So am following all these bloggers, instagram, shop owners, suppliers and designers from both amazing Top Drawer and Home in London and Formex in Stockholm. Oh yes I am in shopping mood! Now after we have cleared up the shop from Christmas stock and are working our way through the stock take I am totally ready to do a little make over in the shop. What is on trend…well in Sweden all about organic foods and materials plus a lot of soft neutral colours like soft pinks, lilacs, eucalyptus, greys, mints and so on. The Nordic Neat, Nordic Essence, Nordic Motion and Nordic Folklore. It is more and more common that you find food in interior design shops as well as restaurants starting to look at clever designs and interiors for a new look. To follow a trend can be quite tricky and I admire designers who get it perfectly right and I love when a design really shows the love behind it. Also reading about trends and how to approach them is extremely interesting. One man I admire a lot is Ernst Kirchsteiger and his way of thinking regarding trends is quite healthy. In an interview he mentions that you need to look at trends as the topping in the cake. You need a stable base and a trend should just be the bright red cherry on the top. It sure sounds very close to my own heart and ideas. Do not overdo it…everything does not have to match, it is more about you and your personality than the interior design magazines.

Formex in Sweden is now the biggest meeting place for Nordic interior design. With 850 exhibitors and over 25000 visitors from all over the world. This is the place for a lady like me should be…sadly I never seem to make it! We say it every year and this year we actually started to plan to go in August, because it would be great to see new and exciting Christmas designs. But of course it turns out it will take place the same time Stina starts P1…sigh! Oh well we still have a few months to work out a solution. Formex is the place where you can also make a name. I just read a lovely article about Lina Rickardsson, the founder of Pappelina. Pappelina turns 15 years this year and it is fascinating to see how it all started and how well they are doing all over the world. Plus I like her as person, that always helps.

I watched the Swedish morning news and saw a few bits from the Formex fair. One bit was about what is on trend at the moment and they had chosen to film and show off a brand I adore a lot. Well done Västergården! You got it right, how to mix handmade tableware with organic foods. And I was very delighted to see Gustav Hallen win the Formaidable award for his flask Accent designed for Sagaform. I love flasks and I have tried this and it is superb. The design is a classic 1970’s TV flask, but with a modern twist focusing on the modern kitchen handles and stylish lid. It should be drip free (for the ladies who worry about their tablecloth, or mums like me who seem to spill everywhere), comfortable to pour from and also keep the heat. It is stylish and ergonomically well done! Congratulations we say! And guess what it has arrived! You can buy the happy blue (with blue and purple lids) or the stylish black (with black and lime lids).

A flask to me is great. When I was home with Lovisa I poured the left over coffee from the pot in my flask in the morning, headed across town to nursery to drop off Stina, came home an hour later and had a hot cup of coffee. When we have guests over for a fika there is always coffee in the flask, hot and ready for the second cup. So why are flasks not as popular in the UK as in Sweden? Maybe because here it is more common to use a cafetiere or a fancy machine rather than a coffee maker (which I am a big fan of). And the take away culture is rather big here. We have a massive coffee culture in Sweden as well but the take away is not as big as here. You meet your friends at a cafe or at someone’s home instead of grabbing a coffee on the go. As you shold know by now is that we take our FIKA extremely seriously…don’t mess with it…so I wonder if the take away culture will ever break through?!

Had a look through Sagaforms Spring Summer 2015 catalogue and yes we will try out some of there more FUNctional kitchen designs (very clever ideas). More about that later because now it is time to get moving, need to prepare some orders!!!

Have a great day.

Charlotte x