How it all started

Brothers Christian and Michael Sieger launched the SIEGER brand in 2005, just two years after taking over management of the family business sieger design from their father. Alongside projects for their agency clients, the brothers wanted to develop their own artisanal-quality collections unlike anything that existed on the market back then. As Michael Sieger recalls, the goal was to create “smart, innovative, life-affirming, truly exceptional products that would enrich each and every day.”

The founders date the brand’s birth to an event held on 8 September 2005 that year, when the collection was unveiled to national and international retailers at the company headquarters Harkotten Castle in Germany’s Münsterland region. At another event that same month, the Grand Salon, some end customers were able to try out a small selection of the products for the first time. “They were so enthused that one even took four of our gold tumblers home with him without asking,” Christian Sieger remembers. “Eventually, a member of our team handed over 400 euros and explained the man had been very keen to show the tumblers to his own guests the following evening.”

Finding a partner

Planning for the brand had begun around 12 months before that. The idea was that it wouldn’t be confined to a single segment. As well as designing a selection of colourful fashion accessories and furniture, the brothers decided to move into the tableware sector, which was widely regarded at the time as conservative and short on innovation. They found an ideal partner in the Porzellanmanufaktur Fürstenberg, one of Europe’s oldest porcelain manufactories (founded 1747). The brothers wanted to take a craft that had been cultivated and passed down over the centuries, and more fully unlock its strengths: its potential for creative freedom and utmost precision. Michael Sieger was determined to create entirely new forms using even finer porcelain than any other company. The wafer-thin walls required incredible craftsmanship and delicacy of touch. Over the course of several months, the partners worked on the products’ aesthetic, functional and tactile qualities, honing the different stages of the production process until the desired fineness and precision could be achieved. Today, this process is supported by 3D prototypes, which are usually either digitally printed or made in the model workshop.

Brand identity and design signature

When it came to functionality, the sieger design team was able to draw on its experience delivering projects for other brands. Back in the 1990s, the agency had developed two successful porcelain ranges for Arzberg: CULT in 1993 and TRIC in 1997. The latter became one of the bestselling collections in the mid-price segment. In 2005, this experience, in concert with the new brand’s bold embrace of colours and forms and its “international flair”, became the foundation of the SIEGER identity. Four core values were defined: luxury, quality, culture and style.