Above left and top right: The Focus de Luxe range, designed in 1955 by Folke Arström, was listed by the New York Times amongst the 100 best designed products of modern time. Right: A brand new range, designed by celebrated Italian designer Paola Navone, will be launched this summer.
160 years of timeless design Award-winning, popular, and appointed a Royal Warrant, Gense is not just one of the largest producers of silver and stainless steel cutlery in the Nordic countries, but also the brand behind Sweden’s much-loved Focus de Luxe cutlery range. A respect for the craft and a tradition of carefully selected design collaborations are behind the company’s recipe for success. By Linnea Dunne | Photos: Gense
If you enter a big Swedish country house or old Stockholm apartment from the 1800s and look closely at the fireplace doors, chances are that you will see the name Gustav Eriksson engraved. He was a smith apprentice from Lerdala in western Sweden practising at a forge in Eskilstuna, and his work was so outstanding that he ended up travelling the length of the country selling his wares. Eriksson founded Gense in 1856, initially working with brass as well as nickel silver, pro22 | Issue 89 | June 2016
ducing everything from trays and valves to safety deposit boxes. Decades later, under the helm of Lars Hedlund, investments into machinery for cutlery production were made and the seed was sown for what was to become one of the largest manufacturers of cutlery in the Nordics. In 1929, Gense started a design collaboration with Viking Göransson, thus becoming the first company in Sweden to work with a designer in the produc-
tion of stainless steel products for the home. As women increasingly started to work outside the home, the demand for low-maintenance, stylish products grew; in just two years the sales of stainless steel products surpassed that of nickel silver products. The Focus de Luxe cutlery range, designed in 1955 by Folke Arström, became an instant hit that is still today one of Gense’s most popular ranges, now considered a real retro classic and listed by the New York Times amongst the 100 best designed products of modern time.
Detailed design expertise “Scandinavians often want slightly shorter cutlery than people on the continent, with a fork of around 200 millimetres and a knife at 220 millimetres. Down on the