Svenskt Tenn launches Japanese Magnolia from GP & J Baker

Svenskt Tenn has collaborated with fabric company GP & J Baker since the 1930s. Now Svenskt Tenn has an opportunity to revive William Turner’s Japanese Magnolia print from GP & J Baker’s archives. The print was designed in 1917 and has likely not been in production since then.

Svenskt Tenn’s founder Estrid Ericson began collaborating with the British fabric company GP & J Baker back in the 1930s. Since then, Svenskt Tenn has had the exclusive rights to sell selected historical GP & J Baker prints. After searching through GP & J Baker’s historical archives, Svenskt Tenn has been granted the exclusive rights to launch the Japanese Magnolia print from 1917.

“It was Josef Frank who first introduced Estrid Ericson to the magical world of GP & J Baker. As with Fornasetti, Svenskt Tenn has shared a unique collaboration with GP & J Baker since the 1930s where we still have the exclusive rights to certain colour combinations and prints. When we had the opportunity to explore their archives we found an incredibly beautiful fabric by William Turner – Japanese Magnolia, which we are launching in connection with our spring exhibition,” says Thommy Bindefeld, marketing and creative director at Svenskt Tenn.

The exhibition has been named after Turner’s Japanese Magnolia print, which is also the theme of the exhibition. The entire collection is presented in an environment inspired by a patio.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a brand new glass pot designed by multi-artist Eric Ericson is also being launched. The pot is produced at Skrufs Glasbruk in Småland out of recycled glass. The new pot is called Fucus, Blue bar in Latin.

Japanese Magnolia will be available by the metre in different thread counts and launched as a tray, pillow and hard placemat.

Traditionally, Svenskt Tenn usually opens a spring exhibition this time of the year. Due to the prevailing situation in our world the exhibition, Japanese Magnolia, will instead be extended until August 12 to give more people the opportunity to visit the exhibition. As always the products will be available both in the shop at Strandvägen 5 as well online at svenskttenn.com.

The story of GP & J Baker and Svenskt Tenn
The British fabric design company, GP & J Baker, was founded by brothers George Percival and James Baker in 1884. Together with their father, they travelled around Asia buying prints, fabrics, sketches and thousands of pattern books. More than a century of collecting resulted in one of the largest privately owned fabric archives in the world, where many of the motifs are based on English chintz and block prints from the 1800s. In 1982, GP & J Baker was made a holder of Her Majesty The Queen’s Royal Warrant and to this day is considered to be one of the world’s most innovative companies within fabric design. Svenskt Tenn became one of GP & J Baker’s first customers in Sweden after Josef Frank was inspired by their prints and introduced Svenskt Tenn’s founder Estrid Ericson to the company in the 1930s. It was important for her that customers gained exclusive access to the items that were marketed and she entered into an agreement with GP & J Baker to obtain the exclusive rights on selected prints. Since then, a number of their fabrics and colour combinations have been sold exclusively at Svenskt Tenn.