The company E. BOSELLI & C. - silk weaving mill was set up on 9th of July 1898 at Olgiate Comasco - province of Como - Italy - by Enrico Boselli, a member of a Milan family which had been involved in the silk spinning industry for generations.

In the years immediately following its establishment, the Boselli industry developed rapidly, both in size, with considerable expansion of its Olgiate factory, and in terms of worldwide distribution of its product. Indeed already by the very first years of 1900 a large part of its production was exported to Europe, especially France, Germany and England, and to distant countries such as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

In the nineteen twenties the factories at Olgiate, Gaggino (1924) and Castelnuovo (1926) were employing over 1200 employees; they represented a significant industrial presence in the province of Como.

During the nineteen thirties, E. Boselli was among the first Italian silk mills to start to use artificial fibres alongside the traditional pure silk. These artificial fibres were viscose followed by acetate, fibres which were intensively developed by Boselli, as they were better suited to the industrial development of weaving. Boselli's industrial direction was confirmed in the nineteen fifties, when synthetic fibres were introduced. The first of these was nylon, which led to the launch of really innovative products.

In the nineteen sixties E. Boselli was perhaps the first among the silk weavers to use texturized polyester yarn in an industrial way.

This fibre opened up a new era for Boselli.

On the one hand it meant a progressive abandonment of traditional silk and then subsequently of the artificial fibres viscose and acetate, and on the other hand it gave the company the impetus to begin to integrate the production processes.

The process of sizing warps for weaving had already been developed internally for nylon. In 1971 the Dye house was built and in 1972 the printing plant. In 1976 the new factory at Tresenda in Valtellina was set up, to expand weaving, and the texturisation of polyester fibre was introduced.

Then, at the start of the nineteen seventies, Boselli took the decision to specialise in polyester fibre alone, and made significant investments over the decade in order to achieve total verticalisation of the industrial structure, from the initial processing of the raw yarn right up to the finished cloth.

In the meantime many changes also took place in connection with market outlets. Sales subsidiaries were opened in the largest of these in order to guarantee continuous customer service: Frankfurt in 1968, Paris in 1970, London in 1973 and New York in 1978.

The nineteen eighties saw the creation of new products which used polyester yarn technologies; consequently an important change in its production mix and customer base took place as a result of the ever-increasing importance of the clothing industry, also linked to retail organizations. At the end of the decade the new jacquard weaving section opened.

The nineteen nineties heralded commercial initiatives such as the opening of the subsidiary of Barcelona in 1991, and industrial ones such as the joint-venture construction, in 1992, of a twisting plant to enable Boselli to control this important step in yarn processing as well, and the construction of the new ultra-modern dyeing and finishing factory at Olgiate - 1995/1996 - which integrates the production of the other factories, allowing the introduction of new machinery for dyeing and finishing, as well as sophisticated processes linked with computerised control systems.

---

[ Vertical industrial structure | Location of industrial activity ]