Interview with Managing Director, CFC

Torben Nielsen

by Lise Leonhardt Hjort “It is a dream come true.” “For us, the establishment of Saga Furs of Scandinavia’s Design Centre in Beijing is a dream come true. There is no doubt that the West – USA and Europe – has been a trendsetter for China in recent years. But it is also obvious that the Chinese will aim to develop their own identity and style,” says Torben Nielsen, Managing Director of Copenhagen Fur Center in Denmark.  www.cfc.dk “For us, the establishment of Saga Furs of Scandinavia’s Design Centre in Beijing is a dream come true. There is no doubt that the West – USA and Europe – has been a trendsetter for China in recent years. But it is also obvious that the Chinese will aim to develop their own identity and style,” says Torben Nielsen, Managing Director of Copenhagen Fur Center in Denmark. ”We believe that by uniting Chinese tradition and the expertise of SAGA great things can happen – mainly to the benefit of the Chinese market, but also for the rest of the world. China has proud design traditions and by adding diversity and development, which are the true spirit of fashion, SAGA’s new design centre can help stimulate and evolve Chinese design instead of focusing solely on the European way,” he says. Copenhagen Fur Center (CFC) was founded in 1930 and is owned by the Danish Fur Breeders Association cooperative. Today, the CFC is located in Glostrup outside Copenhagen and is the world’s largest auction house for raw skins. Mink comprises by far the largest part of the 14.2 million skins that are sold at the CFC every year; fur farming accounts for the third largest animal export in Denmark. “150 years ago Europe was greatly influenced by China – just think of The Chinese Tower in Tivoli Gardens, the emperors’ palaces in Austria, and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale about ‘The Nightingale’. Now, China is inspired by Europe, and I believe that that can lead to a beautiful collaboration,” says Torben Nielsen, who believes that there are additional areas of mutual inspiration. ”China has already been inspired by the structure of the Scandinavian fur trade: the strength of the 56-year-old cooperative society is that it unites forces in all ways: research, insurance, IT development, ethics, the auction houses, and the marketing organisation of SAGA. The Scandinavian fur trade produces a high-quality, consistent product. We control our production in a way that enables us to produce 12 million skins that look like identical twins, and that’s perfect for mass output in China,” says Nielsen. He has had many visitors from China, both official authorities and private manufacturers, who wished to personally experience the workings of the Nordic cooperative society. “The Chinese see us as being very dominant in the Chinese fur industry, and they like our way of doing things. What they see here is a structure that they would like to build themselves,” he explains.