Golden Nuggets from the Kingdom of Glass

I 1995, I came to Småland, Glasriket, and Orrefors Kosta Boda from Karlstad, where I was the marketing manager at a larger company in the meat industry. It was a significant step and change in terms of products, market, brands, and manufacturing. I became the Country Manager, mainly responsible for sales and market development. Regarding these tasks, there are many similarities, regardless of the product or market one finds oneself in. In the first year, I was given the epithet "korvgubben" (the sausage guy), which quickly turned into "Max" among colleagues and employees.

Orrefors and Kosta Boda were then, for a few years, merged after being competitors for almost a hundred years. One of my most important and significant tasks in the early years was to get the sales organizations for both brands to collaborate and approach the market under a "common flag" while still maintaining the two strong brands, Orrefors and Kosta Boda, which had always been distinct in essential aspects.

The times and the market in Sweden were good and peaked around the millennium shift when both volume, turnover, and profitability were at their best. During my 21 years, until 2016, there were many events that influenced the business. Since Swedish glass, especially Orrefors and Kosta Boda, has always been a kind of Swedish crown jewel, many of the events made headlines. Numerous changes in ownership and the closure of glassworks made many years full of significant challenges. During my time at the company, I worked with 8 different individuals who were CEOs, from the time on the stock market, through the collaboration with other companies in the industry, to the period under Danish ownership, and up to Torsten/New Wave taking over in 2005. One could say that more happened during my 21 years than in the time since the establishments of the two companies in 1742 and 1898, respectively.

Throughout my time at Orrefors Kosta Boda, especially during the period 2010-2016, I worked closely with the artists, the limited/unique art glass, and exhibition activities. An exciting and inspiring job that created many valuable connections with both the artists and the manual production at the various glassworks. My initial strong interest in art, glass, and craftsmanship grew, and I acquired art glass from all the artists over the years. It was often challenging to resist buying objects that I liked, whether they were unique, limited, or part of a collection. Each artist had and has their expression and design language, which, together with craftsmanship (both in the hot shop and post-processing), makes Swedish glass what it is. This is probably what led me to collect so many different objects from so many different artists – each one entirely unique and fantastic.

Now, I have enjoyed and reflected on the memories of all the art glass and my time at Orrefors Kosta Boda. It's time to lighten the load, and I will miss most of it – the memories, however, remain from a fantastic time in one of Sweden's most exciting industries.

Magnus Axelsson