Any foray into local Scandinavian style—as purveyed by a number of area emporiums, boutiques, and gift shops—rightly begins at Ingebretsen’s. This stalwart Lake Street retailer offers Scandinavian wares in their most basic forms: wool cardigans with pewter clasps, traditional Norwegian hardanger doily cloths and embroidery, and countless varieties of the painted wooden Dala horse. For Minnesotans—especially those who grew up in small towns like Lindstrom (aka “Little Sweden”) or Norwegian Northfield—there’s a certain familiarity in the way the gray-haired shopgirls at Ingebretsen’s tidy up after their guests. Presiding over a stock of Vikings miniatures and recordings by Finland’s Lahti Symphony, they keep the store’s displays looking bountiful but orderly, just as we northerly types like it. At the far end of the store, just in time to fatten up for the season, the shopper finds a spread of Firkløver chocolates, gingerbread cookies, and lutefisk. And there’s more to marvel at behind the meat counter: blood sausage, pickled herring, sardines.
As handy as Ingebretsen’s may be for those in need of Icelandic Christmas cards, it has not, in recent years, been quite what we had in mind for certain style-conscious folks on our shopping lists who might appreciate something “Scandinavian.” From the 1950s on, most people have taken the adjective to describe stunning-yet-simple designs for furniture and housewares. Modern Scandinavian design evolved amid the new, and rather liberal, brand of social democracy—not unlike Minnesota’s own—in Northern Europe following World War II. The result of tinkering with an array of newly developed and inexpensive materials—such as plastics, pressed wood, and enameled aluminum—the new domestic goods were touted as efficient in both function and production. Scandinavians regarded them as tools for bettering their standard of living.
Steeped as they are in Scandinavian heritage, the Twin Cities have long been dotted with a great many retailers offering merchandise from that part of the world. Many of them cater to loft dwellers in search of what’s new and hot in home design—which oftentimes turns out to be classics dating back to the much-heralded arrival of Scandinavian design stateside some fifty years ago. For example, goods made from the bright, graphic fabrics produced by Marimekko—with quirky names such as Kivet, Korsi, and Unikko—have been a constant (and recently reinvigorated) presence at just about every store purporting to be Scandinavian. Saga Living, on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, boasts the most expansive Marimekko collection in these parts. Another mainstay, the Aalto vase—a wavy-shaped piece unveiled in 1936 by Finnish designer Alvar Aalto (above)—today is manufactured by Iittala, the renowned glassware company of the same national origin. Scandia, a furniture store on Washington Avenue (not far from the Metrodome), carries a reissue of Danish designer Poul Henningsen’s famous “brain lamp.” And Danish Teak Classics, housed in a Northeast Minneapolis warehouse space, is a trove of mid-century furniture designs from familiar names like Hans Wegner and Borge Mogensen as well as unknowns; its parallelogram-shaped coffee table would serve as the perfect centerpiece for any minimalist living room—though its price would deplete this admirer’s savings account twice.
While these purveyors of modern and contemporary Scandinavian design don’t go in for Dala-horse doorstops or braided wool sweaters, they do have a soft spot for the moose—a creature indigenous to the Scandinavian folk arts. Finnstyle—a sleek, sparsely appointed store in downtown Minneapolis—offers moose-shaped napkin rings skillfully carved from individual wood discs and, for those who entertain more casually, paper napkins bearing a minimal but friendly-looking moose profile. Another popular item at several Scandinavian boutiques is a moose-shaped keychain made from cork, while at Nordic Home, a store with outlets in Edina and Minneapolis’ warehouse district, the moose silhouette adorns rugs and fleece blankets that are draped across birchwood-framed sofas and easy chairs. Ingebretsen’s, too, has some moose-themed items. But there’s some indication the venerable retailer is forging ahead—into porcupine territory, with a stack of polymer coasters.
No survey of Scandinavian style is complete without a visit to Ikea, the Swedish-born behemoth famous for its cheaper-than-imaginable designs in pressed wood and plastic. Here, as at the boutiques, the merchandise is often artfully displayed and the designers prominently credited, even on the tag for a $5.99 knotted rug. A closer look reveals the extent to which many of the store’s young designers borrow liberally from their mid-century Scandinavian forebears; for instance, the $69.99 Knappa Klöver floor lamp has, at first glance, an uncanny resemblance to Henningsen’s iconic brain lamp. In fact, if the shopper of modest means unburdens herself of snobbery—and the burning desire for a reissued Arne Jacobsen chair—she will realize that cut-rate Ikea, in its way, carries on the tradition of those venerable designers. Such reasoning also serves to make a two-hundred-dollar Ikea coffee table seem a much more attractive purchase.
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