Annas vision

Shyness is founded by Anna Bilén, who worked many years in the textile industry and was longing for an alternative to the standard manufacturing model; which is often controlled by margins and constantly releasing new collections. The answer is Shyness which were found in 2009. This means that we have offered more than 15 years of collections made out of textiles with a long life time, textiles such as bed linen and kitchen textiles.

Already from the beginning we launched the model, which is built on collections designed to be timeless and to be used for a long time. It is important for us to combine the right material for each product and being able to have shorter transportations to decrease the implications of the environment. We promise that we offer designs and textiles that will last for many years. You can follow the change of patterns and design over the years in our timeline below.

Responsibility and longevity

Shyness's philosophy is to work longevity in every part of the process. We look at the interplay between environment, ethics and economics and our ambition is to constantly be better and more accurate in our work. The outside world is changing and new technology develops, and we pay attention to it and take it further into our collections and throughout our business to strive for strong improvement.

We are constantly looking for new solutions to further environmentalize our materials and our production methods.

Design and Product Development We are proud to offer timeless design and durable fabrics. It guarantees for the long life of the product, which is the most important aspect to reduce overconsumption. Our design is timeless, but feels new and therefore fits in a modern home. In our design and development process, we set a number of requirements for the product to be eligible in our range:

• that it should be designed in a style and with an expression that stands out over time and persists for many years
• that news in our collection will match the existing range. This means that anyone who wants to complete with a new pillow case can continue using their previously purchased textiles and simply add our news.
• that only high quality materials are used that the product should maintain in color and shape even after many times laundry.
• Our work with high sleep comfort and its retainability is an important factor in ensuring that the bed linen is comfortable and not replaced.

Packaging We choose as simple packaging as possible and add only packaging for the textiles that require it to not be destroyed during transport or in the store. This means that our duvet cover and pillow case are delivered in a thin plastic bag and are folded around a cardboard. Our minimal use of packaging provides efficient transportation where no unnecessary transportation is carried out and we minimize packaging waste. The thin bag is sorted as plastic and the cardboard is sorted as cardboard.

Manufacturing We manufacture all Shyness textiles in the EU. Our range of bed linen and table linen is manufactured mainly in the Baltics. It leads to close and good control of quality aspects and human rights and that our manufacturers work according to the high standards we make. Locating all manufacturing within Europe provides:

• short transport
• that we can manufacture according to demand due to the short lead times, thus avoiding overstocks

We work in close dialogue with our manufacturers to reduce energy consumption and are involved in manufacturing from fiber to finished product, to ensure that the use of chemicals and dyes is controlled and minimized. The cotton and linen items in the collection are STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX certified to ensure that the products are free from chemicals that are harmful to humans.

Involvement We engage in issues regarding the future in order to learn more and contribute with our knowledge to further develop the textile production. In 2019 Anna participated in a scientific report in sustainability performed by Textile Engineer and Master student Sara Lindeberg at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås. Find the report >>

Shyness and Anna are part of the government assignment Textile & Fashion 2030. More about that work can be seen in Textile & Fashion 2030 and Textile & Fashion 2030. 

Read about Anna's journey and work in the article "It's ok to be terrified" written by Textile&Fashion 2030.