When Kjeld (pronounced "Kel") Enevoldsen arrived in Los Angeles on a one-way ticket from Denmark in the 1960s, he had five dollars in his pocket. Today he is the owner of one of thelargest suppliers of mohair to the teddy bear industry and his business occupies three warehouses.

    How he got to this position takes a little longer to tell: as a young shipping management trainee working in Germany he was required to do a year's work experience in another country before returning to Denmark. The best job he could find came from a company in London, which offered the grand total of twelve shillings a week - payable in luncheon vouchers!  ("I still have that letter from the brokerage company" Kjeld says, ruefully). Needless to say, when a firm in Los Angeles offered him the experience he needed, plus enough money to rent a small apartment as well as eat regularly, there was no contest.

    "Who knows...the thought of Hollywood, palm trees, a wonderful climate, sandy beaches and good-looking girls could have had something to do with it - I WAS in my early twenties!" he chuckles.

    Kjeld became involved with mohair, quite by chance, in the early nineteen-eighties, when the teddy bear revolution was just beginning in America. Mohair was virtually unheard of except in the context of antique toys and Kjeld began cautiously with two bolts which he sold out of his
garage. The choice in those days was very limited and extremely expensive. When people could get hold of it at all, they were used to being able to buy it only in small quantities, so Kjeld's approach caused something of a stir among bear artists: "Luckily for me, I didn't know that mohair was notsupposed to sell in volume, so my price list featured ‘reasonable prices’ based on quantity. Needless to say, the few artists who were around in those days liked that idea!" he explains.

    What began accidentally turned out to be perfect timing. The concept of offering mohair at reasonable prices was just what the market needed and soon the orders were flowing insufficiently to justify the pricing structure; Intercal was on its way to being the only US supplier of mohair from all three European mills, Norton Weaving in England, and Helmbold and Schulte in Germany.

    Today, people think nothing of buying yards of mohair at a time, but, in the beginning, even a half-yard was a major investment, which Intercal would carefully package and send out.

    “Every so often I share a good laugh with some of the ‘old-timers’ in teddy-bear making, when we joke about what a big deal it was to buy a quarter of a yard of mohair in those days. Nowadays I watch people routinely stuff five or ten more yards into a suitcase than it can reasonably hold." chuckles Kjeld.

    Because Kjeld was involved from the beginning, he has seen many changes in the bear industry, and indeed, has even been instrumental in some of them. When he started out there was only a choice of about four different colours of mohair in a couple of qualities, and in a straight pile only. This is hard to imagine when you see the enormous variety of mohairs on offer today, but Kjeld attributes many ‘innovations’ to his close partnership with Norton Weaving, the only mill left in England which still produces mohair.

    The first new concept was ‘distressed’ mohair, which enabled artists to create bears with a well-loved, ‘straight from the attic’ look: "There was nothing to compete against it. For the next several years, all we heard was...More, more, more!... That was before collectable teddy bears really caught on in England or on the Continent." explains Kjeld.

    Perhaps you may not realize it, but Norton's distressed mohair is the forerunner of many of the ‘antique’-type finishes that we are used to seeing today. The German and English curl, feather, and ‘kinky curl’ finishes all take their inspiration from that original distressed look. I suspect that Kjeld gives the mills a headache from time to time with his suggestions for new mohairs: "I think they would be much happier if the artists just worked with a couple of basic colours!" he laughs, "They keep saying that we have reached the limits for what can be done with mohair - but we don't subscribe to that, so we keep plugging away, trying to develop new and interesting ideas, colours, and hopefully, new finishes."

    However, as Kjeld explains, it is major mohair supply houses such as his which have the finger on the pulse of changing needs and market conditions within the industry and are, therefore, perfectly placed to approach the mills with new ideas for mohair colours and finishes. Not that it is always a ‘win win’ situation; developing new colours and qualities is a time-consuming and costly business, so he has to be certain of a demand before he can persuade a mill to put a particular mohair into production.

    As well as being a major player in the mohair business, Intercal has recently begun to gain a reputation on the Internet. The Intercal website is impressive, with information about thecompany, articles about related subjects, and "monthly specials", where customers can obtain generous discounts on particular mohairs. Best of all, customers can place orders online and all e-mail queries are answered promptly. This is especially helpful for people outside the USA whomay be unused to thinking in dollars, or who have questions about shipping.

    A recent development has been the introduction of special packages of mohair, themed around particular colours or finishes. Mindful of the potentially expensive Customs bills encountered when ordering goods from abroad, these packages have been put together with overseas customers in mind, although they are available to all Internet customers. They work out much cheaper than if you were to buy the mohairs in separate lengths which goes a long way to offsetting shipping and Customs charges.

    Intercal is also providing a valuable service to bear artists who do not have the wherewithal to build their own web pages. A genuine bear enthusiast, Kjeld is offering free web space for artists to show their work and reach a worldwide audience. It is a site which is growing daily: "We started out with the idea of making the site a place where we could not only sell our fabrics or announce new innovations, but also make it a place which could benefit the teddy bear community as a whole," explains Kjeld, "our site presently carries web pages featuring some hundred artists - compliments of Intercal Trading - who might not otherwise be on the ‘Net'. Another free Web service we are working on is to list, not only all the major US shows, but also the names of participating artists. A ‘Who-Will-Be-Where’ listing intended to allow the collectors to easily find out where their favourite artists will be."

    Intercal has built its reputation on excellent service and on never standing still. Kjeld believes that there is always a better way of doing things and another great new mohair yet to be designed. Most of the staff have been with him for years and many customers too, who are all known on first name terms.

    "Needless to say, it makes me proud when a potential customer calls up or leaves an e-mail message saying....I hear you guys are THE best!" says Kjeld, "Little comments like that make the whole thing worthwhile," he smiles.

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