3daysofdesign 2026
The story behind “Just Because”
In September last year, our CCO and Co-CEO Iben Wistrup Schwaner went to Paris with our Head of Marketing, Mie, to source textiles for the Prestige collection. Already there, the conversations about what would happen for 3daysofdesign began to take shape. They were immediately drawn to so many beautiful and compelling fabrics, without any real connection between them. Standing there with the textiles in their hands, they felt drawn to create freely, without setting boundaries for themselves.
That is how the working title "Just Because" came up. At that point mostly as a joke, because can you even work without boundaries when speaking from a brand perspective?
"I believe we in general could become better as people at simply going with what we sense and feel, without constantly having to justify it," says Iben.
Later that month, when Maharam showed Iben their upcoming textile Timbre, a thick, soft chenille in a deep plum color, she was immediately taken in, and the first color and sensation for the exhibition was in motion.
That was also the moment when Iben realized that the intuitive process had to be what drove this year's 3daysofdesign exhibition. Exclusively. Things needed to emerge from within and unfold outward, without any predefined direction. That is also how she generally works. Not externally driven, by looking at what trends are emerging, and allowing the outside world to dominate, but the opposite. Letting things come from within and then take shape from there. Always through the lens of the brand's essence, which has allowed this process to develop a life of its own. Very organic, with one step naturally leading into the next. She describes it as something very alive, almost as if the brand is breathing.
"Usually, when starting a process like this, it would be natural to create a framework or structure to work within," Iben explains. "But here, there have been no boundaries, only a lens focused on the very essence of NORR11, the soul of the brand." She sees this year's exhibition as the culmination of the brand finally "becoming" its own expression. Unapologetically.
Where last year's exhibition, I AM, worked within a certain framework, with each room representing a state of being, Iben and her team created different spaces such as "playful" or "embraced," intuitively sensing whether the room embodied the word describing it. Naturally, this was the NORR11 perspective on how those kinds of spaces could look and feel. This year, the entire process has developed purely from within, letting things evolve without a pre-defined plan. Both the concept and the process have evolved intuitively. There is no polished strategy behind it, yet the result reveals a clear purpose.
Even though the title was initially only meant as a working title, it ended up becoming the name of the exhibition, because it describes the process so well. Iben explains she has spent a lot of time asking herself: what is it we want to say with this?
"Because what actually sits behind the idea of standing in yourself without having to justify it? Why is it often so difficult for us as people to simply stand in our full expression, without apologizing for it? That is where the underlying theme of 'fear of judgment' appears. Something we all carry with us in one form or another."
It is only recently that she became aware of the common thread running through the exhibition and how everything connects. "At its core, NORR11 is about being bold, sparking curiosity, and pushing boundaries, all of which resonate directly with that idea," she states.
"It doesn't mean I'm not afraid of how this process or exhibition will be judged, or of being judged myself, because I am the one responsible for it. But I do it anyway. That is what 'Just Because' means. Even if I become afraid of being too much or not enough, I choose it anyway. I have worked from a place of pure raw passion for beauty, texture and playfulness, and some parts of the exhibition can feel very intimate. So a fear of judgment naturally occurs within me."
And it is only now, right here before the finish line, that it has become clear to her why this intuitive process was important. She can now step back and see the bigger picture of the process. The process has not only resulted in clarity and structure, but also in a deeper sense of identity, where the brand's inner alignment and outward expression now reinforce each other on a much deeper level.
"If I let go of control, the unthought appears," she explains.
Every year after 3daysofdesign, she finds herself telling the team that next year will be an "off year", that they will keep things simple and low-key. Always thinking that they cannot keep trying to outdo themselves, and honestly, that attempting to do so would feel exaggerated and staged. But every single time, something unexpected appears. Something that could never have been strategically planned, but instead was allowed to evolve naturally on its own. For Iben, it almost grows like a fractal; the same pattern folding outward at every scale, each year carrying the DNA of what came before, but always taking on a new form. She explains that this is what happens when you stop trying to control every outcome. Intuition starts leading the process somewhere unexpected. And that is where the "unthought" appears, not as a lack of direction, but as something that could never have been carefully planned from the beginning, only discovered along the way.
And now, with the exhibition taking flight and living on its own, she finally sees that we are moving from last year's I AM to WE ARE. "I could never have planned this in the beginning of the process. It had to appear," she says. She explains that we have always been authentic, but in this process being bold, sparking curiosity, and pushing boundaries no longer only describes the designs, but also the brand expression, the textiles, the storytelling, the things we do and the decisions we make.
"That is what people will experience. Some people will feel that the brand is breathing, that you are inside the soul of it. Whether you like it or not, that is okay. As long as you can feel it," she ends.
