Amanda Charlotta Christensen,

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

''Svensson'' (11 March 1863, Frustuna - 6 February 1928,

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...

) was a Swedish fashion designer and business person. She founded the firm ''Amanda Christensen AB'' (1885), which has a Royal warrant of appointment since 1949, and created the

necktie A necktie, or simply a tie, is a piece of cloth worn for decorative purposes around the neck, resting under the shirt collar and knotted at the throat, and often draped down the chest. Variants include the ascot, bow, bolo, zipper tie, crav ...

label ('Red Seal'). . Christensen (anon.) Tema med variationer - Några glimtar ur kravattens historia, Stockholm 1945

Life

Amanda Christensen was the daughter of a farmer in Vårdinge by

Gnesta Gnesta () is a bimunicipal locality and the seat of Gnesta Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 5,562 inhabitants in 2010. Gnesta is located in Södermanland, on the border to Stockholm County. As situated near the county boundary Gn ...

. In 1883, she moved to Stockholm to become a teacher, but was instead employed as a cravat seamstress in the tailor firm Edén. In 1885, she started her own tailoring firm for men's accessories, initially with only two workers in her employ. At first, she manufactured only white

bow tie The bow tie is a type of necktie. A modern bow tie is tied using a common shoelace knot, which is also called the bow knot for that reason. It consists of a ribbon of fabric tied around the collar of a shirt in a symmetrical manner so that t ...

s (for

full evening dress White tie, also called full evening dress or a dress suit, is the most formal in traditional evening western dress codes. For men, it consists of a black tail coat (alternatively referred to as a dress coat, usually by tailors) worn over a whit ...

); later, the production of black bow ties (for semi-formal dress) was added. Christensen gradually expanded, with more clients and employees, gaining sellers outside of the capital. After a study trip abroad in 1890, she began a major expansion, with ten employees, and considerably widening the range of styles manufactured, including cravats and other neck-wear, in many new colors and models. She manufactured cravats and ties in silk in a period when silk cravats and ties, had, until then, been unusual in Sweden. She arranged supply of the silk fabrics from agents in France and Italy. Christensen continued to travel abroad for study and business regularly, in later years with her son, Rudolf. In the early 1900s, she launched her own brand, . Christensen married the Swedish artist Christian Christensen in the 1880s. Christensen's son, Rupert, took over the day-to-day operation of the company following her retirement in 1909. She spent her latter years engaged in flower breeding and extensive reading; she moved to a villa in Nice in 1926. The company she founded, which became a public limited company ( sv, aktiebolag or AB) in 1909, continued with the involvement of her descendants until 1999, when it was sold to Jens Engvall AB.

References

Sources

* . Christensen (anon.) Tema med variationer - Några glimtar ur kravattens historia, heme with variations - Some glimpses from the history of the tieStockholm 1945 * Inga Wintzell: Slipsar, Stockholm 1999 * Svenskt porträttgalleri, del XXII, Stockholm 1906

External links

House of Amanda Christensen website: "Amanda Christensen: Sweden 1885"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christensen, Amanda 1863 births 1928 deaths Swedish women business executives Swedish fashion designers Swedish tailors Swedish women fashion designers 19th-century Swedish businesswomen 19th-century Swedish businesspeople 20th-century Swedish businesswomen 20th-century Swedish businesspeople