Kurt Adler, Inc. To Celebrate 60th Anniversary of Creating Holiday Memories for Millions

    Kurt Adler, Inc. To Celebrate 60th Anniversary of Creating Holiday Memories for Millions

/24-7PressRelease/ - NEW YORK, NY, February 03, 2006 -- Kurt S. Adler, Incorporated, the world's leading holiday ornament and accessory supplier, will be celebrating its 60th Anniversary in 2006. The company has truly experienced a storybook history of Christmas in modern-day America.

Following last year's passing of Founder and Chairman, Mr. Kurt Adler, the Adler family continues to own and operate the business successfully.

Pictured in the attached image, from left to right are:
Richard Adler, Vice President;
Karen Adler, Chief Financial Officer;
Clifford Adler, Co-President;
and Howard Adler, Co-President.


The world's design leader of holiday decor, Kurt S. Adler, Inc. was founded in 1946 and has helped establish the holiday decorating industry as we know it today. A place where everyday is like Christmas, the company has created decorations that have made holiday memories for millions of people.  

The firm is world renowned for introducing a European flavor, sense of fashion, and new looks to Christmas in the U.S. since its inception. Its line includes ever-popular Santa's World collection, Steinbach nutcrackers, Polonaise glass ornaments, Fabriche Santas, Luxor ornaments, and scores of popular licensed designs.

The firm's story began at the close of WWII as an exporter of general goods.  As the business grew, and the European economies flourished, the firm reoriented to importing.   At the time postwar America lacked the array of ornaments found on the continent.  Back then, only the basics were
available-- such as tinsel, icicles and glass balls-- in five-and-dime stores.

In 1950 Kurt Adler began importing beautiful angels, spun glass balls from Czechoslovakia, miniature tree lights from Italy, unique candy containers, and quality made snowglobes from East and West Germany.  Suddenly America was ablaze with festive decorations. The next decade the firm introduced the age-old tradition of wood-turning ornaments to factories in the Far East. It was the first to design and distribute ornaments crafted of quality materials, including porcelain, stained glass, fabric mache, and blown-glass.   Today the company works with more than 200 factories in over 20 countries, and more than two dozen world-class designers and product managers.

In the 1960s, Kurt S. Adler, Inc. introduced adorable figurines in snowdomes that came alive with movement.  Nowadays no collector's repertoire is complete without these fanciful figural designs. During that same decade, Kurt Adler went to the factories and redesigned Christmas stockings with popular designs found on long, striped knit scarves that were all the rave.

The company practically invented the artificial Christmas tree, when designers actually went into a forest and brought back a tree and duplicated it out of heavy wired tinsel.   This became Kurt Adler's world-famous Black Forest Christmas tree.

When country styles such as ivories and mauves appeared in the early 1970s, Kurt S. Adler introduced colors and designs like never before. Like apparel and home furnishings, holiday decorating became a fashion industry.

Understanding America's love affair with Hollywood, Sports and Corporate celebrities and icons, Kurt Adler introduced licensed ornaments to its repertoire in the late seventies.  Most recently, the firm has created everything from Star Wars, Barbie and Hot Wheels ornaments, to SpongeBob Squarepants and The Cat In The Hat Stockings, to Major League Baseball player ornaments and Coca-Cola Santas.

In the 1980s, the firm transformed Santa into a fabric mache figure with a fun personality and a broad range of interests. Suddenly Santa was skiing down slopes, hiking up mountains, playing golf, and transformed into Doctors, Chefs and Firefighters.

Back in 1991-- shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall-- Kurt Adler, Inc. introduced the first limited edition nutcracker (Merlin The Magician) produced in the world-famous Steinbach factory in Germany.  Since then,Merlin's value has soared dramatically on the secondary market.   In recent years, the firm introduced popular nutcracker collections depicting legends from American Presidents, Native American Chiefs, Camelot, Christmas Legends, and other famous themes.  Most recently Darth Vader and William Shakespeare have appeared as Steinbach nutcrackers.

When ornament collectors clamored for luxurious blown-glass ornaments, Kurt Adler Company revisited its roots, introducing Polonaise ornaments from Europe, in the mid-1990s. Polonaise captivated collectors with a spectacular array of glass ornaments handcrafted in Poland. Targeting the luxury market, Platinum Polonaise Eggs and Globes were recently introduced-- featuring some of the most elegant and superbly crafted ornaments ever made.

Inspired by beautiful perfume bottles and atomizers, Kurt Adler invented Luxor ornaments, crafted with mouthblown Egyptian glass and trimmed with a brilliant 24-karat gold.  
In years to come, other innovations would be unveiled-- such as high-tech electromechanical figures, animated characters, interactive decor, fiber-optic trees, multi-mold glass ornaments, and the first ethnic Santas and angels.

The firm has received numerous awards including Collector's Choice and Collector Editions Awards of Excellence.

For more information, visit the website at http://www.kurtadler.com or email the firm at [email protected].

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