Tell us, why did Jens decide to set up his own textile mill?
He started making furniture and the company was doing very well, but he was becoming more and more frustrated by the lack of good textiles. He was getting them from a couple of different sources, but they weren’t well woven, they couldn’t get the colors right, they couldn’t get complex colors and, given his Danish and Scandinavian background, he knew what he wanted.
A textile company wasn’t doing very well at the time, and he decided, along with a few others, to purchase that company. It was never fully integrated within Jens Risom Design, and was managed by a gentleman named Win Stutter – but it meant that Jens was able to get the textiles he wanted and, as you know very well, however beautiful the piece of furniture or product is, the wrong textiles can change everything or, more importantly, the right textiles can make it perfect. And that was very exciting for him.