The striking designs of the Swedish Mairo collection of fabrics were deemed too severe for Irish tastes by its manufacturers Markosol. But Kilkenny-based Swedish friends Charlotte Berner and Eva Heltzel believed they were underestimating an increasingly sophisticated Irish public.

Fired with an enthusiasm for the product and with no experience of the soft furnishing business, they set up Absolute Fabrics a year ago. The company is now the sole agent for the Mairo Collection in this country. "Mairo might have been too modern for the Irish market at one point but so much has changed since I came here 32 years ago," says Heltzel. "Now I take a trip up to Dublin and it has become a big city like Paris or Berlin. It is really quite cosmopolitan."

Made of 100 per cent cotton and of "superb quality" according to Heltzel, the collection consists of fabrics, oil cloth cushions lampshades and kitchen and diningroom goods.

A typical design is a single but imposing red and green lily or green leaf on a crisp white fabric, quite dramatic as a cushion, curtain or tablecloth.

"There are only five or six different fabrics so there are endless matching possibilities and you will be able to buy the same design in a few years time and it will look great beside the older fabric which doesn't fade even if you hang it in the light."

The brainchild of Ana and Malin Person, daughters of the tycoon who set up the Markosol roller blind company in the 1960s, The Mairo Collection has been manufactured in Ronneby in south east Sweden since the early 1990s. They now export all over the world.

Architects and interior designers made up the bulk of Berner and Heltzel's initial clients. "In the last three months it has really taken off. All ages from 25 years up seem to be interested in the fabrics and we supply stockists all over the country.

"Being Swedish myself it is hard for me to say what is so typically Swedish about the collection, but I suppose it is in the cleanness and the quality of the design."

She and her business partner Charlotte Berner, who has lived in Ireland for the past three years and is also a part-time dentist, were introduced by a mutual friend. She believes the Irish can be slow to take to a new idea.

"Especially as we are quite low profile, we haven't really been on TV or in the newspapers up to this, so people haven't seen us. Sometimes they need some reassurance."

Stockists

Furnish, Habu, Minima

Limerick: Natural Interiors

Midleton, Co Cork: Cogan Interiors

Kilkenny: Curtain Sense

Absolute Fabrics: Tel 053 45327