The story about one of the best known and most successful Slovenian Textile companies began in the period after the Second World War. The name
»Toper« is derived from the Slovenian abbreviations for a factory of clothing (»Tovarna perila«), which was a popular way of naming companies at the time. The first Toper yarn factory dates to 1945. At first Toper produced only nylon shirts under its name. The number of sales amounted to around almost 6 million shirts per year, which is quite impressive. At that time only white shirts were being worn, which were sold under the Toper logo »Golden crown«.
At the turn of the decade two successful Slovenian sportsmen Dominko Uršič and Marko Jezernik took over the management of Toper. They were great sportsmen with a lot of sense for aesthetics and business. In the early fifties they saw ski clothing of the brand Mc Gregor in Switzerland and arranged a meeting between representatives of the two companies, which led to the establishment of the first sewing service, so called Lohn business of Toper. Eventually it developed to the Lohn business, done for the companies Bogner, Uhlsport and Elho Brunner AG from Munich. The decision to cooperate with McGregor turned out to be an excellent business decision, as Toper began to constantly expand its business also through Lohn business. Products, made for the top Yugoslav sportsmen, were being sold all around the Yugoslav market under the brand name Toper.
For the needs of the cooperation with McGregor, Toper established a company Svila Maribor, which was creating materials, used by Toper. In that time, a special sports section was developed and shirts became only a part of the collections, which also included lingerie, jeans and sportswear. The benefit of Toper's growth was mutual as toper possesed great amount of knowledge and experience in the textile industry.
Changes were brought about with self-management. Working under the Basic Organisation of Associated Labour (»BOAL«) caused difficulties for the work of Toper, which in few years ran into financial difficulties. In 1980 Zvonko Dežnak was sent to Toper as administrator and later became its director. Two of the most important BOAL became independent, which was a great loss as shirts of biggest quality were sewn there and therefore Toper lost the entire segment of shirts. By consolidating the remaining BOAL, Zvonko Dežnak managed to resume production and Toper produced products for wide range of customers in order not to be closed down.
A turning point for the company came with great success of Slovenian skiers Boris Strel and Bojan Križaj in Schladming in 1982 and in Obersdorf when Yugoslav ski jumpers eliminated the Japanese from competition. Toper was already a part of Yugoslavia Toper Ski pool and equipped the Yugoslav team.
1984 was undoubtedly a fantastic year for Toper, as it equipped ten world national teams at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo. Among them were Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Argentine, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Germany and a few other teams that worn gloves by Toper. The peak of success for the company came with a great sale of winter jackets in the former Czechoslovakia. In this country only about 60,000 winter jackets per year were sold, which were produced in towns all over Yugoslavia. Toper winter jacket became a synonym for quality jacket in Czechoslovakia.
Ironically, despite all the success, the company started to decline soon after 1985, after the politically motivated change in the management position of Zvonko Dežnak, a great perfectionist who contributed such a great deal to the success of Toper.
In the eighties Toper employed around 6,500 people throughout Yugoslavia and Austria. This figure was made possible mostly a lot of knowledge, dedication and skills of all employees. Respect for the brand was strengthened also by the fact that the company never made differences between various sports and athletes.
Today we often hear that in Yugoslavia it was only possible to buy domestic products. In sports industry this was not the case. Toper had competition not only in other domestic brands, but also in foreign. Among them were Univerzale Domžale, which produced the whole range of Dunlop, Yass, Caprice, Knitwear in a given segment, MONT, Adidas, Colmar, Eless and others.
The impressive history of TOPER raises the question why after independence Toper closed its doors. There are probably more reasons. The most important, which has proved fatal, was that it was not well prepared for the loss of Yugoslav markets. The story of Toper infamous collapse in the early 90th years in Slovenia is not unknown, as in a similar way many other companies went in oblivion. But the story of Toper did not end.
Lohnko Engineering Company, Ltd., which after almost two decades again revived Toper, became a major sponsor of the Slovenian Olympic team for Vancouver 2010 under the brand Toper. The legend of the Slovenian and Yugoslavian sport is finally back in the company of the best among the best. This time, perhaps for good.
