Scandinavian items that will conjure up cool interiors in your home

Kya deLongchamps celebrates a new energy in Scandinavian interior style — and gives a rundown of the new items and old names that will conjure up cool interiors.

During my first winter in Sweden, I visited new friends in thigh-high snow.

Still shaking from the concentrated effort of driving in a gulley of pack ice that passed for the country roads around Eslöv, I was tugged into the house by the elbows of my coat.

Fleece slippers were pulled onto my bare feet with gentle mutterings of care, and hot chocolate delivered into my cupped hands.

1. All that crisp surfacing needs texture to succeed. This dense Mongolian sheepskin is sheer luxury underfoot or over a chair back. €341, Amara. John Rocha has some cushions at Debenhams in the same colour at €75.

I sank back against a sheepskin tossed over a 70s leather sling-chair feeling very Jane Eyre.

The interiors were equally open, warm and free of pretence — lines and colour not tripped up by fussy aesthetics.

Experiencing the tension of the dangerously cold night and this blessed, wood-scented sanctuary made the heart flip.

Understated, modern, elegant, my love of Scandinavian design and interior composition has not cooled.

Each season a flush of new products, forms, colours, finishes and ideas from the hands of designers inspired or present in the Nordic lands, arrives to re-affirm that devotion.

This bookshelf by Bi Design is inspired by the nobility and bearing of wild deer in the Finish forest and comes in a range of sizes suited from the bedroom to the kitchen. Ä398-640, bidesign.fi

A standard house there is compact.

Pieces must be functional and earn their place, and resonate with the Scandinavians’ design legacy of honest, well crafted, ecologically sound materials.

Company’s like Norman Copenhagen in Denmark, may be taking the world by storm, but their inherent politically-led principal to offer pieces made to last and that are available to all, is deeply felt.

Add to this that mid-century love affair with Jacobsen, Saarinen, Alvar Aalto and Eero Aarnio — and pan-Nordic is a relationship to last.

Here are just some of the studios and makers to watch for that special buy and for inspiration in your high street prizes.

The Block lamp was designed by Harri Koskinen and is one of Design House Stockholm’s most popular products. Currently on offer for €125 (RRP €250) from the Finnish Design Shop

Finland:

The Finnish contribution to design goes way beyond the pneumatic plastic pups of Aarnio and Littala glass, and their bold fabrics are a revelation.

First up has to be Vallilla (est 1935) whose prints are infused with the savage beauty of the country’s high mountainous regions and the eclectic, humour-filled spirit of the Finnish people.

The latest collection Huipulla (Summit) includes searing colours and wild botanic designs in fabrics, rugs, ready-made curtains, cushion covers, kitchen textiles, bed linen and wallpapers. www.vallilainteriors.fi

The new fabric collection from the iconic Finnish design house of Vallila (est 1935) takes its inspiration from the landscape, flowers and plants growing at the peak of the Northern Mountains. Working from its original silk factory, you can now buy vibrant Vallila fabrics, rugs, ready-made curtains, cushion covers, kitchen textiles, bed linen wallpapers and shower curtains online, vallilainteriors.fi.

The house of Marimekko (est 1951) will be familiar to any fashionista for beautiful and enduring patterned fabrics, and is easily spotted in everyday outfits ornamenting women on the streets of Helsinki and its fabrics are used everywhere by Finnair.

Tableware in a white ground combines beautifully with its textiles, and our favourite is Good Company, designed by Sami Ruotsalainen with patterns for the collection drawn by Maija Louekari. You can find large plates from around €29 online.

Artek, the Finnish design company established in 1935 by Alvar and Aino Aalto, still has a young, restless vibe.

Their familiar E60 Stool is priced from €175 new and the Artek Tea-Trolley 901in birch ply and linoleum at €1,855 is another designer favourite. www.artek.fi

* Lifetime Finnish buy:

Karuselli lounge chair by Yrjö Kukkapuro (1965), €6,670. www.finnishdesignshop.co.uk

Sweden:

More everyday than wonderful? You decide.

Still, the Viking giant of retail, IKEA, is hard to beat on price point and invention and the lack of unnecessary adornment nails the look.

The new Sittning collection goes right back to the heart of Scandinavian tenets of good design with natural materials, minimalistic forms and a sensual touch. Pick up a carafe (€6) glasses (€4.50/€6 for 2) and the ovoid metal salad servers (€15).

String, founded by Nils Strinning is best known for its stand alone, airy shelving released in 1953.

You can’t go more Scandinavian than Kosta Boda glass, and it’s available new and vintage from a range of sources. This Mirage glass by Göran Wärff would make a fabulous corporate or wedding gift, €1,250, kostaboda-artgallery.com

Every year it expands the portfolio. A pocket Works shelf starts around €140, with desks from €2,155. www.String.se  (try Lost Weekend in Dun Laoghaire for String bargains).

The brightest and most influential young things in Swedish furniture right now, Farg & Blanche, founded by French-born, Fredrik Färg and Emma Marga Blanche is based in Stolkholm.

You can find examples of their ‘extreme sewing’ and retailers worldwide at their website.

The Frankie dining chair for Johanson design was a celebrity success at Milan and Stockholm’s highly influential furniture fairs, this year. www.Fargblanche.com

* Lifetime Swedish buy: Kosta Boda’s new Red Rim Brains. Glasses and vessels designed by Bertil Valien, €542. www.kostaboda.se  for suppliers.

Denmark:

Dominating our notions of what Scandinavian style is, and should be, since the 50s, Denmark not only refreshes the furniture classics we know, but pushes us forward year after year.

Reinterpreted by commercial retailers worldwide, and clearly inspiring furniture-makers, Muuto,deftly jogs classic shapes.

Its Cover chair designed by Thomas Bentzen (€400-€600) is celebrated by IKEA as the Esbjorn (€85).

George Jensen was a Danish silversmith and hid company is still a name to conjure with in Danish design. One of its recent collections is the work of English designers Ilse Crawford who’s work links the heart, the head and the hands. Pieces from €95-€145

The house of Normann Cophenhagen is a perfect way into Danish delicious, with its outwardly simple lines in furnishings, lighting and table accessories.

The Danish are unafraid to celebrate new materials and deliver up products in resin, acrylic and plastic, with the same respect and attention to detail as wood.

Danish maker Normann Copenhagen cannot keep this new Acrobat lamp in stock, so be prepared to put one or order. The strong lamp can be articulated flat or to as much as 90°. €275, www.normann-copenhagen.com

Simon Legald’s innovative Form Chair is a lesson in balance and elegance in a plastic seat (€215), www.normann-copenhagen.com

Also affordable and accessible and happy to work through industrial manufacturing, Hay, (est 2002 by Rolf Hay and inspired by other Danish design houses including Gubi), prides itself on ‘humanistic’ designs, and has hosted a wide array of brilliant young creatives.

For the completely obsessed Danish devotee, Uchiwa the new chair from Hay of Denmark is on the way to order in the next month or two. Inspired by a Japanese hand fan and comfy as a catchers’ mitt it’s likely to be yet another Scandi’ design classic, hay.de

If you love 1960s shapes, this is the brand for you. Take a look at the About a Chair armchair (€225), available through Ambiente Direct (Ireland).

* Lifetime buy:

Don’t miss the collaborative work of Wrong for Hay (Sebastian Wong in London and Hay of Denmark). Frame Table in soaped beech, €1,265. www.wrongforhay.com

Norway:

If you think you don’t know Norwegian design, the name Stressless will dispel that.

Ekorn’s classic recliners and leather chairs, both new and second hand, are highly collectable.

Norwegian designs are the lesser known element of the pan-Nordic family, and often mis-ascribed when vintage, as Danish.

For second-hand collectors, this is great news for finding sleepers at auction and second hand markets.

Launched last month The SITTNING collection is based on over 40 pieces of dinnerware, flatware, glasses, cutlery, vases, candle holders and tablecloths. Reach out and touch those affordable lovelies in natural materials from wood to mouth blown glass, IKEA.

To get just a flavour of what we have been missing log onto www.norwegianicons.com to see ceramics, glass and furniture from the 1930s to the 1970s including Fredrik Kayser’s hide safari chairs from the 1960s; tables by Bendt Wenge and curious pottery birds by Arne Lindass.

‘Blossom’ by current maker Andreas Bergsaker, shown in London this year, features two mirrors and one lamp each attached to a handle which is placed in a wooden tray with slightly elevated edges to keep small accessories and sundries ready for use.

Modest, beautifully-made and so functional, it’s an invitation to find out more about what Norway has to offer in furniture and accessories. www.andreasbergsaker.com

Fjord Fiesta, Slåke and Utopian are all exciting Norwegian brands, making anew and franchised to classics.

* Lifetime buy:

The Stressless City, low back with an aluminium star base is tearing-down-the-walls gorgeous from €2,000 paired to a stool.

Suppliers include Casey’s Furniture, Cork and Limerick. www.caseys.ie