Work clothes - that sounds like dirt and, as they say here in the Ruhr area, hard work. And let's be honest, that's often exactly the case. Work jackets, pants and similar items must therefore be able to withstand a lot. The owner-managed family business Rofa serves this need: robust and high-quality garments for a wide variety of stress scenarios, but which also prove themselves in everyday life. Who is surprised? After all, the strict separation of professional life and leisure time has long been off the table, especially when it comes to suitable clothing.

The threads have been pulled at Rofa for more than 100 years: Founded in 1897 as a weaving mill, the company from southern Lower Saxony produced exclusively high-quality fabrics for external processing for 70 years before the owners decided in 1967 to keep the threads in their hands afterwards as well and enter the field of ready-made workwear. As one of the last remaining textile producers in Germany, Rofa still works in a fully integrated manner: from warping, the first step in the weaving process, to finishing the fabrics, i.e. turning them into highly functional fabrics, to developing garments for a wide variety of working conditions - Rofa does (all) the work. Up to a hundred work steps can be necessary before a garment from the Rofa range reports ready for duty. By using high-quality yarns and thanks to the use of state-of-the-art weaving techniques and finishing processes, Rofa workwear is wrinkle-resistant, easy-care and breathable, yet at the same time durable, hard-wearing and very tear-resistant. Environmentally friendly dyeing and finishing methods also ensure that the relationship between clothing and skin is always friendly.

For a long time, workwear and leisurewear were conscientiously separated areas. The primarily practical use of work clothes meant that comfort often took a back seat. Moreover, changing into a different outfit at the end of the working day made it obvious to everyone that leisure had taken the reins out of the hands of the day's work. Who would voluntarily want to get rid of this distinction? It was not until the 1950s that the first tendencies to transfer work clothes to the private context and to use them as a conscious stylistic device became apparent: Jeans became a symbol of youth rebellion. In the seventies, feminists and supporters of a green lifestyle made use of the dungarees, which were originally found mainly among farmers and agricultural workers. Finally, at least since the eighties and nineties, more and more clothing elements were democratized from the work environment. Pants with craft features such as reinforced knees, folding rule pockets or D-rings to hold tools moved into the stores and closets of the general public. Today, functional clothing is also established in leisure time and even conquers the catwalks of this world from time to time. As a result, the boundaries between manufacturers originally dedicated purely to workwear, such as Rofa, and suppliers from the leisure sector are becoming blurred - some are becoming more fashionable, and others are geared more towards the robust appearance of workwear. And for many customers, the distinction is as much jacket as trousers.

The following therefore applies to the Rofa garments in the Manufactum range: whether worn as a work outfit or leisure garment - or even both - function and good looks now go hand in hand. Even those who only appreciate the aesthetics of hard work will not be averse to the comfort and practical details that characterize Rofa's work pants and jackets made of durable cotton canvas. On the other hand, those who want to put the clothes to their intended use and expose them to a punishing workday will appreciate their fashionable appearance in spite of everything. Two birds with one stone.