Who would have thought that a bumblebee could fly?

Presenting the history of hummel

Once upon a rainy afternoon in the year of 1923, a young shoemaker by the name of Albert Messmer was standing looking at a football match in his hometown of Eppendorf. While he was watching the players finding it hard to gain their ground on the heavy and muddy pitch he suddenly got a good idea – a really good idea. He went home to his workshop, worked all night and the next morning he came out very proud with his first sports product – a football boot with cleats.

Subsequently, young Albert partnered up with his brother Michael to create a company called ‘hummel’. When realizing their idea the German brothers took their inspiration from ‘hummel’ – the German word for bumblebee. A bumblebee is not supposed to be able to fly due to the way it is built hence it defies the laws of gravity. When wearing Messmer’s boots the football players were suddenly able to do nature-defying moves and tricks as well and therefore ‘hummel’ naturally suggested itself as Albert and Michael were to name their company back in 1923.

The football boot in particular was the starting point in an Eppendorf backyard for hummel – a company that later grew to become big and strong and today more 85 years later is doing better than ever before. In the meantime there were the happy days of the 1980s, the recessive 1990s, before hummel stormed into the new millennium by re-launching the tracksuits from the 1970s. Having been riding the retro wave throughout the first years of the 21st century, which helped the company back on its feet, hummel has since then enjoyed great success and attention in Denmark as well as in the rest of world. This has resulted in a number of prizes and awards for the company’s utraditional way of marketing itself – a well-lubed PR machine that was kickstarted when international celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and others began wearing the clothes with the trademark chevrons and gravity-defying bumble bee at several occasions.

Through the first decade of the 21st century Corporate Social Responsibility has become an increasingly bigger part of the company. Co-ops with the Heart Foundation, Save the Children, the World Wildlife Foundation, the Sierra Leone national team, Grassroot Soccer and other charity organizations have helped form hummel’s Company Karma set of values that is all about giving something back to people and causes that hummel believes in. Additionally, the 21st century has seen an added focus on handball and hummel openly stating that the company wants to be handball market leaders by 2012 – an ambitious vision that is backed by the signing by some of the biggest clubs and players in the game of handball.