One day, an intelligent lady visited the shop. As sometimes happens, a conversation about scarf colors and patterns led to a discussion about the Silk Road and history. I lamented that it is currently impossible to produce silk in Latvia because the necessary industrial equipment and traditions simply do not exist.
The lady exclaimed: “But it wasn’t always that way—read about Roberts Hiršs.”
And so I did. As soon as the intelligent lady went on her way, I began researching what Google had to say about Mr. Hiršs… and it really turned out that Latvia once had an outstanding textile factory that even won gold medals for fabric quality at exhibitions in Italy in the 1930s.
It is almost unbelievable that “Rīgas audums” once supplied the finest fabrics to fashionable ladies in Paris, Milan, and other fashion capitals. The name Rīgas audums was widely known in the textile world, and its owner, Roberts Hiršs, who was also called the “Silk King,” reportedly had a clever trick for outdoing his European competitors in the race for the finest fabric patterns and designs. Hiršs even employed special agents who attended industrial innovation exhibitions across Europe. Whenever something new appeared, they immediately sketched it and sent it to Riga so the factory could produce it. Such innovations were ready for sale in Riga within approximately two weeks.
Roberts Hiršs (born May 10, 1895; died July 18, 1972) was born in Vējava Parish into a poor family of five children and received only three years of education. He learned about fabrics and textile technologies in Russia.
In 1920, he returned to Latvia and was drafted into the army. Afterward, he worked as a laborer in a wool-spinning mill. Hiršs founded his own company in Riga in 1925, in a small basement at 5 Krasta Street, where it produced wadding.
In 1927, it was transformed into a silk and wool textile company, “Rīgas audums,” which moved to 21 Kurmanova Street (now E. Birznieka-Upīša Street) and employed 200 workers. In 1930, “Rīgas Audums” received a gold medal for the high quality of its fabrics at the international exhibition in Turin. In 1932, it employed 580 people, and by 1938—already 1,600. In 1933, it moved into the buildings of the former “Salamandra” metalworking factory at 1 Salamandras Street in Jugla. A period of rapid growth began for the company.
Hiršs achieved all this without loans from Latvian banks, and the beginning was certainly not easy. In 1926, after paying the workers’ wages and bonuses, he discovered that the company’s coffers were empty. “So that my family could have Christmas, we took my wife’s violin—which she enjoyed playing in her free time—and pawned it at a pawnshop for the holiday period,” Hiršs wrote in his memoirs.
The large textile factory produced artificial- and natural-silk fabrics, half-silk fabrics, and wadding. A vocational school and language courses operated at the factory in Riga, and employees had a choir; various sports games, competitions, and excursions were organized. This was unheard of at the time! Although Kārlis Ulmanis awarded Roberts Hiršs the Order of the Three Stars, he also remarked somewhat bitterly that Hiršs was spoiling his workers, since working conditions like these were unknown in any other factory. The factory on Salamandras Street was called the “blooming factory”—both because of its landscaped grounds and the collective care devoted to them, and because of the greenhouse complex that provided quality lunches.
In 1938, “Rīgas audums” employed 1,602 people. In 1928, Hiršs bought Kauno Audiniai, which employed 2,500 people in 1939.
Roberts Hiršs called his wife Alma the “lucky break” of his life. They met on a train. Although Alma dreamed of an acting career, she trained as an accountant to support her husband’s business. She became the first and most trusted employee of Roberts Hiršs’s company.
Alma and Roberts were a well-matched couple who avoided society and lived a quiet family life. Their interests included driving, which was a great luxury at the time, as well as attending various theaters and the opera.
In the autumn of 1939, Roberts Hiršs and his family emigrated to Sweden, while the company was nationalized by the Latvian SSR. It continued operating until the beginning of the 21st century, and bolts of fabric traveled to shops throughout the Soviet Union.
In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, fabric designs were created by Rūdolfs Pinnis, Ērika Iltnere, Ilona Ceipe, Aina Muze, Ilma Austriņa, Ieva Zaļkalne, Ruta Bogustova, Maija Kajaka, and other Latvian textile artists under the direction of Jevgēnija Knāviņa.
Each fabric was given its own name: “Havanna,” “Grizete,” and “Ilze” in the interwar period; “Zvjozdočka,” “Čaika,” and “Šura” in the 1950s; and “Komēta” and “Lavanda” in the 1960s.
The Rīgas audums factory was closed in 2008. Today, the site of the “blooming factory” at 1 Salamandras Street presents a rather sad sight. Little remains of its grand scale; most of the buildings across the vast territory are in poor condition. 
A former employee brought several albums containing fabric samples created at different times to the Riga Museum of Decorative Arts and Design. Thus, in cooperation with the museum, the “Shawls and Scarves x Rīgas audums” collection was created. One hundred patterns were selected from the fabric samples in the collection and adapted to modern needs and observations of what might serve the modern woman. The structure and texture of the old fabrics were deliberately preserved so that the collection would retain its historical charm. Some fabric patterns were fully restored from a small sample, while others were redrawn to achieve the quality required for printing.
This process took several months, and we believe it will continue in future collections, using these historical prints as a foundation. In this way, instead of sinking into archives and oblivion, the fabric patterns of “Rīgas Audums” are being given new life and brilliance: accompanying women in their everyday lives, admired, carefully and lovingly folded, given as gifts, and worn with pride in our traditions and our people—the Latvians, who have managed to build world-class companies and earn international recognition. In honor of the women who believed in their husbands, and of a factory that, at the height of its prosperity and innovation, was ahead of its time. Even after war, occupation, and nationalization, they managed to recover and continue what they had begun, even in a foreign land, and never gave up.
