Jewelry brands

The German company FIMO, known today for its creative materials, traces its roots to 1939, when doll artist Käthe Kruse was searching for a suitable raw material for children’s toys. She was given an unsightly product called igelite—a byproduct of oil production.

Initially, attempts to use the new material were unsuccessful, so development was temporarily halted. But in 1941, Käthe’s daughter, Sophie, resumed research and succeeded in producing a more pliable mass, similar to plasticine. She began using it to make a variety of objects: from decorative vases and paintings to small shoe parts and souvenir figurines.

In the 1970s, Sophie Rehbinder-Kruse founded FIMOIK, a company specializing in the production of fittings, fasteners, small sculptures, modeling kits, and jewelry.

Subsequently, in 1964, Eberhard Faber acquired all rights to the polymer clay production technology, launching it under the FIMO brand.

From the late 1980s onward, interest in jewelry, particularly brooches, increased sharply, bringing the company significant commercial success. These accessories were produced by pouring clay into metal molds or by hand-molding them and then decorating them with various elements.

Although the brooch fashion waned in Germany in the early 1990s, these items remained in demand and became prized possessions for antique connoisseurs.