IT ALL STARTED IN THE GARAGE...
LoCa's story starts back in the 1990s, when Thorkild Lundsgaard realised the need for a beautiful and functional coat rack.
The story of KNAX began in Herfølge in 1992. Engineer Thorkild Lundsgaard was redecorating his eldest daughter's room, and the room needed to be completed with a beautiful coat rack.
Thorkild couldn't find one on the market that met his requirements. So he went out to his garage to make a coat rack. The idea was that there should be many coat hooks in a short piece. The prototype was never hung, but the process got him thinking. After the initial design processes, the final version was put together. The coat hook was spring-loaded so that the unused hooks are flush with the coat rack, just as Thorkild had in mind when the idea was kick-started in the garage. Only 18 mm protrudes into the room when not in use. This is not only for design and space reasons, but also for safety reasons.
Clean lines even when the hook is empty. The coat rack is ideal for places where space is limited, as the coat hooks are spring-loaded and spring back into place when not in use. And therefore not one to get stuck or injured on.
Harrit & Sørensen
Design agency Harrit & Sørensen designed KNAX in the early 90s, and the coat rack remains one of the agency's best-selling designs. They named it KNAX ’because it says knax when the hook falls into place“. The material was a challenge, and it took Thorkild and the designers several attempts to find the right combination of soft and hard material.
The idea behind KNAX is still the same as the one Thorkild originally went into the garage with: A coat rack that is beautiful, simple and made of solid materials - and which is flexible in relation to the need. Today, KNAX is a coat rack that fits in any room - and not just in the children's room.
LoCa was the winner
In 1995, Thorkild went to a trade fair for applied arts in Herning. He was to present his coat rack widely for the first time and ended up leaving the fair as a winner. He won the Formland Prize, which is awarded annually to the most innovative design of the year. The award was just the pat on the back he needed to go all the way with his entrepreneurial dream.
