When Amanda Borges Högström was to do her degree project at Konstfack, she wanted to try to combine the hand-drawn and artisanal with industrial production. The result was an upholstery fabric, from idea to finished weave, developed in close collaboration with Svensson. During a study visit to our factory in Kinna, Amanda Borges Högström became aware of the craftsmanship that remains and continues to thrive in the Swedish textile industry. The idea of combining craft art with the industrial became the seed of her degree project, and Amanda contacted us about the possibility of conducting the project at Svensson. In collaboration with our textile engineers, she has worked step by step with bindings, material choices, thread density, and colouring, and has followed the process all the way to sample weaving and production. The pattern in the fabric is inspired by horse manes and other organic forms somewhere between the familiar and the abstract. The sketch is hand-drawn, and the weave itself was produced in a wool-based mixed quality designed to meet high demands for durability.

Together with Svensson's engineers, various variants of bindings and thread types were tested before the pattern was prepared for jacquard weaving with satin binding, a choice that provides good control over how the pattern appears in the weave.

Amanda says that the project has given her valuable insight into how a design project can be executed in an industrial context. And through the project, she also realised that no matter how much technology is used in a development process, most of the work consists of human meetings, interactions, ideas, and collaboration.

She describes the collaboration as both educational and inspiring – an environment characterized by generosity, curiosity, and a willingness to share knowledge. For us at Svensson, it has been equally rewarding to follow Amanda's artistic process and see how her ideas took shape in interaction with our environment and our employees.