If you like your sunshine with a bit of wind chill and you’re tired of being the only Aryan in the village, Stockholm is your ticket! It has all the trappings of a rich cultural centre like NYC or London, but with a much calmer pace. i-D online sidled around the city for 3.5 days to get a feel for the place. Here’s what we found…
Text: Aaron Walker
A Place (a shopping experience)
‘A Place’ is a fashion emporium and newspaper founded in 2007 with a view to showcasing Sweden’s finest threads. Not quite your average H&M or Cheap Monday, A Place’s wares are at more of an ‘Acne’ price point with the store catering to the sartorially discerning Swede. They have everything from Alexander Wang to Y-3, but it’s the more leftfield Scandinavian labels that lend A Place its appeal. We particularly liked the kooky rustic stylings of Henrik Vibskov.
Strand (a night spot)
Located deep in the beating heart of Stockholm’s up-and-coming arts district Hornstull, Strand plays host to a series of the city’s most bleeding edge nights and gigs. It’s also a jolly nice place to grab a bite and/or play table tennis during the day too.
Köttbaren (A meat bar)
There’s something gloriously base about eating raw meat. Köttbaren caters to the unashamed carnivores amongst us. It’s a butcher and restaurant that revels in the macabre. We sat and ate our Råbiff (a fist full of raw beef and a raw egg thrown into the bottom of a jar with some pickles) by candlelight and under a canopy of sinister-looking meat hooks. It was beyond delicious and pretty cheap.
Here’s the recipe for Råbiff:
150 grams of trimmed top sirloin, minced to medium coarseness
2 gherkins, cubed
1 tbs capers
1 tbs finely chopped red onion
1 tbs cubed pickled beets
1 raw egg yolk
1 tsp chopped parsley
Salt and black pepper
Mustard creme: 2 tbs cider mustard, 1 tbs mayonnaise, salt and pepper
Place the vegetables at the bottom, add the meat, mustard creme, chopped parsley and top with the egg yolk, flavour with salt and pepper. Serve on toasted sour-dough bread.
Nervous Nellie (a band)
Nervous Nellie are a shaggy-haired Stockholm based pop-rock band who i-D had the pleasure of meeting on our whistle-stop tour of the city. They’re made up of two pairs of brothers – the Johnsons (bearded) and the Johanssons (non-bearded) Their upbeat strummings conjure a frothy, folky Gin-Blossoms-esque optimism. They’re currently finishing off their new album having been in the studio with our very own Paloma Faith earlier this year.
Fotografiska (a photography museum)
Fotografiska is brand spanking new and is located on the bank of Stadsgården in Stockholm, not far from the hub of Slussen. It opened in Stockholm in May 2010 and is a cavernous monument to contemporary photography. Fotografiska presents four unique major exhibitions and about 20 smaller exhibitions annually. We caught Northern Women in Chanel (a study of hot Scandinavian girls in Chanel), a Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective (nudes and still life) and the truly amazing Invisible Man (the first exhibition of Chinese artist Liu Bolin in Scandinavia). But the show that really caught our eye was the dreamy work of Swedish photographer Martin Borgen, whose documentary portraits evoked pagan folklore and the wintery beauty of Sweden (it runs until December 4th). The café at the top of the building is also pretty special – serving super desserts and with panoramic views of the city.