Kiepe Professional

Kiepe Professional is an Italian manufacturer of professional hairdressing and barbering tools, based in Premana, a mountain village above the eastern shore of Lake Como with a long tradition in metalworking and blade craftsmanship. The company, registered as Kiepe S.r.l, makes scissors, razors, clippers, trimmers, brushes, combs and styling appliances aimed at salon and barbershop professionals. Most sources, including a detailed brand narrative, date the founding to 1960 [6]; one distributor page instead places it in the 1970s under a different founder, a version the brand's own account contradicts [7].

The company remains active. Its current line includes the Hepike series and Booster-branded clippers and trimmers, and a 2025 product catalogue is published on its official site [1]. Kiepe distributes internationally and presents itself as a maker of precision tools for working professionals rather than a consumer retail brand.

According to the company, Kiepe traces back to a founder named Bruno, who began working with scissors at the age of ten as an employee at a Premana workshop that specialised in cutting articles. He later met his future wife at that workshop, and together they started the company's history [2]. The brand-site account gives only the first name; the surname is not disclosed.

The choice of Premana is central to how the company describes itself. The village, near Lecco in northern Italy, is known for generations of metalworking, and Kiepe presents its location as the source of the hand skills behind its blades. Editorial accounts describe the early business as a small workshop handcrafting scissors for hairstylists and barbers before the range widened [6].

Two points about the company's beginnings are disputed. A barberalia.com brand page states that Kiepe was founded in the 1970s by Luigi Brancato, which conflicts with both the official brand site and the more detailed editorial history that name 1960 and a founder called Bruno [7]. The 1960 date and the Bruno account appear across several independent sources and on the company's own pages, while the alternative version is generic distributor copy; it is noted here for completeness.

Kiepe began as a scissor maker and broadened into a fuller range of professional tools over the following decades. In the early 1980s, during Italy's post-war economic expansion, the company opened a production branch in Morocco in response to labour shortages at home [2]. By the early 2000s, editorial sources record distribution across more than fifty countries [6].

In 2010 the Regione Lombardia recognised the company as "Pre-eminently Artisan" in the field of typical and innovative handcraft [6].

Kiepe positions itself at the meeting point of industrial manufacturing and hand craftsmanship. The company says it relies on technology for precision while crediting skilled hands with the value that machinery alone cannot provide, summarised in its statement that it needs "technology to have extreme precision, whereas, skilled and knowledgeable hands can give our products that added value that we could never achieve using only soulless machines" [1]. Its production combines CNC machining, robotics and Industry 4.0 automation with the metalworking tradition of Premana.

The brand describes its guiding principles as quality, functionality and design, and frames its identity around steel: "Born in steel, we breathe and touch it with our hands every day." Its stated tagline is "Combining high-tech with the skill of our master craftsmen" [1]. The products are aimed at professionals in the hairdressing and beauty trades rather than at general consumers.

The company's catalogue spans scissors, razors and blades, hair clippers, trimmers, brushes, combs, hair dryers, straighteners, curling irons, manicure tools and accessories. Scissors remain central to its output: the company states that roughly 3,500 pairs of hairdressing scissors leave its production lines each day [2].

Among its current products are the Hepike line, which includes clippers, trimmers and a shaver built around what the company calls a vector motor, and the Booster-branded clippers and trimmers such as the Pro Booster and Mini Booster.

The company's principal listed distinction is the 2010 "Pre-eminently Artisan" recognition from the Regione Lombardia, awarded in the category of typical and innovative handcraft [6].

Kiepe Professional is an operating company. It maintains a 2025 product catalogue on its official website, sells a current generation of clippers and trimmers, and runs active accounts on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube [1]. Headquartered in Premana with additional production in Morocco, it describes its products as present in nearly all countries worldwide, and distributor sources place it in more than fifty markets [6].