Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.06.2018, Page 40

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Best of Reykjavík 2018
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Mink_Grapevine2018_feb_nota.pdf 1 12.2.2018 17:05
Skólavörðustígur 19
tel (+354) 552 1890
Borgartún 31
tel (+354) 552 1980
BUY DIRECTLY
FROM
THE PEOPLE
WHO MAKE THEM
“Be careful—you might come out with some
weird storage boxes and a Halloween outfit
you had no intention of buying.”
SHOPPING GUIDE
Line The
Nest
How to make your home cosy for SAD season
Words: John Rogers Photo: Art Bicnick
When there’s a fierce storm
rattling the windows and the
ten-minute walk to your favou-
rite bar feels like a Frodo-esque
mission, it’s sometimes nice to
just bail on the world, close the
curtains, turn up the radiators,
and fire up Netflix. It’s no won-
der, then, that Icelanders take a
bit of pride in their home envi-
ronment. It’s more coping strat-
egy than materialism—a bright
and comfortable living space can
have a decisive effect on your
mood in the dark months. With
that in mind, here are some
Reykjavík shops to pick up the
bargain furniture, quality home-
wares, or design touches that’ll
tie your place together and help
ease you through the winter.
AKKÚRAT
Aðalstræti 2
With a tightly curated selection
of clothing, design objects, mag-
azines, and inexplicably desir-
able bric-a-brac, the new-kid-
on-the-block AKKÚRAT store
has quickly made a name for
itself. There’s a fair bit of Icelan-
dic design here, mixed in with
intriguing Nordic and interna-
tional products. We particularly
liked the Nomess range, the &
Anti Matter modular sculptures,
and the signature clothing line
by Döðlur.
Góði Hirðirinn
Fellsmúli 28, Reykjavík 108
This Icelandic branch of the
Good Shepherd is a cavernous
second-hand supermarket that’s
a true Aladdin’s cave of home-
wares. From tattered grandma
sofas to pots and pans, jumbled
crockery, retro stereos, rugs,
kitschy ornaments, cross-stitch
samplers and bizarre quasi-erot-
ic amateur paintings, you could
furnish your entire place here,
all whilst contributing to a good
cause. There’s a rapid stock turn-
over, the prices are right, and
they deliver. So go and shepherd
some good stuff back to your
place.
Geysir Home
Skólavörðustígur 12
A new addition to the Geysir
clothing store mini-empire, Gey-
sir Heima is an upscale home-
wares emporium that seemed
to sprout out of the ground fully
formed at the end of last year.
They sell a uniformly desirable
selection of geometric furniture,
fancy shelving, vases and crock-
ery, wall prints, toiletries, bikes
and more, from a diverse range
of designers including Andrée
Jardin, Angústúra, Atelier Dot-
tir, Auður Ómarsdóttir, Hasami
Porcelain, Korkimon, Minimum
Design, Usee, WDLND, Yield and
ystudio.
Hrím
Laugavegur 25
Iceland has arrived as a coun-
try with a design aesthetic all
of its own in recent years, and
you can find many of the clas-
sics in Hrím. Ragnheiður Ösp
Sigurðardóttir’s Knot cushion
is one such item: a long tube of
padded material, ingeniously
tied into a neat and comfortable
form. The shop’s refined sensi-
bilities are reflected in the pric-
es, but dotting your home with
items from Hrím will definitely
brighten the place up.
Kokka
Laugavegur 47
Kokka is a fancy fantasy-land for
food lovers, filled with all sorts
of utensils you didn’t even know
you needed. They import the
best Italian pasta machines as
well as beautiful Le Creuset pots.
It might not be the cheapest, but
when you want quality, there’s
nothing better.
Flying Tiger
Laugavegur 13
Whether it’s a French press, an
iPhone cable, a bathmat, mop
and bucket, notepad, veg peeler,
teapot, or a candle, Flying Ti-
ger is a store that has basically
everything you might need for
your house. For standard-issue
stuff, the quality isn’t bad, and
neither are the prices (in Iceland
terms). Be careful though—you
might also come out with some
weird storage boxes and a Hal-
loween costume you had no in-
tention of buying.