Word: necchi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Every U.S. housewife who ever tried to make a dress on an old-fashioned sewing machine knows how much trouble it was to finish it by hand, i.e., sew on buttons, work buttonholes, etc. It was not until Italy's Necchi Sewing Machine Co. invaded the U.S. market in 1948 that these problems were solved. Necchi made all these tricks possible-without special attachments-by a needle that zigzagged as it sewed. As a result, Necchi (rhymes with Becky) sold its machines so fast that the company now has more than 5% of the U.S. market...
Last week Necchi served notice that it is bidding for an even bigger share of the sewing-machine business. It announced that it will produce, for marketing in mid-1955, a new zigzag model with 56 half-dollar-sized, molded disks that can be slipped in to turn out hundreds of embroidery patterns. By such ingenuity and attention to the housewife's convenience, Necchi has already become one of the biggest dollar-earners for Italy. But Necchi has done something even more important; it has proved to skeptical Italians that U.S. production methods will work as well in Italy...
Between Wars. The first Necchi sewing machine was made in 1919 by Vittorio Necchi, son of a Pavia foundry owner, who decided that a native product could cash in on the Italian sewing-machine market, then divided among Singer and some 30 German companies...
...small factory outside Pavia, his 120 craftsmen carefully hand-machined each part, painstakingly fitted the parts together. Even by these old-fashioned methods, Necchi was turning out 60,000 machines a year in prewar days. World War II cut production to 60 machines a day and cost the company 400 million lire ($4,000,000) in war damages. But at war's end, Necchi executives dug out a stock of sewing machines they had hidden from the Germans, and with them, went after the export market...
...Italy, one each in Spain and Scotland). His products, used in dozens of countries, are so handsomely designed that they have been displayed at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. In 1953, Olivetti machines earned Italy more dollars ($2,400,000 ) than any other mechanical export except Necchi sewing machines, and demand for his famed Lettera 22 portable typewriter still outstrips production...