Knitch Magazine

Hand Knitting Couture and Social Justice

Hand knitting is rarely considered haute couture, a term of exclusivity reserved for high quality expensive clothing distinguished by exacting attention to hand finishing details that require virtuosic skill.

The guest speaker, Susanna Hansson, is a native of Sweden who has been active in preserving and promoting the Bohus tradition in the US and in Sweden. She displayed samples from her collection of vintage Bohus garments, previewed a documentary film on the Bohus phenomenon, and discussed the designers who developed the colorful Bohus patterns as well as current designers who are leading the resurgent interest in Bohus knitting.

Bohus Stickning was born out of the severe financial hardship of the late 1930’s. Residents of Bohuslän, a southwestern province in Sweden, were not farmers but relied on quarrying rock for their livelihoods. When these markets collapsed in the worldwide depression of the late 1930’s, the province suffered severe hardship. Women of the province approached the governor’s wife, Emma Jacobsson, asking for relief. In 1939, Emma organized the women into cooperatives designed to provide income and social contact for the women involved. They first knit small items for tourist trade such as hats, mittens, and ornaments. Although they sold well, these products did not provide enough income to support the women and their families year round, leading them to try other products. They settled on handknitting, a craft that required no special equipment and that all the women could do along with other household chores.

Unlike many other provinces of Sweden, Bohuslän did not have a distinctive style or tradition, leaving the women of the cooperative free to create their own designs. Emma marketed some of the early products to exclusive department stores in Stockholm and was elated when large orders were placed. Emma realized that the cooperatives could earn a larger profit by catering to these exclusive markets. Emma, who was born in Vienna, had first studied fine arts and then earned a Ph.D. in botany. She had finicky taste, continental connections, and scientific training. The designs she created were inspired by her training in fine arts and her travels to Continental museums. She drew on historic textiles, including Peruvian weavings and Chinese textiles. She was a perfectionist who was renowned for her exacting standards and precise recordkeeping, a reflection of her scientific training. Once a design was finalized, it was given the knitters to reproduce in exacting standards. Only the best materials were used for the garments. With buyers in exclusive markets, the cooperative could continue to expand.

The Bohus cooperative was organized into teams of knitters with a local coordinator. Knitters were expected to attend monthly teas, which served both as a social gathering and business meeting where new designs and materials were introduced. Knitters had to meet exacting standards, but they persisted in meeting these demands because they received good pay for their labor. Roughly thirty per cent of the retail cost of goods was paid to the knitters. In modern terms, a single Bohus sweater could bring approximately $1000.The cooperative provided the designs and materials and expected near perfect craftsmanship from the knitters in return. The work was critically judged and rejected if not perfect. In order to earn an income, the women mastered the demanding patterns.

After the initial success with department stores, Emma turned her focus to running the business. However, she was deeply involved in making final decisions about designs, colors, yarns, and quality control. Emma’s friend, Vera Bjurström, had helped with early product development for the cooperative, and stayed on to create designs for hand knitting. Vera was the first of several designers who contributed to the distinctive Bohus style; she was lead designer from 1939 to the early 1940’s. Vera’s designs used surface embroidery to decorate natural colored garments.This ingenious method of decoration conserved precious raw materials and maximized profits.

From the early 1940’s to about 1953, another of Emma’s friends assisted with creating designs for Bohus garments. Anna-Lisa Mannheimer Lunn, created cardigans with colorful fronts and plain backs and sleeves. The Röda Randen (red stripes) pattern, developed in about 1945, became one of the best known design of what came to be known as the Eskimå series. Other designs in the series used several shades of green; more than greens than are commonly available in Fair Isle, making Bohus designs difficult to reproduce by modern knitters. In 1947, Anna-Lisa created the iconic yoke sweater, Blå Skimmer (Blue Shimmer).This first-ever yoked sweater was not based on a traditional Swedish knitted sweater, but on a netted folk collar.It became the most popular of all Bohus designs.

Annika Malmström-Baldini led the design team from 1952 – 1959. She was the first paid designer and is noted for expanding Bohus Stickning into the American markets. Bohus developed garments to appeal to Americans who were travelling on business and pleasure. As word about Bohus spread, garments were sold directly to U.S. departments stores like Nieman Marcus for their exclusive “Trophy Room” collections. Annika’s signature design, Lemon, was created in 1957.

Kerstin Olsson began her career with Bohus immediately after graduating from art school. Kerstin took a more “knitterly” approach to the designs by making them somewhat easier to knit. She designed multicolor patterns that could be knit in alternate colorways. Egg was designed in 1963, followed by Mists in 1964. Kerstin is still involved with Bohus Stickning, helping to translate the patterns, recreate the dyes, and educate a new generation of knitters about Bohus Stickning.

The last major Bohus designer was Karin Ivarsson, who worked there from 1960 – 1969. She designed the dramatic Lace Collar (also known as the Swan design) in 1966. By the late 1960’s, markets had begun to shrink. Women were no longer as dependent upon income from the cooperative and fewer young women joined. After thirty years, during which more than 400 original designs were created, Bohus closed its doors on April 30, 1969.

Bohus Stickning’s success is generally attributed to the influence and leadership of Emma Jacobsson. Emma’s genius was in running the cooperative more as a couture house than a cottage industry. It is informative to compare Bohus knitting to molas of the Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands. These unique art forms developed apart from any indigenous tradition, and arose at approximately the same point in time (molas date from about 1926). Although the Bohuslän women all knew how to knit, they had no folk tradition to draw upon. Influenced by missionaries, the Kuna developed molas as a substitute for body painting, but had no tradition of weaving or textile making.

Unlike the Kuna Indians whose molas are individual artistic expressions, Bohus Stickning relied on production knitting under strict guidelines. Designs and materials were provided to the knitters whose job it was to produce flawless garments for high end markets. Knitters could not veer from the pattern nor could they substitute materials or colors. There was no room to innovate. By contrast, the Kuna women create everyday garments for personal use, selling them for cash when they tire of the molas. Bohus knitting was expressly done for worldwide markets, with no expectation that the garments would ever be worn by the knitters.

Besides a much needed source of income, social contact is an important factor for both Bohus knitters and Kuna women. In both cases, the work is carefully judged against a set of standards. Bohus standards were set externally to meet tastes of the target market. The Kuna judge molas against similarly rigorous standards of design, color, expression and workmanship, but their standards arise from a local aesthetic and are not aimed at pleasing outsiders. The art of molas continues to evolve as Kuna women are influenced by tourist markets and newer materials. Bohus is undergoing a revival, but it is one of careful copying and little innovation. The patterns have long been translated from Swedish, but knitters could not achieve the sparkling results of the original garments with readily available yarns. Now that the dyes and yarns have been scrupulously recreated, Bohus designs are available in kit form from. With painstaking care and dedication, Bohus has been brought back to life, but as replicated art, not original expression. Bohus continues to have the cachet of exclusivity but it is questionable whether even adventurous knitters will push this style to evolve any further.

Notes on a presentation by Susanna Hansson to the annual membership meeting of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection