Founded in 1956 by Kurt Hager, K. Hager & Co. started manufacturing sports shirts in a small room with only 9 machines.
By 1969 Hager's had grown, they had gone from a small room to a 15,000sq.ft. factory and employeed over 70 staff.
Hager's produced some 180 different styles of men's and women's shirts and blouses as well as sports shirts, and in as many different colours, and these were all designed by Kurt Hager and manufactured in his Levin factory.
Proving that New Zealand made garments could compete on the overseas market Hager's over came the 22.1/2% tariff to successfully sale their garments in the Australian market.
Then in the early 1990's when the New Zealand government removed the tariff on imported garments, it left the clothing industry open to cheap imports, and New Zealand clothing manufactures suddenly found it harder if not impossible to compete. K. Hager & Co was one of these, and in 1993 K. Hager & Co closed their factory.