i am writing this in stockholm, which as most of you know is the capital of sweden, a country in scandinavia. stockholm is very picturesque, a series of islands full of parks, hills, old buildings [you don't want to come here for modern architecture, as there's not much of any] and beautiful people! [they do have a lot of modern engineering like an extensive tunnel system that keeps traffic off the streets, something NYC LA and Tokyo should really look into for their congestion problems]
i came here to meet with my scandinavian distributor and research/assess the market a bit as i think nooka can do a better here. i was a bit shocked to see how poorly merchandised accessories are in general here, so it's no fault of our distributor. i'm actually curious as to how other similar designers/companies do here now that i've seen the shoppes. it seems that sweden is better at exporting it's high-design image than it is applying it internally:) also, i think our strategy in the US of placing nooka in fashion boutiques [as opposed to larger stores] needs to be translated better overseas. anyway, it's a learning process and i'm just very pleased that this little project called nooka is taking me all over the word!
i was taken out one night by swedish rapper, adam tensta, and had a great time at SPY, stockholm's most exclusive nightclub [we went to ambassa deur first, but it was full of the most pretentious lot of young people i've seen in a long time]. spy bar had 2 rooms, one with a house dj an the other pop/rock. adam is an amazing guy who will release his CD internationally in november. look up his name on youtube as there are many vids available. he's very popular here in sweden so i'm interested to see how well he does, first in europe and then in the US. also, as you can see, he's a fan of nooka, and the purple zub looks great on him.
i won't bore you with all the details of what i've done, but the sun doesn't set in the summer here, so it's easy to stay out longer than i'm used to! i need to plan a trip here where i can take in more of the music scene, as many of my fave bands are swedish [the knife, the caesars, the shout out louds, etc.]. it's also funny timing that 2 of my fave local NYC acts were/are playing live while here [not that i was invited or anything!], MGMT and the magnetic fields.
fotos: adam tensta with magnus [our distributor out of malmo] in the subway, me with magnus's baby, downtown club area at 3:00am – so however you slice it, stockholm ROCKS!
for those of you still reading this: i also had a nice day catching up with my friend ake who is a sake sommalier/importer here, had a lovely dinner with the brothers of our current intern, and had smoked rheindeer ham with breakfast. the only food i wasn't able to eat before leaving is isterband, a type of sausage eaten with lingonberries. if you need a cool hotel, the clarion skanstull where i stayed is very nice [shocking considering what the same chain gets you in other countries] with modern art everywhere and a trendy bar that was packed at 3:00 am on saturday night.
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