Swedes do it slowly and are keen to get it right but when getting there they really get there. At the moment it is the shopping experience in Stockholm that has got my attention.

 
Part of my job is to keep track of shops and shopping in Stockholm and the development that past few years has really been amazing. Only during the past year whilst I have been working with StockholmFashionDays.com a lot has happened. Stockholm is becoming a shopping experience well worth its own visit.

I remember years ago where there were about three shops in town where it was possible to get cool clothes from small Swedish designers. Tjallamalla definitely set the trend for this and a number of the designers that are well known today started with that shop as their first. Besides from Tjallamalla there were a few courageous shop owners that dared to buy clothes from Swedish designers.

I don’t really know when or why it happened but suddenly the interest in Swedish designers exploded and now every shop with some sort of self respect carry at least 10-15 Swedish labels, which I obviously think it is great but it is also important for Stockholm as a shopping experience.

The reason for this is that when you travel to other major cities in the world you get to see the bad side of globalization. Everywhere you go it is the same retailers and luxury labels. How unique and cool is Dior when you can buy it in a zillion shops all around the world? And how unique is London, Paris and New York as shopping experience when you can go to any of these cities and find exactly the same stuff?

Swedes have for years been obsessed with the big (cheap) retailers like H&M, Kappahl, Lindex and Dressman but I hope that more and more Swedes starts to see and appreciate what else is out there. The large retailers as owners are not really a problem; it is when the same kind of shops sells the same kind of clothes when it gets really boring…

The latest development in Stockholm is that a lot of Swedish labels, like Rodebjer, Hope and Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, have opened their own shop, sometimes even two and this is great (it´s when it is more like one in every corner that it becomes more of a pain...). I can’t really recall any city in the world that has such a focus on national brands. Another good thing is that the major luxury brands think that it is quite enough with maximum one shop in Stockholm.

The other development I see is that of the large department stores that have really made progress when it comes to how they sell their clothes. PUB.03 is nothing but genial though I also love the refurbishment of NK and the one that was done at Åhlens City a few years back. That these large department stores also have a focus on Swedish fashion labels instead of a number of international labels that you can get anywhere else in the world is also great.

The mix that we are coming to now, with a base of international labels mixed with  a lot of Swedish fashion will be a killer when it comes to attracting shopaholics from all around the world – keep up the good work shopkeepers!