the takeover, the company has undergone a major change. It is Kristin Salte, daughter of Odd Salte, who over the past 25 years has built up and restructured the company to what it is today.
Kristin Salte is a product developer and designer, with many years of experience from the fashion industry and store management. Direct sales to shops are today a large part of Rosenvinge's turnover. Rosenvinge's collections are sold to stores throughout Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
In 2018, Rosenvinge launched its online storewww.rosenvinge.no for private individuals. In 2023, the online store passed over 33,000 customers. The company is based in Drøbak and has bags as its main product, but also sells scarves and other accessories. And if there are not as many varieties of caps and hats as before, there are still headgear in the collection.
Here you can see image material from earlier years of operation, and as far back as the 1950s. There are pictures of previous hat designs, both for women, men and children. Marketing material such as leaflets and flyers are attached, as well as photos from fashion fairs that the company participated in in Germany. As a final touch, you will also see photos from our current showroom in Oslo, where our store customers can see collections for upcoming seasons, and plan their purchasing.
Thank you for taking the time to read a little about us. We hope you will follow us on the journey, through our online store and in social media. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook.
