Gandia Blasco

The company GANDIA BLASCO, located in Ontinyent (Valencia), was born in 1941 as a family business, manufacturing blankets. For almost 40 years it was run by José Gandía-Blasco (father of José Antonio, current president of the company). During those years, i.e. the post-war period in Spain, the production was essentially aimed at the army and hospitals.

In the mid-1980s the blanket branch began to give signs of fatigue, mainly due to the strong competition coming from the international markets that produced at lower costs and with higher quality. The company was forced to make a strategic turn to overcome the situation.

José A. Gandía-Blasco Canales decided to take on more responsibilities in the company and saw the need for a change. His arrival meant a point of inflection. Under the premise of modernising the company, both as regards the brand and the products offered, José A. got in touch with the designers Marisa Gallén and Sandra Figuerola from the design studio La Nave in Valencia. They designed the current logo of the company: a cute kitten, an animal that looks for comfort at home. In 1990, the redesigning of the firm, the logo and the products received the Impiva Award for Innovation. This award provided the company with a major boost, since it was the first sign of evolution in their philosophy.

In addition to Gallén and Figuerola, there were other designers, such as Lina Vila, who contributed to the creation of young, bright and new products for the company. During the years to follow, the brand settled in the textile market due to the exclusiveness and innovation of their designs: carpets with borders, with patterns, hand-woven, with original shapes. The production was almost exclusively domestic and it was carried out on traditional looms. The success of the carpets led to the creation of other products, such as sheets, duvet covers, bedspreads, fabrics and cushions.

In 1996, José A. needed to furnish the terrace of the house which had been built for him by the architect Ramón Esteve in Ibiza, and they both started to develop an outdoor furniture collection. This is how 'Na Xemena', the star collection of the company, was born, to close a gap in the market, and it had almost no competition at that time. Once the company had settled in the textile market, the idea came up to develop a new project with products that were matchless in the market and with it the chance to diversify the manufacture. It was a new turn of the business dynamics which later became the most significant.

Shortly after, in 1999, José A. Gandía-Blasco became the owner of the company and finished the renewal in the company's hierarchy. In 2000, Pablo Gironés became partner of the company, as well as Gandia Blasco's marketing and product manager, and Ramón Esteve began to co-operate more actively in the development of new outdoor furniture products. Other members of the management team are Sergio Pastor, General Manager since 2000, Santiago Revert, Commercial Manager and architect of the worldwide expansion strategy, and Pablo Ramiro, deputy General Manager and a key figure of the two-headed management team. Toni Esteve runs the subsidiary GANDIA BLASCO USA Inc. The first two are also Gandia Blasco partners.

GANDIA BLASCO has always wanted to enrich the variety and style of the products with the diverse languages of the designers working with them. All of them are professionals with an irrefutable national and international prestige. Some of the names signing Gandia Blasco products are Jean Marie Massaud, Patricia Urquiola, Marie Mees, Marisa Gallén, Sandra Figuerola, Ramón Esteve, Odosdesign, Francesc Rifé, and José A. himself, as creative manager of the company.

The company has currently two product lines: outdoor furniture, which is distributed with the brand GANDIA BLASCO, and textiles (carpets and duvet covers) with the newly created brand GAN. As regards outdoor furniture, the cornerstone of the company, there are already more than 15 collections.

These factors help towards the consolidation of the expansion business strategy and thus to stand out as a worldwide leader in outdoor design furniture. The brand is currently represented in 74 countries on five continents, with shops and showrooms in New York, Milan, Istanbul, Mexico DF, Oporto, Bologna, Belgium, etc., in addition to several facilities in Spain. Puerto Rico and Palma de Mallorca will also have owned or franchised GANDIA BLASCO shops soon.