Woven designs for the world inspired by Finnish nature

The weavers Jaana and Esko Hjelt are the fourth generation to run the Lapuan Kankurit company. They weave Nordic design inspired by Finnish nature.

The owners of Lapuan Kankurit, Esko Hjelt and his wife Jaana Hjelt are continuing the family tradition of weaving.

The roots of the family business are in the first textile factory the family established in 1917, the Lankilankoski wool and felt boot factory.

“My father-in-law Juha Hjelt later decided, in 1973, to start his own weaving mill, which was called Lapuan Kankurit. Even back then he saw that a business operating in the area between craftsmanship and industrial weaving would continue to have demand,” says Jaana Hjelt, marketing director and co-owner.

Juha Hjelt’s idea was to specifically use the Jacquard technique.

“This is the foundation that has stood for over 50 years,” Jaana Hjelt says.

Lapuan Kankurit is a linen and wool weaving mill which weaves patterns on fabric using Jacquard weaving, meaning the fabrics are woven, not printed, directly into the fabric.

“On top of every loom there is a Jacquard machine, which controls the loom and the pattern woven into the fabric,” Hjelt says.

Even though the designs honour tradition, weaving has to keep up with the times. The weaving is fully electronic.

In recent years, Lapuan Kankurit has invested millions of euros in new production capacity. In addition to machinery and equipment investments, that has meant large property investments in Lapua. Because of the depreciations on investments, that has reduced profits.

Last year, Lapuan Kankurit made a profit of €120,000 on a turnover of €6.6 million. The company has 36 employees.

During the Covid pandemic, they also decided to invest in Finnsheep wool.

“We started buying it from local farms, but that also meant that we built a completely new finishing facility, bought finishing machines for it, and increased our weaving capacity.

Well-defined range

Esko and Jaana Hjelt joined Lapuan Kankurit during the recession of the 1990s.

“We joined the company when the depression of the nineties was at its deepest, and Esko’s parents were in a difficult situation. Esko and I had studied in Tampere. Esko had studied textile technology and I’d earned an M.Sc. in industrial management, and we dreamed of setting up our own weaving mill in Tampere. But the depression of the 1990s was a really challenging time for weavers, and Esko came here to help,” Hjelt says.

Esko Hjelt started incorporating the design idea into the Lapuan Kankurit product range.

The couple stuck to that course.

Jaana Hjelt also grew up in a family of business owners, which also had a background in craftsmanship, making the step a natural one.

In 1995, the Lapuan Kankurit owners began transferring the company to the next generation, ending when the previous generation, Juha and Liisa Hjelt, retired in 2000.

“Our brand promise is ‘the weavers of a good life’. We want to weave a good life.”

Lapuan Kankurit has tried all sorts of things but has now limited its product range. At present, the range consists of sauna and spa textiles, wool textiles, blankets and scarves, as well as kitchen and tabletop textiles.

Dora Jung textiles by agreement

Esko and Jaana Hjelt also dreamed for a long time about producing textiles designed by the late Finnish textile artist Dora Jung.

Dora Jung’s work spanned almost five decades, and she worked as both an artistic craftswoman and a textile industry designer. Dora Jung is associated with quality and a delicate aesthetic expression, and she is known for such work as church textiles and monumental public textiles.

In 2009, Lapuan Kankurit signed an agreement with Dora Jung’s estate on the production of Jung’s textiles.

“It was of course a great thing for us personally, but it also gave our business a great boost and credibility on the design scene. When we developed finishing for the Dora Jung textiles, we also developed unique washed linen textiles which nobody had produced, as well as fulled wool blankets, which were really innovative.”

Turning point of 2008 recession

Jaana Hjelt says that expanding internationally is close to her heart. Before Lapuan Kankurit, she worked in export at ABB. She also wrote a thesis about small companies’ international expansion.

“One of the cases I used was Lapuan Kankurit, and even then, I travelled around Germany with Lapuan Kankurit wares. My conclusion was that the company was not at all ready for international markets.”

Lapuan Kankurit grew its capacities, production and skills and started by testing its wings in the Swedish and Norwegian markets.

“We were very excited to expand internationally. We knew that the markets in other countries would certainly have been better for us than the Swedish market, but Sweden helped us grow and learn,” Hjelt says.

The changing textile markets in the 2000s provided a stronger stimulus for international expansion. The deep recession of 2008 sped up price competition.

“We had grown our manufacturing on the basis of big Finnish clients. It was understandable that during the recession they left to seek cheaper manufacturing countries. We realized that if we wanted to carry on, we had to spread into international markets, because we couldn’t compete at our prices in Finland any longer.”

In 2015, Lapuan Kankurit saw its export sales outstrip its domestic sales for the first time. The biggest export market is Japan, followed by Germany, Switzerland and Austria. There are Scandinavian design shops stocking Lapuan Kankurit products in countries such as Australia, Canada and Chile.

Driven by passion

Lapuan Kankurit has the goal of preserving and developing the Finnish textile tradition, as well as producing and exporting design products internationally. Hjelt says that when a company starts selling internationally, finding good international partners is extremely important for creating a brand.

“Without a brand, you can’t succeed on the consumer market,” she says.

At one point, the owners considered changing the company name.

“We were at a seminar at Aalto University. I asked some professors if it was a good idea to change the name. At that time having a difficult foreign name was trendy. The students and professors discussed it for a bit. In the end, they said: no way, you are from Lapua and you weave fabrics and your name represents that. Keep the name.”

The most important success factor of Lapuan Kankurit is passion, without which nothing is successful,” Hjelt says.

Recognizing the company’s own strengths is also key.

“We have to know our own strengths and focus on doing the job well. If we realize that something isn’t our forte, we start looking for top professionals to help us. No business owner can do everything themselves,” Hjelt says.

Stronger sustainability through in-house manufacturing

Hjelt says that one important pillar of sustainability at Lapuan Kankurit is the company’s own manufacturing.

“Sustainability isn’t just a report: it has to exist within the company. One thing for us is our proprietary manufacturing. We invest in our manufacturing, and we’ve built our own finishing facility, for example. When the manufacturing is in our hands, we can be more energy-efficient,” she says.

The second important area in the company’s sustainability is its responsibility for employees’ welfare, training and development.

The third pillar is sustainable materials.

“Our sustainability involves the material innovations which we use, such as blending Tencel fibre with linen instead of cotton. We also want to be involved in advancing the circular economy. These main materials that we use, linen and wool, are sustainable. Linen is one of the most ecological materials. Particularly when we’ve committed to using entirely European linen, making the production chain very transparent.

“Investing in using Finnsheep wool has also been a conscious sustainability choice for the company,” she says.

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