Textile Tourism | Sweden part 2

Shopping

The places we visited in Sweden (Stockholm, Mariestad, and Gothenburg) were absolutely visually stimulating. I did a lot of window shopping—by the way, did you know that in French, this translates as “window-licking”?—and really enjoyed seeing everything; so much was different from what’s in most of the American windows I pass by.

Very fun textiles in HildaHilda

HildaHilda was a very lovely experience. I encountered this little shop while doing some pre-trip research and we wandered by the Old Town location after it closed one evening. It’s tiny and when I peeked in the window I knew I had to go back. So we squeezed in a visit before joining our fellow American travelers for a palace tour. The artisans make great useful items like zippered pouches, lunch bags, and tea towels from cotton and linen materials woven at a small mill in a different part of the country. The tiny shop had two sewing stations which were occupied by the nicest women when we stopped in. I wanted to buy everything.

Even when I wasn’t planning (or able) to buy things, there was so much to look at. A well-known Stockholm designer has a colorful showroom near our hotel, so we walked by a lot. I was impressed by the number of fabric shops in Stockholm, a city of about 975,000. And the small town of Mariestad had several sewing and knitting shops, which were unfortunately not open when I could have visited.

In Gothenburg, we visited a Gudrun Sjoden shop, which was full of beautiful colors, and which had Gudrun’s sketches on the wall of the entry stairway (below, left). Not far from this shop was a Marimekko location which was exciting—and, they had fabrics on sale! Gothenburg also had a larger number of fabric shops than I’m used to seeing in the states, including a large chain called Self Made. This is a Danish company with locations also in Germany, Sweden, and Norway, and they had everything (below, right). I couldn’t figure out the procedure for having fabrics cut, but I gladly went home with a remnant and a pre-cut piece of organic cotton/lycra jersey.

Yes, we did have to acquire an additional bag to bring home all our spoils, but it was all in the name of research.