Etun's Fourth Generation Opens New Jacquard Mill in Yavne
January 5, 2001
Company Hopes High Profits Continue With 4,000 Square Foot 'Dream House' Mill
Tel Aviv— This month, if all goes as planned, Etun Ltd. will undergo a major change in its 132-year history when it moves to a new factory in Yavne.
The new location is just south of its current suburban base in Petach Tikva, said Yishai (means, "Jessie") Horn, 28-year-old marketing director of the company started by his great grandfather and uncle.
Etun is an exhibitor at Heimtextil, Decosit and Como. Etun's focus is on the contract industry. It supplies a who's who of contract houses like Maharam and Designtex. Horn covers the U.S.A by himself.
"The new 4,000 square meter mill was five years in the making. It's our dream house designed to be a textile mill," he said. "We even decided where every electric socket would be," Horn explained. He has been with the company for less than a year but textiles are in his blood. Although he can do other things in business, he said that he likes textiles, especially the aesthetics of it all. "I know that our ancestors would be proud of this new mill."
For a few months at least, Etun, which means, 'an expensive cotton fabric in Hebrew,' will operate both the older mill and the new one in parallel to insure that its customers have a continuous supply of product.
"Etun has a small turnover and a high profit," said Horn. "There's always a market for fashion. We specialize in novelty yarns, especially the shiny stuff. Chenilles are still strong, too.
"We offer great flexibility to our customers with slow growth. We sell direct — middle to better priced fabrics — to our customers with no agents and offer minimums of two pieces per order."
The new mill will house 20 Dornier looms with electronic heads. "We will apply new technology to every area of Etun," said Horn. "We expect to deliver value in fabrics to new markets not just in Europe and the U.S.A., but beyond those borders into China where we already have a customer or two."
Meanwhile, Horn, himself is taking a greater role in the company, under his father's direction. "I have good relationship with my father. Even if the generation is older, we have the same vision," he said. Horn has an undergraduate degree in economics, and he took an advanced degree in global textile marketing from Reutlingen University in Germany in cooperation with the Philadelphia College of Textiles. He also spent nine months in Bergamo Italy in the apparel fabric industry with a supplier to top design houses.
Horn said that his great grandfather and uncle made floor rags, which were sold, door-to-door by a horse-drawn cart in Germany at the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1868.
Then, Etun was based in Fulda, a suburb of Frankfurt. It was known as Gebrueder Horn. Yishai's grandfather wanted to study law instead of being in the rag business. So Grandfather Dr. Paul Horn learned law in Germany. However, in 1934 the Nazis abolished his degree, leaving him with no job and and a bleak future. He married his wife Melanie on the day he left Germany for the land of Palestine. Because his German legal training was irrelevant in Palestine, he relied on a textile degree: he re-established the mill under the name of Etun weaving mill of course and made blankets for the British Army. In his spare time, he went on local digs as an aspiring archaeologist.
In the '50s, Etun began its current woven jacquard upholstery business. It supplied the upholstery in the UN headquarters in New York. (If the label says 'made in Israel' chances are, the fabric was made by Etun, Horn said.)
At that time, Paul and Melanie had a son, named Emanuel, who is now managing director of Etun. He who earned a textile degree at Leeds in London. Unfortunately, when he was 26, a pressure bomb set off in a Swissair flight returning to Israel from Switzerland killed Manny's parents. Despite the tragedy, Emmanuel continued the mill. His wife, a teacher at the time, studied design and continues to develop designs for Etun until this day.
Tel Aviv— This month, if all goes as planned, Etun Ltd. will undergo a major change in its 132-year history when it moves to a new factory in Yavne.
The new location is just south of its current suburban base in Petach Tikva, said Yishai (means, "Jessie") Horn, 28-year-old marketing director of the company started by his great grandfather and uncle.
Etun is an exhibitor at Heimtextil, Decosit and Como. Etun's focus is on the contract industry. It supplies a who's who of contract houses like Maharam and Designtex. Horn covers the U.S.A by himself.
"The new 4,000 square meter mill was five years in the making. It's our dream house designed to be a textile mill," he said. "We even decided where every electric socket would be," Horn explained. He has been with the company for less than a year but textiles are in his blood. Although he can do other things in business, he said that he likes textiles, especially the aesthetics of it all. "I know that our ancestors would be proud of this new mill."
For a few months at least, Etun, which means, 'an expensive cotton fabric in Hebrew,' will operate both the older mill and the new one in parallel to insure that its customers have a continuous supply of product.
"Etun has a small turnover and a high profit," said Horn. "There's always a market for fashion. We specialize in novelty yarns, especially the shiny stuff. Chenilles are still strong, too.
"We offer great flexibility to our customers with slow growth. We sell direct — middle to better priced fabrics — to our customers with no agents and offer minimums of two pieces per order."
The new mill will house 20 Dornier looms with electronic heads. "We will apply new technology to every area of Etun," said Horn. "We expect to deliver value in fabrics to new markets not just in Europe and the U.S.A., but beyond those borders into China where we already have a customer or two."
Meanwhile, Horn, himself is taking a greater role in the company, under his father's direction. "I have good relationship with my father. Even if the generation is older, we have the same vision," he said. Horn has an undergraduate degree in economics, and he took an advanced degree in global textile marketing from Reutlingen University in Germany in cooperation with the Philadelphia College of Textiles. He also spent nine months in Bergamo Italy in the apparel fabric industry with a supplier to top design houses.
Horn said that his great grandfather and uncle made floor rags, which were sold, door-to-door by a horse-drawn cart in Germany at the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1868.
Then, Etun was based in Fulda, a suburb of Frankfurt. It was known as Gebrueder Horn. Yishai's grandfather wanted to study law instead of being in the rag business. So Grandfather Dr. Paul Horn learned law in Germany. However, in 1934 the Nazis abolished his degree, leaving him with no job and and a bleak future. He married his wife Melanie on the day he left Germany for the land of Palestine. Because his German legal training was irrelevant in Palestine, he relied on a textile degree: he re-established the mill under the name of Etun weaving mill of course and made blankets for the British Army. In his spare time, he went on local digs as an aspiring archaeologist.
In the '50s, Etun began its current woven jacquard upholstery business. It supplied the upholstery in the UN headquarters in New York. (If the label says 'made in Israel' chances are, the fabric was made by Etun, Horn said.)
At that time, Paul and Melanie had a son, named Emanuel, who is now managing director of Etun. He who earned a textile degree at Leeds in London. Unfortunately, when he was 26, a pressure bomb set off in a Swissair flight returning to Israel from Switzerland killed Manny's parents. Despite the tragedy, Emmanuel continued the mill. His wife, a teacher at the time, studied design and continues to develop designs for Etun until this day.
