The Chamois-story

It all started in the 1960s and 1970s

The large tannery factories that were mainly located in the south of the Netherlands had a hard time in these years because the shoe and leather industry was slowly dying out in the Netherlands.

All factories looked for new ways to maintain their turnover, but few succeeded. Many tanneries had to close their business.

There was a family business in Waalwijk that was also in danger of closing. Until one of the little nephews, Wim Mombers (see picture young Wim 1962) accidentally invented a new article. The wonder chamois. It was supposed to be a polyurethane-coated water-repellent material, but after many failed tests in his laboratory, Wim was cleaning his laboratory with some waste. That's how he accidentally discovered that his material was not water-repellent but actually water-absorbent. It didn't look like a chamois at all, but his enthusiastic uncle took the material to a cleaning wholesaler, and they immediately saw that they had gold in their hands. Wim was the great inventor of the chamois that has never been copied to this day.