One of the most exciting discoveries in our exploration of Jens Risom’s mid-century fabrics, the images taken by Sven Risom inside his father’s Massachusetts textile mill provide a rare insight into this often-forgotten part of the Risom design legacy.

We spoke with Sven to find out why a furniture designer whose skills lay firmly in that most traditional of materials, wood, was drawn to the fluidity of textiles…

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 colours right, they couldn’t get complex colours 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.

What did Jens enjoy about textiles?

I will never forget the days when Jens would come back with these boxes of swatches and we would play with them, using them in different things. And it was always about what does it feel like? How is it open? What’s the woven structure like? And colours – if you look at some of his furniture, and this is very typical, Jens would put a bright orange along with a nice piece of walnut or a bright blue against a maple - he found colour exciting; how it brings furniture alive, so you almost use the wood in the base and the furniture itself as the background.

Explore the Camira | Jens Risom collaboration here.