High Point The Story

All tanner workshops used to be inside the town of Sušice and spread unchangeable smell around. Therefore in 1887 the town representatives decided to move all workshops out of the inner town. Therefore in 1898 Zikmund Schwarzkopf started building a new tannery and so one of the most modern leather processing enterprises in the region came to existence.

It was just a little step from leather processing to shoe processing and so in 1916 Moric Schwarzkopf founded a shoe processing factory, put both enterprises together into a joint-stock company, a flagship that was bearing the repute of the family. Moric extended the enterprise during several years and achieved big success even abroad.

“The enterprice was the only shoemaking factory that survived Bata’s mass production. It managed to resist the folk-price-shoes. The shoes from Sušice were more expensive in comparison with Bata’s shoes, however they were of much better quality.

Schwarzkopf company was the first of its kind to guarantee the quality of the shoes. The factory employing about 400 people was able to produce 300,000 pairs of shoes yearly. In addition, the footwear was produced in small series and designers observed carefully all fashion trends in the world. The products – leather of VOLSKA HLAVA and TERNO or footwear of STAR SHOE or IDEAL became very popular and their quality was appreciated.

After the death of Moric Schwarzkopf in 1937 the only stockholders became his wife Julie and his sons Karel and Zikmund. At that time footwear from Sušice was very famous abroad. No wonder that nearly two thirds of the production were exported to England, South Africa, Asia and especially to America.

The type od ladies‘ shoe called FANE became the shoe of the year in 1947 and won the golden medal in the prestigous design world competition exhibition in Bern. Except footwear the company made other products such as Konference Set for 999 crowns. It was a ladies’ set of a bag, puff-box, ladies’ belt, watch belt and a beautiful leather lapel rose. However, at the end of the 40th the time between world success and fame of the production and its destruction were only several months.

The difficult year 1948 brought nationalization of the family company and its following irrecoverable liquidation. The shoe-making enterprise was first changed into JITONA (a furniture processing factory in South Bohemia) and later one of the daughter works of Solo Sušice processing honeycombs was placed there. Schwarzkopf tanneries were turned by the communist regime into boarder guard barracks. The whole factory including equipment of the tanneries and shoe making workshops were demolished and stolen away. At that time beside the nationalized production all Schwarzkopf’s property including their family residency was confiscated.

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At that time the grandson of Moric and founder of the modern history of the company Zikmund Schwarzkopf was living with his wife and family outside Sušice not far from Pilsen. He worked in ceramic works and later he emited his dissent from the regime by hard work in the forests and in nature he loved. He did climbing, hiking and similar to other Czechs he made his first sleeping bag, anorak and trousers with help of his wife from impregnated nylon mack available at that time in the kitchen of their prefab flat. In comparison with other home made products in the totalitarian regime this underground production of wear and accessories processed one speciality. The heritage of production experience, basic technical education and deeply anchored productive thinking enabled to produce very professionally even in the primitive conditions. Maybe it was this moment before the revolution that originated the idea which got a real dimension immediately after it.

The imaginary light at the end of the tunnel was emblazed by the spark of November events in 1989. The fall of communist regime and restitution of private enterprising gave new hope to get the family property back and to restore the production. However, another bitterness did not let the family wait. It came as stocktaking of the former property, the production and family estate. Just ruins remained from the production works, the family residence designed by architect Freiwald was hardly habitable after senseless changes of communists.

The hunger to give the name Schwarzkopf the former fame pushed Zikmund to nearby Bavaria to earn his first capital for restoring the production. At that time forests in the Šumava mountains damaged by windstorm gave chance to work to many workers from the former eastern countries. The possibility of working routed the direction of the first investment. It was a car of Trabant make for necessary travelling to work and a power-saw that helped Zikmund to shear to first better earnings and so needed money for restoration of the damaged house. The aim was clear. To produce like the ancestors and restore the tradition. At the end of 1990 Zikmund rented a room at Přeštice and with help of his wife and son he started production of sleeping bags and dawn jackets – so far on a small scale.

Trips to the nature, home-made production of sleeping bags and free premises in the family house together with the earned money gave the start of a new idea. The idea free of ambitions to produce shoes but not free of production itself. Zikmund together with his brother Zdenek founded the SPORT SCHWARZKOPF company. They bought sewing machines and the material for the first earned money and started the production of outdoor wear on a large scale in the partly restored Schwarzkopf’s residence on the bank of the Otava river, where first tanneries used to stand in 19th century. First employees were accepted and with help of very expensive bank credits with nearly 20% the company invested into machinery and specified clearly the direction of the modern family history.

At the end of the 90th the company employed nearly 40 employees and specialized in more demanding wear – jackets. Schwarzkopf’s jacket became famous among tourists, mountaineers and wide public very soon and became synonyms of first rate quality and high utility. After his first climb up to Mount Everest the young and self-confident mountaineer Radek Jaroš came and let a sleeping bag and jacket make here, suitable to conditions on the highest tops. And so the cooperation with the best Czech nowadays mountaineer started. We have dressed him for all his expeditions since that time including closing the Crown of the Himalayas in 2014.

The ambition of exporting into neighbour countries caused the conflict of Schwarzkopf brand with the cosmetics producer of the same brand mark. His tradition was not as long as ours in Sušice, nevertheless western markets linked the name very often. Regarding the fact that tourism, climbing and in the end restauration of the production is about dreams and the way up, the textile products from the Šumava Mountains got a new brand mark – High Point.

In 2006 Zdeněk left the company and Zikmund’s wife Ilona and their son Zikmund jr. became new partners.

Radek Jaroš, one of the first permanent members of High Point climbing team, is reaching the 14th eight-thousander of the world. On 26th July 2014 he got to the mountaineers’ Hall of Fame as the 15th man in the world who had reached the tops of all eight-thousanders without using oxygen. Jaroš reached the top of the K2, an 8,611 m high mountain, which had withstood as the last one, on his fifth try and so he completed “ The Crown of Himalayas” as the first Czech.