| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Fashion, Jewelry |
| Founded | Manresa, Spain(1920) |
| Founder(s) | Salvador Tous Blavi, Teresa Ponsa Mas |
| Headquarters | Manresa, Catalonia |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Salvador Tous |
| Revenue | €305 million (2009) Sales figures |
| Employees | 2,000 |
| Website | www.tous.com |
Tous (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈtɔws]) is a Catalan jewellery, accessories and fashion firm.
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In 1920, Salvador Tous Blavi and his wife Teresa Ponsa Mas opened a small watch repair workshop, which little by little made its way into the jewelry world. In 1965, Salvador Tous, the son of the founder, married Rosa Oriol, and they pooled their talents, experience and creativity, in order to design a whole new language in jewelry. At present, the brand name has more than 400 stores in 45 countries, and in cities such as New York, Paris, Moscow, Milan and Tokyo, among others.
Since 1920, TOUS has created a special style of jewelry, considered unique throughout the world, based on the fashion – jewelry concept and the designing of innovating products that are perfectly suited to the way people are dressing. In addition to the jewelry, the Company’s core-business, TOUS also relies on a broad range of accessories: bags, watches, perfumes, eyeglasses, textiles and small leather goods. With a long-standing family tradition, this international company owes its success to the absolute freshness of its proposals and to its capacity for handcrafted innovations, with which the company produces its 30 annual collections.
During one of her trips, in 1985, Rosa Oriol drew inspiration from what would later become one of the leading icons of the brand name, the emblematic teddy bear. “During one of my trips, I saw a small teddy bear in a shop window and it brought back all the endearing memories of my childhood. And then I thought: Why not make a little bear out of gold?” “Over the years, it has become a lucky charm for millions of people all over the world and for us, it marked the beginning of our international expansion. Even though we are continuously launching collections, the bear is always present in different shapes and forms. It is very, very special to me”.
Rosa Oriol’s creative capacity and Salvador Tous’s managerial skills opened the way to a national expansion during the decade of the eighties. Now, Mr. and Mrs. Tous’s four daughters – Rosa, Alba, Laura and Marta – have joined the family business. For the first time, they are also relying on the collaboration of Eugenia Martinez de Irujo, the daughter of the Duchess of Alba. This relationship has been consolidated over the years and now, the Duchess of Montoro, which is her title, develops her very own collections for the brand name: Iluminada, Leyendas and Cercle are some of her recent successes.
In the decade of the 90s, the international expansion began with the opening of the first store in Japan and then countries like Mexico and the United States followed. Kylie Minogue has been just one of several celebrities who have been the “image” of the brand name and have contributed to consolidating its international popularity. In 2011, TOUS chose Jennifer Lopez as the image for its Spring – Summer campaign. In this same year, TOUS also launched a special collaboration with Manolo Blahnik for the creation of the Manolo Blahnik for TOUS collection, made up of pendants which are a faithful reproduction in gold and in silver of the famous “Campari” shoe.