Our history consists of tradition, innovation, invention, development and change.
1977, Verona, the home of paper manufacturing and printing, a great tradition of endeavour in the paper industry and typolithography. Our inventiveness: using Cartorama s.p.a., for the first time in Italy we take licensing for the stationery industry into schools. And with it comes the first big licence: Furia cavallo del West. Followed by Snoopy and the Disney characters. We take off...
... and land in Milan, the capital of fashion and communication, of creativity turned into enterprise. It is the 1980s: we create Artena, which is an instant success with key licences such as Lupo Alberto and Mafalda.
But product development is also needed and the same decade we acquire Clipsy with its line of greeting cards and novelties: we introduce them onto the licensing market and it’s another revolutionary success.
In the 1980s we consolidate our position and get ready for the qualitative leap, which takes place with the Best Company and Naj-Oleari licences, used to shape and meet the demand for the fashion and lifestyle phenomenon called paninaro that swept across Italy in those years.
In the 90s Cartorama, Artena and Clipsy become household names – solid, original, synonymous with street cred. It’s the right moment to enhance our leadership by combining these trademarks together in the Cartorama Group.
And we continue on the path of innovative development: we enter the mass retail market, which is in a phase of expansion whose effects are set to last. In order to compete effectively on this market we set up a new division: Cartorama Department Store (CDS).
At the end of the century – a word that makes us look back with pride – we obtain the ONYX licence, which we use to invent something else that is unheard of: fashion fabric for school supplies (backpacks, satchels, pencil cases). This invention is so successful that it shows the fashion world that they can share our dominant market position. Leading high street brand names contact us directly and commission us to design their collections of school accessories and novelty items.
By the time the new century begins, our leadership is uncontested after years of constant growth and success. But our development really skyrockets in 2007, a year that we will long remember, because...
... because... we consolidate our presence in China, specifically in Hong Kong where we establish a partnership with Cartorama Hong Kong, a mass production company that guarantees the excellent quality of our products.
And because...
... Galvas joins our Group. Galvas is a leading firm with a strong tradition in the production of Christmas decorations and ornaments. Its craftsmanship in the field dates back to 1946, and the work of its master glassblowers, and continues with the invention of an unbreakable material, RESIGLASS®. Thanks to Galvas’ Christmas decorations we complete our product range and strengthen our presence in the mass retail sector.
And because...
... our sales figures are extremely impressive. Nevertheless, they are now just a memory and this year, 2008, they are already 20% higher. But this is no longer our history – we have come to the present and to yet more success, for us and for our customers.