Hugo Boss

Founded 1924 · Metzingen, Germany · Hugo Ferdinand Boss

Hugo Boss is a German tailoring house from Metzingen turned global brand, and its perfumery is among the best-selling in Europe: Boss Bottled, from 1998, is still the reference masculine in the mid-price band, with its accord of apple and cinnamon.

History

Hugo Ferdinand Boss founded the workshop in Metzingen in 1924. The house has a chapter better not glossed over: under Nazism it made uniforms for the party and the SS, used forced labour, and in 2011 commissioned an independent historical study and issued a public apology. After the war it returned to menswear and from the seventies became the office suit brand par excellence in Europe. Perfumery began in 1985 and made its big name in 1998 with Boss Bottled, a spiced woody of apple and cinnamon still selling almost thirty years on.

Iconic models

Boss Bottled (1998)
Apple, cinnamon and sandalwood. The European office masculine by definition.
Boss The Scent (2015)
An amber with ginger and leather; the house's modern bet.
Hugo Man (1995)
The one in the canteen bottle. A green aromatic of the nineties, with a following of its own.

Worth knowing

In 2011 the house commissioned an independent historical study of its role under Nazism and apologised publicly. It is one of the few German firms of its size to have done so in writing and with a historian's name on it.