1884 - 1945

125 years on from founding of the Leichtfried Tuch & Lodenfabrik, it is a good time to look back at the emergence and growth of this family-run company based in Möbersdorf, Upper Styria.

From the smallest beginnings, the company developed into an efficient and mechanically well-equipped cloth factory.

In 1884, the hand weaver Johann Oberluggauer, from the Carinthian Lesach valley, bought a small plot of land to build up a loden manufactory. A small loden fulling mill was built by the waters of the Mühlbach, a branch of the Feistritzbach. The company's first home is now the site of the company's retail outlet. There were many cottage industries of this type elsewhere in Styria. At the start, the work was very laborious as the basic machines were still largely operated by hand. Johann Oberluggauer's work came to an early end, as he died in 1886.
His most competent worker, Johann Maierhofer from Eastern Styria, married Oberluggauer's widow and he continued to run the business until 1919. During this time, he expanded the factory and bought more land.

One day in 1919 Josef Leichtfried arrived at the dye house in Maierhofer's loden fulling mill to work as a trainee. In the same year, he married, Karoline Maierhofer, the daughter of the owner. Josef Leichtfried came from Göstling an der Ybbs in Lower Austria, where his father owned a linen weaving mill and a loden production.
After taking over the company, Josef Leichtfried moved the business away from its original base to a little further downstream and then built it up from this new location. The waterway had to be dug out to create the necessary incline for the installation of a turbine. In the years that followed further extensions were made to the factory to meet the rising demand for Leichtfried loden, which had already acquired a fine reputation way beyond the upper Mur valley. In 1935 a Styrian daily newspaper reported that while staying in Kitzbühel the Prince of Wales had bought a jacket made from "Leichtfried pearl loden".