Crema Outdoor S.r.l.

The origins of the parasol atelier
The origins of Ombrellificio Crema go back to the end of the nineteenth century. From then onward the firm has been run by our family. My brother Alessandro and I belong to the fifth generation. As a large number of umbrella makers, the founder, Mr Giovanni Cristina, came from Lake Maggiore. He was used to cycle to local fairs. On his bike he had a leather bag where he put his tools and the umbrellas to repair. In 1890 he stopped at Montagnana and organized a little workshop in his house. He made the umbrellas on the kitchen table and sold them at the marketplace.
Over the years the firm passed from father to son and during the seventies it specialised in the production of high quality umbrellas, especially on folding umbrellas for bags. In that period the production exceeded the 100.000 pieces per year and Ombrellificio Crema was considered as a reference point for umbrellas in the North-East of Italy.
In the same period, while our firm was growing as exporter in Europe, the beach tourism started in Italy . That is why my grandfather introduced beach umbrellas. We also began to satisfy the request for maxi umbrella used mainly at fairs and in marketplaces, whose structure was made both of wood and aluminium. Grandfather Lorenzo worked in partnership with his brother Enrico and around the end of the seventies they founded two separate firms. After some years our uncle left his firm. That firm located in Montagnana went on producing maxi wood umbrellas for gardens as well as advertising, which was beginning in that period. Ombrellificio Crema was marginally involved in advertising, since the firm was involved in developing the contract market.
During the eighties the first importation from Eastern Asia began. All the umbrella makers thought it was a good opportunity to satisfy the lower market requests, but unfortunately in a few years the European rain umbrella market was overcome by the Oriental competitors and we had to reorganize our firm.
My brother and I joined the company in the nineties with the purpose to relaunch sun-umbrellas for professional use in hotels and on beaches. We realized that we had to offer a wide range of products; for this reason we decided to start the production of sunbeds and outdoor furnishing. Our small premises did not allow the internal production of the frames of our maxi umbrellas; so they were designed inside the firm, but assembled by third parties in the nearby area.