DMC

French company. Along with its affiliate, the German firm Koecnlin Baurmgartner, and with Texunion, it is a leader in the worldwide market for printed fabrics for clothing. Some 175 million yards are produced and sold each year, contributing more than 50% of a global turnover that, in the first half of the 1990s, was around 270 billion liras. It is also a leader in threads for sewing and embroidery. It employs more than 11,000 people. The company’s history is very old and goes back to 1746, when three Alsatian gentlemen, each with different interests in art, finance, and trade, founded a printing works in Mulhouse. They were successful and so were their heirs, who diversified production. In 1961, DMC embarked on a policy of expansion, absorbing Thiriez et Cartier-Bresson, a company in Lille and a competitor in threads for domestic use. Together with the ancient print works, it was up to the threads division to restore the business to good health when, in the 1980s, it went through a long and severe crisis. The firm recovered in the 1990s, and resumed its policy of acquisitions, this time of foreign firms such as the English Donisthorpe, the Hungarian Maya Fashion, and the American companies Greenwood, Fashion-Fabrics of America, and Satexco, plus shares in the Irish firm Atlantic Mills. A brand of polyester and microfiber fabrics called Inoseta came from its partnership with the Japanese group Unitika.