Launched last summer to bring emerging design from the Nordic region to an Irish audience (much of it not available anywhere else on the island) Nordic Makers is a design shop located on George's Street Lower in Dún Laoghaire. It stocks a wide range of products from designers and makers located all over northern Europe, including the work of Emil Hjorth-Rohde, Kristina Vildersbøll and her colleagues at Designkollektivet, and Tina Marie Bentsen and some of her fellow Den Danske Keramikfabrik owners. The owners of Nordic Makers hail from the Danish capital, so there is a host of great design from Copenhagen to choose from both in store and online.
SILLEKNOTTE
Designed and made in Kødbyen, Copenhagen's meat district, by Iben Friis Sørensen, Silleknotte is a collection of leather products ranging from small (key-holders, wallets) to large (furniture cleverly combining leather and wood), with plenty of accessories in between. Formerly a web designer at Copenhagen's city council, Iben's lifelong love of leather stopped being a side project and became a full-time job in early 2015. Iben named her company Silleknotte, the nickname her grandmother would give to her favourite horse in a race, usually the outside chance.
LARS RANK
A four-month stay in Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan and a lifetime of Scandinavian aesthetics and craft traditions have fused in Lars Rank's ceramics practice. A graduate of the Jutland Art Academy now working in Copenhagen's Designer Zoo, a workshop and retail space in Vesterbro, Lars makes functional homewares. His newest addition to Nordic Makers is his stacked lamp, a seemingly off-balance cast porcelain lampshade with a silk matte finish, available in three colours.
BYTHORUP
Kasper Thorup is a master's student in the architecture school at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In his spare time he designs and makes limited edition furniture. His BlackPOWDER range of desks and tables marries minimal form with unique pattern and texture through the hand-treated iron used in their production.
