Where can a passion lead?

"A passion starts from a thought,
a thought triggers a feeling,
a feeling grabs the heart,
and the heart leads the mind...
and so begins
the domino of events
that destiny created
to satisfy the passion.
this is the story of sia...
from the beginning." 

Sonja Ingegerd Andersson

Once upon a time: that's how fairy tales are supposed to begin

And this story is no less than a modern fairly tale - the story of a young Swedish homemaker named Sonja Ingegerd Anderson, who began making batik in her kitchen and gradually turned what started as a hobby into an international enterprise present today in a myriad of countries on four continents.

Sonja in a self-designed dress,
setting a table with a tablecloth also of her own design.

The batik apron which won Sonja  a prize
from a women's magazine in 1956.

From a women's magazine, 1956. Under the title "She swapped her office job for batik,"  Sonja is shown doing batik in her kitchen and in the company of sons Mats.

PAPER FLOWERS

Sonja made a lot of sales (especially of her batik apron and children's clothes) through Femina, a magazine for women, and in 1963 the magazine asked her to come up with a paper flower for them. The “flower power” era was in its infancy. She designed a flower in the shape of a heart (the only shape she felt she was really good at) and had it executed in silk paper. It could be packed flat for mailing, but opened into a colourful, three-dimensional flower.

Sonja with her paper flower

The project was a huge success! Sonja asked friends to help her cut all the silk paper by hand, until they devised a machine to do the cutting mechanically and thereby increased their production capacity enormously. Truckloads of paper began to arrive.

Their houses were quickly filled with paper and metal wire and when production reached the thousands, they recruited 30 women from all over Landskrona to make the flowers for them.

This was a new product that seemed to touch everyone's fancy, and it entered every home bearing a tag that read “SIA kunsthandverk”- SIA for Sonja Ingegerd Andersson. And kunsthandverk which meant hand-crafted.

The name SIA was beginning to be recognised.

LUSTGÅRDEN

During this period of time, Sonja met 16-year old Kjell Melander and was immediately seduced by its sense of humour, working skills, and energy.
Considering a possible collaboration, she suggested him to go and learn about textile printing, which he immediately went for in Germany.

In the meanwhile, Sonja started restoring an old house in Landskrona to make it the home of SIA, in which they could pack and sell flowers.
In all there were fourteen rooms, each a different colour, divided into offices, print shop, warehouse, showroom, and small retail store.
For Sonja the best part was the yard, which she spruced up with new roses, clematis, grapes and a fountain.
Lovely green outdoor furniture was carefully positioned among the flowers, making it a genuine Garden of Eden, or as it's known in Swedish, Lustgården.

LIFE IN LUSTGÅRDEN

It wasn't long before Lustgården became well known.

Many customers came to them, and they liked what they saw: a charming house, filled with spirited people having fun.
When they were ready with their new textile collection, Sonja and her team erected a catwalk in the yard for a fashion show in which they themselves were the models.
Customers had never seen anything like it, and Lustgården began to draw people from quite a distance.

THE EVOLUTION OF GIFTSHOPS

In the early days, Sonja travelled throughout southern Sweden selling her line of textiles to handicraft shops, which were very successful in marketing SIA tablecloths, hens, and children's clothes.

As time went by, the stores that were eager to sell the flowers and handicraft evolved into gift shops.

COLLECTIONS WIDENED together with SIA's success. Sonja also visited new factories in Italy, Denmark, Portugal... She had them manufacture SIA's own designs and started to also sell products bought from other sources, not only the things they made themselves.

After their success with paper and plastic flowers, Sonja and Kjell heard that silk-like polyester flowers were being manufactured in Hong Kong - and Sonja knew at once that she had to get an exclusivity on them. This was definitely something new! SIA got its exclusivity and another new chapter of the SIA flowers story began to unfold.

New warehouse, opened in 1973

SIA's OWN SHOP

In 1975 Sonja suggested opening a shop in Stockholm. This would allow her to create merchandise displays and window decorations, aspects of retailing which she thoroughly enjoyed.

A location was chosen that would be the face of SIA in Stockholm for many years to come.

THE LOGO

It was in Lustgården that SIA got its logo. The company had been known as SIA (from the initials of Sonja Ingegerd Andersson) from the beginning, but Sonja wanted a a company logo.

What could be more appropriate for the Lustgården (garden of Eden) than the apple ?

And the apple is still part of the SIA logo today

THE SIA FAMILY AROUND THE WORLD

SIA soon opened showrooms in Goteborg and Stockholm, then in Denmark.
As part of their expansion program, Sonja and Kjell began quickly found someone to represent them in Norway. Once they were selling throughout Scandinavia, Sonja and Kjell started moving into the rest of Europe : Switzerland, England, France, Italy ...

Each new collection meant new clothes for everyone at SIA, and SIA attracted a lot of attention at the fairs.

PEOPLE FIRST

Each time Sonja and Kjell met people they liked, and the ventures grew from there. People first, then projects. This is how the SIA family has grown and why there has always been such a special relationship among the people working for SIA around the world.