Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2010, Síða 36

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24
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2010
Shopping | Antiques
All Kinds Of Everything
Aunty Fríða always has a treat for you
Just take a peek in the windows of
Fríða Frænka, the little grey corrugated
metal house in downtown Reykjavík,
and you’ll be hooked. This antique shop
is enough to make even the most self-
respecting antique lover jizz her panta-
loons.
Antique dolls peer from the base-
ment windows, coaxing visitors in,
daring them to leave without dropping
cash on something old, ridiculous, and
beautiful. The shop is jammed with
carefully organised items—cupboards
stacked with china and silverware, a
ceiling covered with hanging lamps
(most of which actually work, I’m told),
crowded Danish modern teak furni-
ture on the basement floor, a table of
faded plastic children’s toys, an alcove
stuffed with fabrics, jars full of thimbles
and vintage eyeglasses. Every nook and
cranny is prime real estate.
THE COLLECTOR
Anna Ringsted is the keeper of these
treasures. She is Reykjavík’s unofficial
steward of cool old things. “I’ve got all
kinds of everything,” Anna says when
I speak to her in the shop. Her most
expensive item is a piece of silverware,
and her best deal? “That is difficult to
say, because I’ve got loads of things,”
she said. “Everything is a bargain.”
Not as much a bargain as going to
the flea market, I must say, but Fríða
Frænka (Aunt Friða in English), isn’t
about junk. This store is a whole lot of
special. People usually don’t walk in
looking for something specific, she tells
me. They come to view the collection,
to find the unexpected. That’s the joy
of this beautifully curated shop, and it’s
worth paying for.
Anna refuses to stereotype her typi-
cal customer. There isn’t one, she says.
“Some are looking for tables, some
for chairs, some for jewelry, some for
tablecloths, lamps.” And lots of tour-
ists find a little piece of Iceland to take
home with them.
OLD THINGS FROM EvERYWHERE
By no means is everything in here from
Iceland, however. The antiques come
from all over the world, Anna says. “A
lot of them from Denmark and Eng-
land.”
“Sweden, Finland!” chimes in the
young woman with stylised rouged
cheeks working from behind the till.
Even though they originate from
afar, Anna mostly finds her wares lo-
cally, at small personal sales in Reyk-
javík—moving sales, or when a family
is selling off the wares of a deceased
loved one.
The bits and bobs that do originate
from Iceland, Anna says, are usually
furniture, ceramics, and silverware. At
the front of the shop are barrels of
green glass fishing floats which must
have come from Iceland. Perfect for
tourists to take home.
Everything in the store says some-
thing about Icelandic culture, not just
the stuff that was produced in Iceland,
Anna says. The place gives visitors a
peek of what Icelanders of the 20th
century chose to put in their homes.
The collection also says something
about Anna. Her favourite item of the
moment is downstairs, a huge wooden
wardrobe. “It’s too big for me to take
home,” she says. Anna’s home looks
like the store, of course.
“I don’t go to IKEA,” she laughs. She
has one item from the Swedish mega-
chain, she tells me, “but you can’t see
it.”
Though she’s always been inter-
ested in antiques, her tastes and there-
fore her shop-curating have changed
over the years as she has matured and
as she sees things along the way that
spark her interest. “It would be tiring
to always sell the same thing,” she tells
me. Still, some items in the store are
old friends that have been around since
Friða Frænka opened, Anna says.
A Danish import herself, Anna
founded the store 29 years ago be-
cause she saw a gap in the Reykjavík
retail landscape. Fríða Frænka “was
wanted,” she says. Anna has no back-
ground in design, “just a good eye,” she
says. “Just look around and you see
why.”
Found At Fríða Frænka
Pairs of vintage skis >>14
One saddle with red velvet seat
Vintage telephones
Eye glasses >>15
Old metal coffee pots >>16
Wall-hanging barometers >>6
Brilliant orange Icelandic pottery
from the ‘70s
Green glass fishing floats >> 21
STEPHANIE ORFORD
HöRðUR SvEINSSON