History – Mono Flatware

The history of Mono began long before 1959. Over 125 years ago.

In 1895 Wilhelm Seibel I laid the foundation stone for the family business with the founding of the Britaniawarenfabrik W. Seibel in Mettmann in North Rhine-Westphalia. Expansion followed in 1911 with a branch factory in Ziegenhain in Hesse, which later became the property of his two younger sons Heinrich and Alfred Seibel.

Due to the good order situation in the post-war years, the workforce of the two plants in Mettmann and Ziegenhain grew to almost 1000 employees. But in the 1950s the company felt the effects of competition, especially from Japan and Spain. The sales figures fell, employees had to be laid off, the Mettmanner company initially merged before it was dissolved.

In Ziegenhain, Herbert Seibel (Heinrich Seibel's eldest son) tried to take countermeasures and commissioned Peter Raacke to develop a new cutlery. Mono A came onto the market, founded the Mono brand and secured the existence of the family business as a manufactory through a strategic focus on quality and design.

In 1985 Herbert Seibel retired at the age of 75 and his nephew Wilhelm Seibel IV, a great-grandson of the founding father, took over the business. At the end of the 80s he led the flatware production back to Mettmann.

Today, Wilhelm Seibel V. runs the family business with his sons Johannes and Matthias, the fifth and sixth generations, with around 30 employees.

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With the foundation of the Britaniawarenfabrik W. Seibel in Mettmann in North Rhine-Westphalia, Wilhelm Seibel I. laid the foundation stone for the family business in 1895. The four-leaf clover as the brand logo was dedicated to his four sons.

With the Original-Olympic-Flatware 1936, Kleeblatt later achieved world fame. It celebrated its premiere in the Olympic Village and was later available in stores.

The origin of the Mono brand can be traced back to the development of the Mono A flatware by Peter Raacke. At the end of the 1950s, Herbert Seibel (3rd generation) commissioned the designer from Kassel to develop a new modern flatware which can be produced in a resource-saving way.

Karl Oskar Blase, who like Peter Raacke lectured at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Kassel, developed the logo, packaging and communication for Mono A and is considered a co-founder of the Mono brand alongside designer Raacke and manufacturer Herbert Seibel.

In the same year of the development of the Mono A flatware, Peter Raacke already thought of the little ones. Mono Petit comes in a similarly consistent design language as its big brother and has been an essential component of the Mono flatware portfolio ever since.

Only three years after the development of the Mono A flatware, Peter Raacke once again succeeds in creating a surprising design. Mono Ring does not belong in the drawer, because it hangs ready to hand on a stand on the table. In many bright colors it gained friends all over the world and gained relevance, so that in 1967 it was included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2018 Mono returns the classic as a re-edition together with the Berlin designer Mark Braun.

What a great honor. In 1999 a „Design in Germany“ stamp collection was published. Mono A is one of four products representing German design history.

To mark the 40th anniversary of Mono A in 1999, selected designers were allowed to work freely and associatively with the flatware. For Wolfram Heidenreich it was not a Swiss cheese that inspired this intervention. The title of the work is "Sun, Moon and Stars".

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mono A in 2009, the manufactory is presenting an exclusive edition of the design classic. Among other things, the lightest version of the iconic flatware to date made out of titanium.

Even after 60 years on the market, Mono A still wins design awards. In 2019 the timeless flatware by Peter Raacke was awarded gold by the German Design Council in the Design Classics category.

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