Aurimag

With this blog post, I’m starting my column called “Gregotti’s Diary”. In this section, I will have the opportunity to recount impressions, events, and anecdotes from 1957 to the present day, trying to convey my personal testimony on the evolution in the industrial embroidery sector and the world around it. The episode I’m about to tell you took place in May/June in 1958 in Rovellasca, a small town renowned for the quality of its potatoes and particularly for its leading textile manufacturing firms. 

At the time, there were thousands of women embroidering nightdresses, dressing gowns, pyjamas, etc. with treadle sewing machines, with the needle operated by a foot pedal. The embroidery was created by manually moving the frame and the width of the stitch was calibrated by moving a knee-operated lever. This meant that production was very small, despite the fact that some ompanies employed hundreds of women. Namely, during that period I remember that one of the very first Zangs multi-head machines was delivered to Confezione Farfalla. In those years, I used to make programs (cardboards) that operated the jacquard of the embroidery machine and I used to be there often. Bearing in mind that I was 20 and that I did not feign indifference to certain (pure and innocent) attentions, one evening at the end of my work shift, as I was about to get into the car (an all-metal Fiat 500 estate) I was surrounded by a fair amount of young women. I thought they’re were up to some sort of small party or sundowner, but I soon had to change my mind because the tone suddenly went from friendly to clearly hostile and I became the target of their famous potatoes! The reason was simple: an automatic machine produced 3-4 times more per day than the individual workers and the company had started dismissing staff. As I sold designs for embroidery machines, the women blamed me. I will never forget that episode or my Fiat 500 estate, which spent a week with the panel beater to repair the damage caused by the Rovellasca potatoes.

In the 20 years before relations with Japanese company Tajima started, I saw the birth of many embroidery factories and contributed to their growth as I provided embroidery designs. Working together with these workshops, I was well aware of the characteristics that the designs and the machines needed to have to ensure top quality embroidery.

During this period, I gradually realised that there was an extensive and diversified market demand and that a technological leap was needed to meet it. In other words, at the time machinery would not do more than 250 stitches per minute and would only embroider one thread colour, while market demand was for multi-colour processing. The wooden frames had to be lined with a strip of gauze supporting the fabric, which had to be replaced frequently, as it would get dirty and worn during use. The embroidery fields were no larger than 45x35 cm and, as if that wasn't enough, they were so fragile that they couldn’t withstand the weight of the large coils of materials, which had to be hung from large rings over the machine. Try and imagine the effort of mounting fabric on a frame at the time! Embroidery designs were instead produced thanks to the Punch Machine, which would code the graphics on the Jacquard cardboards. At the next step, these were inserted into the embroidery machine, which had a mechanical device (called Jacquard) to read the holes, transmitting the motion to the frame to create the embroidery. A mechanical process that is not easy to understand for those who do not have first-hand experience of it, entirely different from the graphic embroidery development as we intend it today. Larger and slower machinery made by a German company was used instead of graphic software. Think of the inconvenience in the event of a breakdown! At the time, a minor oversight of the operator was all you needed to cause the Jacquard to break. There was no technical centre in Italy able to repair these machines, so if needed there were two options: either you chose to ship it, considering that the time required for transport and customs paperwork would mean a longer repair period or, as it happened most of the time, you needed to take the machines back to the manufacturer’s plant. This is why I often travelled to Germany. It usually took about 18 hours to get there, on average 8 up to Basel and then about 10 hours on the motorway, built with large slabs of concrete that caused the car to jolt every 20 metres. The greyness of smog, typical of that industrial area, together with the frequent bad weather would make that last leg of the journey very dull and tiring. Once at destination, while they carried out the repairs, I would relay the most common needs of customers to technicians and suggest solutions to meet them. I still smile when I think of the chilly atmosphere whenever I, a young man full of enthusiasm, would try and explain these needs to the conceited German engineers. To increase the market, the machines needed to be improved to make them increasingly suitable to the needs of Italian embroiderers. I was very disappointed because they thought that these suggestions were unfounded and, in a few words, I should mind my own business. They were so proud of the quality of the machinery they made that they would not consider my requests to improve them, which nevertheless reflected those of their customers. In the next episode, I will tell you how I got my own back. **  The Punch Machine was donated by Studio Auriga to the Textile Museum of Busto Arsizio, which we invite you to visit (free entry)

In the previous episode, I spoke about my experience in the industrial embroidery sector in the 1960s and the difficult communication with the German company that made embroidery machines and was not very responsive to the needs of Italian customers. I remember that at the time, Auriga’s core business was the production of Jacquard cardboards where the embroidery designs were coded, to be inserted in the embroidery machines at a subsequent stage.  The first embroidery machine was made in Germany by Wurker in 1926, though production was switched to the weaponry sector at the beginning of World War II.

In the early 1950s, some German companies – Zangs, Marco and Marcus – started to manufacture multi-head embroidery machines: they were the only ones in Europe. In the early 1970s, I learnt about Japanese 6-colour machines that had been sold in the UK. As there were customs restrictions preventing or limiting the import of some categories of machines, we had to wait until 1974. In 1975, Milan hosted the ITMA, the most important travelling exhibition for the textile and garment industry. A long-awaited special event that took place every four years, alternating France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Switzerland, the five European countries most involved in the various weaving, finishing and post-treatment processes of the product. Exhibitors in the embroidery sector included Tajima, a Japanese company presenting two embroidery machine models: an 8-head TMJR and a 12-head TMB with six colours. It was precisely then that my Swiss associate Bruno Ecknauer and I realised that Tajima was light years ahead of German technology. Faster, automatic colour changeover, larger embroidery fields and with twice as many heads, they provided far higher outputs, along with exceptional embroidery quality. Terrot-France, whose head Mr. Leon Gelrubin was the European representative for Tajima, contacted me to ask me to become the representative for Italy. It was a very tempting offer and it would give me the opportunity to explore a completely new world. I found this prospect attractive. However, my enthusiasm for this proposal was curbed by the fact that Auriga was acclaimed on the Italian and international markets for being the leading and most experienced manufacturer of embroidery programs. As customers used German-made machines, dealing with machinery of a competitor company would have caused a conflict of interest and would have inevitably broken off relationships with manufacturers, which had been friendly up to then. After a few weeks of reflection and negotiations expertly conducted by Mr. Gelrubin, when offered a technical collaboration I finally quashed all my qualms and accepted. This led to setting up Studio Auriga, which became a partner of Terrot Mauser and the Italian representative of the Tajima brand. The partnership with this French company immediately proved to be very fruitful and in perfect harmony: I took care of the technical part and they took care of the business side. This involved travelling frequently to Japan, though I will tell you more about this in the next episode.

    In the previous episode, I told you about my first encounter with Tajima, the Japanese embroidery machine manufacturer, in Milan in 1975 during the ITMA, the most important European trade show for the textile and sewing industries. I was highly impressed by this cutting-edge technology and from that moment on my company’s business turned towards this new challenge, that of industrial machines. So I contacted Tajima’s European representative, La Terrot France, which offered me to become the Italian representative.

At the time, Auriga was the main embroidery program manufacturer in Europe and I was concerned about the reaction of my customers and manufacturers, which would have gone from being ‘friends’ to competitors due to the supply of this new product. However, this initial hesitation soon turned into a strength. Indeed, buyers felt very reassured by the purchase of such innovative machines from a long-standing company able to support them also in the production of designs. That is how Auriga became an official Terrot France partner and the Italian representative for the Tajima brand. In this new context, I was responsible for the technical management side and Terrot France took care of the business aspect. This involved travelling frequently to Japan to meet Mr. Ikuo Tajima, the Chairman, Founder and soul of the company, to whom I relayed the machines and improvements in highest demand on the European market. Namely, there was the need to provide continuous embroidery on the fold of 240cm sheets in a single load. The machines used at the time were able to perform this step by moving the fabric after each frame and centring was a lengthy process.

This is why during our first meetings, I put forward the need for a new embroidery machine for bed linen – strongly expanding at the time – with an embroidery field whose size helped decorate the fabric in ‘standard positions’ (centre, intermediate area, corner) and ‘continuously’, as well as the need for a machine to embroider pillowcases in a single frame mounting. My suggestions were received with great interest and I found this hugely rewarding. Mr. Ikuo Tajima appreciated my analyses and instructed his staff to start studies to design the new machines. In just a few months, they developed the TMEF-H model, with embroidery fields featuring entirely new dimensions, 680×400 and 680×600 mm, which were perfectly suitable to the purpose.

The first approach of these new embroidery machines on the market was a phenomenal success: these machines immediately won the favour of customers. Demand by far exceeded the available offer and at this point the challenge became being able to quickly respond to the great many purchase requests, considering the transport time from Japan. Given the positive feedback, Tajima’s Chairman asked me to provide constant support in the development of the new machine models for Italy and other markets that would have developed the need for them as a result. This is why a sub-team of people was set up at the headquarters of Tajima Japan as part of its R&D division, tasked to support me in analysing the needs of the Italian market in order to ensure a faster and more accurate transfer of information. The reason for this was that, in those years, communications were very slow. One would only use a telex, the ancestor of fax machines and the only way to send a photo was by mail.

Despite the support of this new team, I still needed to go to Japan periodically to supervise the models being manufactured, plead to reduce delivery times and define the sales strategies. Transport was far less easy compared to today. Travelling to Tokyo by plane involved three stopovers and the journey to Nagoya took more than 18 hours in total. Nagoya was a town of 500,000 people, a small airport and few buildings with more than 10 floors. The streets were very narrow and crossed a rural area scattered with pretty cottages with ceramic roofs, surrounded by lovely small gardens.

During working days in Japan, meetings with the R&D staff always stopped for the lunchbreak at midday. We usually went to the only restaurant in the area. I still have fond memories of the wonder of regular customers when they saw me, especially children, because I was one of the first foreigners they had ever seen. After a few days, they would get bolder and come to greet me kindly, delighted to be able to touch, with a certain degree of curiosity, ...my nose (which was so different from theirs). Instead I feel less nostalgic about the food, which I didn’t exactly like. This small village restaurant served very simple dishes, though strictly based on seaweed soups or vegetables with stewed meat, full of nerves and fat. I found it very difficult to have lunch without bread and I eagerly waited for the fruit to come. I used to eat fair amounts of it, to the embarrassment of my guests at it was extremely expensive, and in Japan, at the time, it was considered a luxury. Indeed, the meal voucher had a limited balance (also for executives) and the cost of fruit was not included. The upside was that after some days of work, I would return to Italy in an enviable shape. The end of the working day was followed by typically Japanese entertainment, which I remember very fondly, though I will tell you more about it in the next episode.

In the last episode, I told you about the start of the partnership with Tajima, a Japanese embroidery machine manufacturer and the reasons behind thesuccess on the Italian market of this business, which at the time complemented Auriga’s historical core business, the production of embroidery designs. From that moment on, I started visiting Japan to support Tajima in the development of the new models of embroidery machines for Italy. When I was there, the most difficult part was giving technical instructions in English to be translated into Japanese.

This is why the Chairman of Tajima set up a team of people as part of the R&D division to support me and help with information transfer procedures. The meetings were generally attended by the heads of the individual departments with their team of 3 or 4 people, all with a notepad, listening quietly and very carefully. For every topic, after a few words, I had to stop to give them the necessary time to translate and note them down. Some sessions would last days. The meetings ended at 5:30pm sharp and we would go straight to dinner immediately after, without even having the time to quickly stop at the hotel. Almost every evening ended in one of the most exclusive bars in the town centre, often hosting karaoke, having drinks, sweets and fruit served by a staff of elegant young women in traditional attire that would always greet me in a warm and friendly manner. When they heard where I came from, they would try and welcome me by saying a few words in Italian, like naso, occhi, pizza and spaghetti. Despite the tiredness of the day, the sweet nature of these people would brighten my evening, always leaving me speechless for their culture, elegance and professionalism. At a certain point, the conversation would stop abruptly because the custom was to end that relaxing break after 40 minutes! It left me perplexed, especially the first evenings as I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. After some time, I understood it was a traditional way of ending a working day in a more relaxed way and, although with difficulty, I got used to it. The Japanese really enjoyed these evenings. Executives and ‘select’ members of the company would make a great effort to show they were having a good time, especially before the Chairman. Indeed, they felt honoured to have been invited directly by the Owner and to them this effort to ‘show they were happy’ was a token of their gratitude to him. All venues would shut down at 11:30pm and you would find yourself in a crowd of people meandering towards the car parks, where there were more than 5000 taxis awaiting them. I have an incredible memory of the energy that poured into those streets, a very uplifting picture of the life of that community, of which I was lucky enough to be a member, even though for a short time. This was how I spent up to 2 consecutive weeks between Nagoya and Osaka. I remember that tiring period for the new stimuli I received, though it was equally rewarding for the key developments I saw on the horizon. But I’ll tell you more about this in the next episode.

In September 2018, we worked on preparing for the inauguration of the new offices and the showroom. The success of this event by far exceeded our expectations, thanks to the efforts of all the people involved. I met again customers I had dealt with at the beginning of my career, many children of my first customers and some already with their own children. I received many congratulations, which more than rewarded my 60-year commitment to my business. A number of customers greeted me as they did at the time, calling me “Mr.Auriga”.

This success, forgive my smugness, brought back many memories. One of them is especially stamped in my memory. At Milan’s exhibition centre in 1978 – there were no specialised national trade shows at the time – we had set up a stand measuring about 150 sqm. My wife took care of its design, giving it an elegantly sophisticated touch that made it stand out from the rest and where we displayed some spot-on Tajima machine models. We attracted throngs of visitors. It was difficult to liaise with all of them, because besides my wife and me, we only had a technician (the legendary Pietro), who had to deal with the machines and illustrate their technical qualities. Among the visitors was a woman who I thought was more of an onlooker than a potential buyer, and so I had asked her to be patient and wait. After some time, the lady sat down, unprotesting. Finally, after a few hours waiting, it was her turn. The lady was the owner of a small sewing business near Lake Garda and explained, in an ever so lovely Veneto accent, that she had decided to buy two machines. You can imagine my admiration for the refinement, politeness and understanding of this lady, whose peculiar name I still remember distinctly,Egidia. I was able to make amends for it, to the point that we delivered a number of other machines to her in subsequent years. How many of us would have been so patient? 

Stiamo sperimentando una nuova normalità. Dopo il lungo periodo di arresti domiciliari, causa Covid-19, finalmente è arrivata la libertà condizionata. Ho atteso con una certa impazienza questa data, ora ci siamo. Chi mi ha conosciuto da tempo sapeva che a causa del lavoro ero molto più impegnato fuori dalla ditta, e spesso all’estero anche per lunghi periodi. Ero a casa non più di un centinaio di giorni all’anno e parte degli stessi trascorsi in vacanze.

Quindi questa forzata permanenza l’ho voluta considerare come un risarcimento del tempo perduto. Agli inizi avevo iniziato un diario personale, segnando gli avvenimenti più importanti o significativi, ma poi ho constatato che erano sempre gli stessi. Iniziava ad essere davvero noioso, anche per me che ne ero l’autore... Le varianti erano i diversi pareri, consigli, previsioni degli esperti. Non avevo la minima idea di quanti fossero e quante specializzazioni esistessero. Per cui ho smesso di tenere il mio diario. Ho trascorso e sto trascorrendo questo periodo con mia moglie e mai mi sono trovato così bene. Tutti noi giustamente ci lamentiamo di questa epidemia: per le conseguenze che ha portato e che causerà in un futuro, davvero difficili da immaginare. Certamente non sarà facile, per alcuni settori potrebbe essere quasi impossibile ripartire: dovremo modificare molti dei nostri comportamenti, trovarne di nuovi e, più difficile, abbandonarne alcuni. Questo evento ha causato molte perdite e disagi, ma ci ha consentito di vedere molti errori che, inconsapevolmente, stavamo facendo. Ognuno di noi ha riconsiderato e riprogrammato i propri stili di vita, ha guardato dentro sé stesso e, meglio ancora, ha considerato che ci sono anche gli altri. La riapertura graduale ci consentirà di adeguarci con maggiore sicurezza alla normalità. Ho avuto modo di parlare con parecchi di voi e ho sentito nella vostra voce fiducia, determinazione e coraggio. Non vedo l’ora di rincontrarvi per leggere la stessa forza anche negli occhi. Siete un grande gruppo, siete i migliori del mondo, potete e dovete essere ancora meglio di prima. Bentornati!

Con questo episodio riprendo il mio racconto sulla storia del ricamo industriale. Nell’episodio 5 ho ricordato le prime trasferte di lavoro a Nagoya, città del Giappone sede di Tajima, azienda produttrice di macchine da ricamo industriali, con cui avevo iniziato a collaborare per lo sviluppo di nuovi modelli da destinare all’Italia. Grazie a queste sessioni erano state sviluppate le prime macchine da ricamo studiate appositamente per il mercato italiano, che riscossero da subito, con mia grande soddisfazione, un notevole successo. Così nel 1978 partecipammo per la prima volta alla Fiera campionaria di Milano, allora fra le più importanti e visitate esposizioni in Italia in fatto di novità.

La presentazione di una 5 teste, 9 colori e campo 70x70cm e di una 12 teste, 12 colori e campo 40x30cm fu accolta con grandissimo interesse. Questi modelli furono rivoluzionari rispetto alle altre multitesta presenti sul mercato, perché consentivano di fare il ricamo in più colori contemporaneamente. Entusiasmo a parte, c’era un problema: molti ricamatori faticavano a considerare “affidabili” le nuove macchine provenienti dal Giappone1. Questi timori venivano alimentati dalla concorrenza, la quale diffondeva voci, non veritiere, sulla tecnologia Tajima. Contrapponeva, ad esempio, l’acciaio di prima qualità tedesco con i “bambù”2 usati dai giapponesi e instillava il timore che la maggiore distanza con l’azienda produttrice avrebbe comportato tempi di attesa più lunghi per l’assistenza e la consegna dei ricambi. Dovevo trovare una soluzione, per dimostrare con i fatti che i timori erano infondati. Così iniziai a ingrandire la sede per esporre le macchine, acquistai un’ampia dotazione di pezzi di ricambio e, ancora prima di iniziare la distribuzione dei macchinari, mi preoccupai di formare un tecnico presso la sede della Terrot France, l’allora rappresentante generale Tajima per l’Europa. Solo allora iniziai la vendita e le prime consegne. Un altro argomento della concorrenza a sfavore di Tajima era il tempo che occorreva per il cambio colore. Sostenevano infatti che infilare gli aghi di una macchina a 12 colori di filato per testa, rispetto a una comune macchina monocolore, era un processo molto più lungo. Ai tempi questa convinzione fu per me la migliore pubblicità. Questi argomenti fecero molta presa, all’inizio, ma quando una Ditta del Ferrarese decise di sostituire ben 56 delle sue macchine monocolore con 14 nostre macchine di 12 teste a 12 colori non ci furono più perplessità: la strada era spianata. Furono installate in poco tempo diverse macchine. La qualità delle stesse, di gran lunga superiore a quelle della concorrenza, convinse anche i più scettici. Nel frattempo avevo organizzato una rete di vendita con assistenza su quasi tutto il territorio e in breve tempo riuscii a conquistare una buona parte del mercato. Il passo successivo fu capire quali fossero le macchine più interessanti per gli anni a venire.

Note:

1. In quegli anni post conflitto bellico in Italia vi era particolare diffidenza verso le merci importate dall’estero e le aziende “sconosciute”
2. In Giappone il bambù era il materiale di costruzione più utilizzato e apprezzato per le sue particolari qualità di resistenza e convenienza