ALMOST 200 YEARS OF HISTORY
Founded in 1833 by Benjamin Bohin, our company take place in Saint-Sulpice-sur-Risle, Normandy. Our founder was visionary, inventive... and precocious man! At the age of 11, he asked to take over the family business producing wooden boxes. After two no's and three runaways, at the age of 17, his father gave in... he finally achieved his goal, and transformed the company into the one you know today!
Under Benjamin's impetus, the company launched mass production, specialized in creating objects from steel wire, and became an expert in needles and pins. In 1889, BOHIN needles were awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Generation after generation of BOHINs built up a prosperous company, which by 1914 employed almost 600 people at its production workshops in Orne, its wire-drawing factory in the Paris aera and its head office on rue Rambuteau in Paris. After the war, the rise of ready-to-wear clothing, the end of school sewing classes and the invention of scratch diapers marked the end of the good old days for the company... in 1997, it was on the verge of receivership. The company's sales manager decided to take it over, and brought it back from the brink.
Today, BOHIN is still in business, offering a wide range of haberdashery tools from its own production and from products developed by its manufacturing partners in France, Europe and in the rest of the world. Since 2018, Audrey and Fabien Régnier have been at the helm of this Normandy unique factory, and their ambition is to "wake up this sleeping beauty".
Benjamin Bohin, a forward-thinking man
Benjamin's travels influenced local debates. He said, "Let's not forget that open China will force us to live on very little because of the competition they will create for us everywhere as they spread throughout the world". Against a backdrop of crisis and fierce competition, Benjamin BOHIN played the Made in France card: "Fight unemployment, buy French".
Today, BOHIN is the last French manufacturer of hand sewing needles and glass-headed pins.
190 candles celebrated in 2023
For us, 2023 marks the brand's 190th anniversary! This anniversary is an opportunity to revisit our core business: offering quality tools that are handed down from generation to generation. The film celebrates the great importance of small objects such as needles and pins... so simple in appearance, yet capable of accomplishing beautiful things! Discover this emotional, fair, touching and visually superb film that will appeal to all generations! A film that pays tribute to our little tools and gives them a well-deserved place of prominence!
