Oldest hide and skin trader calls it a day
“My great-grandfather, Elias Moos, started the family business in 1837,” explains Ernesto Moos. “Now, after 173 years, I think it’s time to take the name-plate down, and the office will officially close at the end of December.” While the company will cease to trade, it is expected that it will take some months, into early 2010, to complete all the necessary arrangements to close Ernesto Moos SA, says Mr Moos, the doyen of the international hide and skin trade.
The name Moos has had a distinguished history in the leather industry. Mr Moos, still an energetic 84-year-old, reckons that he has worked in the industry for 73 years, having spent many of his school holidays from the age of 11 working in his father’s hide warehouse, which was then located in Buenos Aires. He officially began working for the company at the age of 20.
The original company was based in Germany. In 1922, Ernesto’s father opened a branch in the Argentine capital, and then, with the looming crisis threatening Europe, he moved the family to Argentina in 1933. The European office continued to operate until 1939 and was reopened in the late 1940s, but this time in Rotterdam, under the name Inhuma. An office was opened, too, in Stockholm, as the Moos Trading Company. The 1940s also saw the opening of Elias Moos, Inc in New York, where Ernesto worked while still in his 20s.
It is well-known that the hide and skin trade is global, and so it is not surprising to learn that polyglot Mr Moos has also worked extensively in Uruguay, Brazil (where he opened his own company), Sweden and India, besides the US and Argentina. In 1988, the Elias Moos Company's main office in Buenos Aires was finally closed.
After about eight years in Brazil, Ernesto returned to Europe in the late 1950s and the base for his company, or as he says, ‘the last remnant of the Moos hide trading firm’, was relocated to Switzerland in the city of Ascona.
From there he developed a worldwide network of agencies and representation. He had already personally initiated direct business relations in India and Pakistan in 1951 and in China in 1971.
A familiar figure at all major leather exhibitions, Ernesto Moos was a national representative on ICHSLTA, the International Council of Hide Skins and Leather Associations, and gave much of his time and experience to the international council; he has served on the council for well over 30 years.
“There is no doubt that his knowledge and wisdom will be sorely missed on the international scene,” claims David Buirski, consultant editor of World Leather. “He was one of the first people I was fortunate enough to have met when I started writing about the industry in 1993. His opinions and observations have always been most valuable and incisive and his willingness to discuss issues was much appreciated.”
