The community of Kinna in southwest Sweden has since the second industrial revolution been known in the country as the heart of Swedish textile production. Among the companies that are rooted here, Kinnasand founded in 1873 with its weaving mill, is one of the oldest and most respected. Several generations of the same family operated the company, gradually mastering the art of refining flax into a commercial product of superior quality, and the textiles that left Kinnasand found its way into homes, offices and public spaces around the world.

Kinnasand was known for its curtains, but the company was far from a one-trick pony. It had diversified its business over the years by acquiring neighbouring factories, so it also produced carpets, wallpaper and upholstery fabric. Kinnasand of Sweden – as it was named for a while – also had a semi independent sister company in Germany called Kinnasand Interieur-Textil Gmbh, and it upheld the Kinnasand reputation through their own production, sales and marketing organisation. In the early 1990s, Kinnasand found itself in a difficult financial situation which demanded a reconstruction of the company, and fresh creative direction to help them adapt to the new century. Recognising the cultural value and importance of its unique craft, Proventus began acquiring the company in 1992, taking full ownership in march 1993.

In the 1990s, the society was adjusting to a digital and wireless world, and the demands on interiors were changing along with it. With new user behaviour, a once predictable market had become unpredictable. People began to choose the same fabric for the office as in the home and new theories in management and architecture resulted in open office landscapes with increasingly larger window sections. This sparked a need for textiles that offered more than timeless aesthetics, that perhaps also could effectively block sunlight, absorb sound or divide space. Textiles with graphic prints had long been the cornerstone of Kinnasand’s image, and it would continue to be an important part of the business, but it was now high time to look past the surface and deep into the actual weave. The fashion industry was the forerunner in the development of technical textiles but under Proventus ownership, Kinnasand set out to challenge it.

Kinnasand had a history of working with visionary designers, such as the Finnish artist Timo Sarpaneva and the Swedish textile designer Ingrid Dessau in the 1960s and 70s. However, the designers had traditionally joined the production process after strategic decisions already had been made on a managerial level. Proventus on the contrary saw that the key to a forward motion lay in positioning the artist at the very core of the company, so that the artistic side was an integrated part of the decisions from the very beginning. For this reason, the textile artist Inez Svensson – which at the time was the principal at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and design in Stockholm – was asked to become a creative advisor to Kinnasand. Svensson was followed by the American textile artist Sheila Hicks who had extensive experience of merging the arts with industry having worked with companies such as Knoll and Air France, and Hicks was appointed chairman of the board of the company.

In 1996 the creative director Maria Lomholt joined as head of design- and product development. Lomholt believed that rather than purchasing finished designs from the designer, the product should be the result of a collaborative process from beginning to end – and it should not matter where talent came from – be it from the world of art, graphic or product design. Some of the early projects explored new ways of weaving patterns with designer Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg, and experiments with wallpaper made out of recycled wood chips and cardboard with artist Ulrica Hydman-Vallien. And in 1996 a collaboration with glass artist Ann Wåhlström resulted in the celebrated collection of printed fabrics called Våglängder (Wavelengths). Fundamental to the change that Kinnasand strived to achieve in textile production, was to listen to the next generation of designers, and a series of workshops were for that reason initiated with students at Konstfack. Bold ideas were also directly supported, such as the graduation project Cocktail by design student Christel Kurén. Kurén’s collection of strong graphic patterns inspired by Swedish modernistic architecture, was put into production and won the Swedish design award Utmärkt Svensk Form (Splendid Swedish Design) in 1998.

Textiles woven in different densities and volume with natural and synthetic fibres, gave new qualities and besides from flax, wool and cotton, Kinnasand began to experiment with metal, rubber and other polymer yarns. This gave birth to a range of new radical products, such as a durable Spinnaker textile made for in- and outdoor use. And in 2000, the textile Mobile was launched. Instead of using a conventional chemical coating on the textile to make it fire-resistant, an acrylic fibre called Kanecaron, which can withstand high temperatures, was used in the weave. This perfectly washable and highly technical textile which featured artwork by graphic designer Carl Johan Hane, not only pushed the envelope for sustainable production but also stood as testament to Proventus mission to bring the company into the future.

From 1998-2004, Kinnasand operated within their parent company called Art & Technology by Proventus, which also owned the Finnish furniture company Artek and Stockholm based design company Snowcrash. As a consequence of Kinnasand’s focus on developing technical textiles, Art & Technology by Proventus initiated a special R&D branch called Strategic Textiles that would work independently from – but in close collaboration with – Kinnasand. Under the direction of Maria Lomholt and suport of Sheila Hicks, Strategic Textiles moved fast and free between state of the art production techniques and materials, in search of an answer to what the textiles of tomorrow would look, feel and be made of. One of its projects was realised together with the architect Ulrika Mårtensson, a textile student at Konstfack who at the time was exploring ways to create fabrics with sound absorbing properties. This was a product segment that was nonexistent at the time, but in great demand by architects.

Through experiments with fibres and weaves, and tests conducted at the institute for fibre and polymer technology in Mölndal, Sweden, different ideas started to materialise. Although the end result would appear to be perfectly fashionable drapes that ung from the ceiling, they would in fact be high performing products designed to efficiently also absorb, diffuse or block different sound frequencies. This successful innovation was eventually brought to Snowcrash where it was finalised in design and given the name The Sound Solution Collection in 2002.

As an effect of a strategic decision in 2003, Proventus ended the Art and Technology by Proventus enterprise, and its holdings in Kinnasand AB and Kinnasand Interieur Textil GmbH were sold to the management in 2004. Within one decade, Kinnasand had been turned into a poster name for contemporary Scandinavian design, widely regarded as an innovator as well as an educator on technical textiles, and praised for introducing progressive new products as well as talents to the market.