Tag: Nordic Chill

Just browsing…yeah, right!

I met a former colleague for coffee and had my first crookie (combined cookie and croissant). I could manage only half of it, but it was yum.

The cafe closed early, so we went browsing around The Colombo, a mall I love because it has Nordic Chill (Moomins and Ikea), Trade Aid, French Connection, Industria and The Collective.

One of the wooden toys in The Collective

I have hovered on the threshold of Annah Stretton but my glamorous friend boldly went in, so I did too.

Very floral and lush
Exuberant wrapping
What I brought home

It is nice to browse with a friend who is into browsing and who can draw your attention to details you might have missed. She knows what’s on trend, what has been fashionable and come around again, and is both sensible and encouraging (in my opinion). I really did need that etched glass jug (French Connection), and a test run has proved the glass with pattern in relief (Industria) does add pizzazz to a gin and tonic, as I expected it would.

Art Takeover

The Colombo is a small shopping mall with interesting retail shops and cafes. There are several empty spaces which have been taken over as a series of galleries by artist Philip Trusttum. Each gallery has a title, such as ‘Urban Kinesis’ and ‘Manufactured Whimsy’.

The art works are for sale. There were price lists inside each gallery. Eye-watering prices – and some works had sold.

I browsed in several shops, especially my favourite, Nordic Chill, and also Trade Aid which is open until October when it, sadly, goes online only. The Trade Aid chocolate maker is also closing, so I bought some of their dark raspberry chocolate while I still can. Perhaps the empty spaces taken over for art are a sign of the struggling small business retailer, like Trade Aid. I’m doing my best to make sure Nordic Chill doesn’t go under. I love their Icelandic socks.

At the end of the mall I was startled to find the sparkly, opulent, colourful shop of Annah Stretton, a NZ fashion designer. This is art, too. I hovered on the threshold but did not go in. Later, I discovered her strapline is: Any woman, any time. So much for that!

Pining for the fjords

Since the day had decided to be overcast, I set off for The Colombo and Nordic Chill. I subscribe to the Moomin newsletter and had thought the merchandise was only available by ordering from overseas until I looked on the Nordic Chill website yesterday. I last visited the shop in 2018 before I went to Scandinavia. At that time I was immersing myself in things Scandinavian and discovered the Moomins – not a weird religion as you might imagine, but the creation of novelist and artist Tove Jansson. In Finland, I learned a little of Finnish psychology in Karoliina Korhonen’s ‘social guides’ to Finland which I brought home. The characterisations seem similar to those in the Moomin books.

The new shop design on the website made me even more nostalgic and keen to see it this morning. It features the classic Scandinavian house which you see dotted through the countryside and along the fjords and coast, often on islands. Usually painted red, these are summer retreats – although that word seems wrong as Scandinavians come out into the sunlight after the long northern winter. I put on my red house earrings from Finland and set out.

I found the shop is in two parts – one featuring a lot of Ikea furniture, and the other woollen clothing and throws, children’s toys, books and homewares. Little mice seem to be the latest thing. Not like the one Felix tormented to death yesterday, but ones that wear clothes, live in houses, go to the beach, and do the vacuuming (with a Nilfisk of course).

But it was Moomins I was most keen to see. And there they were.

There were books, a little Moomin house, placemats, toys, tins, key rings, caps, socks and comic strip magnets. I wonder what Tove Jansson would think of it all. She came to resent that the popularity of the Moomins left little time for what she considered her real art.

An article about Tove Jansson from The Simple Things magazine Nov. 2017 – with a book and plush toy from Copenhagen, mug from Helsinki, and a book from Telling Tales

I came home with a few things (having made room by decluttering recently…)

– including a backpack which by happy chance matches the very nice jacket passed on to me by a friend in the weekend.

This afternoon I watched a couple of episodes of MoominValley on TVNZ+ (voices of Matt Berry, Taron Egerton, Rosamund Pike, Jennifer Saunders, Richard Ayoade, Kate Winslet, Alison Steadman, Matt Lucas, Bel Powley…and more). Now, on the cusp of afternoon and evening, the sun is shining.