Oberrauch Zitt, fashion

If only walls could talk, this building alone would be worth a visit. It
was home for 170 years to a dynasty which traded in fabrics, founded
by the cloth merchant Anton Oberrauch, and is now a successful
Italian fashion and sporting goods empire. When renovating the
premises in the 1950s, the operation was seen as an opportunity
to rethink the business – which is what the head of the family did.
Heinrich Oberrauch (†2017) converted the fabric shop into a prêt-aporter
shop and merged it with the Zitt fashion store (which belonged
to his mother Julie Zitt in Merano). Et voila, the Oberrauch Zitt brand
was born. A brand which also encapsulated a guiding principle, i.e.
leveraging tradition and reinterpreting it. The flash of genius struck
Heinrich during his honeymoon in Scandinavia when he noticed how
Norwegian sweaters were flying off the shelf when marketed as souvenirs.
That was the beginning of the traditional costume and loden
fashion brand, Oberrauch Zitt, with Luis Trenker one of its most loyal
customers. Nowadays, when you think of “loden” you automatically
think of Oberrauch Zitt – a fabric that soon helped South Tyrol to
market itself as a tourism destination besides staple “products” such
as apples, wine and the Dolomites. Train stations are weird, wonderful
places – but surely the sight of lodens being delivered while trains
passed by Bolzano must have been a bit too much! But that’s just
how much Oberrauch Zitt’s loden were appreciated. One of Heinrich’s
sons – current owner Heiner Oberrauch – became the store’s manager in 1999 and founded the Lodenwelt in Vandoies, which also
included a museum, as well as the Oberalp/SALEWA group of sporting
goods together with his brother Georg (see globus on page 47),
the Sportler company and many, many more.