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Francisca Íñigo is not a writer or scientist. Neither a revolutionary, but she is
the most famous woman in the Els Ports region
, in Castellón, where the stockings that have shaped the legs of millions of Spanish women came from. Mrs. Francisca, as everyone knew her, turned her town, Villafranca del Cid, upside down the day she decided she wanted to be a "manufacturer." She convinced her husband,
Celestino Aznar, a
mule and horse dealer,
to sell part of his animals and with the money to
set up a shoe factory
. I didn't know it then, but in 1907 the entrepreneur Francisca
laid the foundation stone for Marie Claire, the pantyhose emporium
that became the second largest stocking factory in Europe.
The firm experienced moments of splendor, - those with the slogan
Marie Claire, Marie Claire, a panty for every woman
and
They are not stockings, they are whole
-, and
came to invoice more than 80 million euros
before the crisis of 2008, but the The continuity of the factory, which is still located in Villafranca and on which more than 500 families depend, has been in danger. Since last June, a new company, the logistics firm Think Textil, has taken its reins after receiving aid from the Generalitat of Valencia, which considers
Marie Claire a strategic company in the area.
"People have suffered a lot because
sales have been declining
in recent years and Covid has been the last straw. We want the illusion to return and put the firm back in its rightful place,"
Álvaro Bordils
told LOC
, the new director of Marie Claire. His entry, along with his partner, David Lasheras, caused the
final departure of the members of the founding family
, the Aznar, who have investments in other sectors.
The Valencian businessman is determined to
promote and modernize the firm
, which continues to have
its icon
in race-proof tights
, but also has other products as innovative as
socks that do not smell
,
moisturizing tights
, others that tan the legs or that they change color according to the light.
And everything from spinning and weaving to the design of the boxes, 100%
made in Spain
.
See this post on Instagram
Bordils and his partner have put all the meat on the grill to
restore splendor to Marie Claire
. And for this they have the involvement of the 2,000 inhabitants of Villafranca del Cid, a small and inhospitable town in the interior of the province. "We have employees whose great-grandparents already worked here, and entire families, with father, mother, children ... For them this is their home.
I have never seen such committed people
, we are impressed," says the director.
The mayor, Silvia Colom, a
former factory worker, has been one of the people who has fought the most so that the Valencian Generalitat considered Marie Claire a strategic company and
received aid from the Covid fund.
It is not the first time that the factory has gone through a delicate moment since Francisca and her husband set it up.
Celestino began by wearing the hose and shawls
that the women of the town wove on the bags of the mules that he sold throughout the geography of Spain. Francisca, fed up with her husband's long journeys and
raising their three children alone
(the fourth would come later), convinced him to settle in the town and set up a factory like her sister had in Calamocha, where they made blankets.
Celestino stopped being a trafficker and became a businessman.
After the outbreak of World War I, he
made August by selling the last mules he had to the French Army
and continued to sell leggings.
When he died in 1933, at the age of 58, his company already had 30 employees.
Francisca takes over the business and
baptizes her stockings with the name of Eugenia de Montijo
, the glamorous Spanish empress.
The Civil War, however, truncated her dreams of intrepid leadership: her children are fleeing the town and she has to take refuge so that the militiamen do not stop her.
After the war, he
runs the factory until 1944
, the year in which his sons take over.
In the 50s, with the first bikinis on the beaches, tourists and nylon everywhere decided to bury Eugenia de Montijo and
modernize the firm with the name of Marie Claire
and
groundbreaking slogans that today are the most inclusive
(the famous
a panty for each woman
). Sales skyrocket and in the 80s and 90s they ended up leading the sector in Spain from a 58,000 square meter factory on the outskirts of town.
Today
that factory has been oversized
by the changes that the market has undergone, and which have brought Marie Claire to her current situation.
The facilities are still there, but they are much more flexible.
The new owners are opting for the neighborhood haberdashery, but also for
online
sales
, for
new products
, such as sportswear or compression socks, but without giving up their famous socks that, they presume, are still almost unbreakable: "When you I told my mother that I was going to direct Marie Claire, she was very excited.
She took some stockings out of her dresser drawer
and said: Look, I don't know how old they are, but I don't have a career. "
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