Ivanhoe of Sweden

Ivanhoe was founded in 1946 in Gallstad, a small village in what was historically the center of Sweden's knitting and textile industry, by Martin Gothager. The company stayed in family hands as it passed to his three sons - Lars-Erik, Ulf and Goran - and is now run by the next generation, grandchildren Anders, Anna and Karin. The Ivanhoe name itself dates to the 1980s, when the founders shifted the company toward skiing and outdoor apparel and adopted a name intended to travel better outside Sweden than the family name had. Wool remains the company's primary raw material, and the business has kept a notably high share of production in-house: roughly 90% of its knitting is still done at its own Gallstad facility rather than outsourced.