SKK:
Siukay Khan is the genius behind lighting consultants and retailers SKK. The Hong KongChinese designer already has outlets in London, New York and Auckland but this will be the first time his full lighting range comes to Ireland. His lighting designs have made a big impact here already - he was brought in to design the lights for Tosca restaurant and restaurant Patrick Guilbaud and he is currently at work on the Royal Irish Architectural Archive.
In Urbana, Siukay will be retailing his cutting-edge lighting and lamps range - free-standing, pendant and architectural - and he will also offer an over-the-counter consultancy to the customer.
Urbana will also be the base for his lighting design consultancy for architects, designers and home owners - he claims anything can be customised.
Siukay also wants SKK in Urbana to encourage young lighting designers - he welcomes the idea that the shop would give them ideas and inspiration but is also on the constant look-out for new talent. The lighting range at Urbana will include a woven, veneered lamp by Irish designer Leo Scarff, a recent addition to the SKK stable which Siukay is promoting heavily in New York and Frankfurt.
Ovne:
Highly decorative antiques, OVNE's stoves are imported from Denmark by Tom Keane, fully restored and ready for use. Sourced all over Europe, they date from 1870 to 1920, a time when competition between foundries meant well-known artists or architects were employed to design the beautifully ornate stoves. The stoves burn solid fuel and range in price from £400 to £10,000 - the smallest stove, fit for a Temple Bar bachelor pad, is an 18-inch ship stove.
Innen:
Sonia and Emma-Jane Lenehan are the fifth generation in the Lenehan hardware family but their outlet in Urbana, Innen, will be selling household accessories that would be hard to find in the long-established Capel Street store. Sleek matt-silver and antique-black bathroom accessories, groovy chrome cabinet hinges and wrought-iron hat-stands by Belltrees Forge are just a sample of the goods at Innen (the German for "interior", by the way). "These accessories are a little funkier and a little more expensive than our Capel Street stock," explains Sonia. "They're for people looking for something that's stylish and a little bit different but practical." Lavender And Linen:
IT'S fairly obvious what Lavender and Linen will be selling - soaps, oils, pot-pourri and perfume all scented with lavender, much of it from David Cox's own lavender farm in Kilmacanogue. The flower has long been used to scent linen cupboards so Cox, the man behind the 15-year-old company, Fragrances of Ireland, felt that antique and new linens and crisp, fresh, cotton bed-linen, were perfect partners for the Urbana outlet. Cox's cosy unit at Urbana has the air of a well-stocked linen chest with antique pieces draped over an old, four-poster bed and piled up on shelves beside big baskets filled with dried lavender. It looks set to be a Mecca for wedding guests.
The Source:
Fans of The Source on Pleasants Street may well be just a little bit peeved when it opens a second larger branch in Urbana as it was one of those "best-kept secret" stores for years. The stock at The Source is impossible to describe - at the moment they are offering Sesame Street kids armchairs, salad servers with fish handles, big chunks of olive-oil soap, Perspex bow-ties and wine glasses on wheels.
Owners Brian and Natasha Stein import their stock from all over Europe, taking as their motto "We don't take ourselves seriously". They are taking over four units at Urbana and plan to keep to a similar formula to that at the five-year-old Pleasants Street store, while increasing their stocks of children's giftware and unusual but useful houseware. Moving to a central location will be a change for them. As Brian puts it: "If I had a pound for everyone who's said `You're a bit off the beaten track', I'd be a rich man".
Kenny & Co:
Even if you're not familiar with Philip Kenny's name, odds are you're familiar with TableArt, his range of table accessories that includes tea-pots, pepper mills, and indispensable coffee-pot warmers. His unit in Urbana takes his name because he is bringing in other ranges as well as TableArt which will include picture frames and clocks, all in his trademark ceramic, wood and painted chrome. With the move into retail, Philip is planning to get more involved with the manufacture of his range, which costs between £5 and £100, in order to bring down his prices.
Grimes & Co:
An American, Jennifer Grimes was well used to the broad range of mail-order goods available in the US: "Mail-order items are often very high-quality and very high-concept over there, whereas here it seems to be used for middle-of-the road, budget goods." She decided to set up a mail-order company last September, offering high quality and very original design and already, Grimes & Co is supplying Harrods and Liberties wholesale.
Her unit in Urbana will offer a wider selection of her range of chairs, bags, cutlery and rugs - one of her best sellers is a chrome bathroom cabinet from Italy. The shop will also exclusively stock Cath Kidston's ultra-trendy, floralprint bed linen, a gorgeous range of Polar Fleece throws from the US as well as groovy, floral flip-flops "because I wanted a pair".
Amoeba
This is Jennifer McManus's first foray into retail and it is a business, born out of a passion for 1950s and 1960s design: "The shapes and lines are still so very modern. From a design point of view they haven't really been improved on." She is a jewellery designer by profession and the stock of Amoeba is the result of several buying-trips to antique fairs and old shops in England, Los Angeles and New York. "They've a lot more stuff elsewhere; I think with the amount of emigration in Ireland during the period, nobody was thinking about what to put in their front rooms."
Amoeba will offer original clocks, lighting, magazine racks, as well as a range of reproduction 1950s clocks and ashtrays that Jennifer is having especially manufactured for the shop, as these are the most popular items. There will also be a good range of gloriously colourful, Italian glass in the bi-morphic shapes of the period.
Garage Studios:
This is an umbrella name for a co-op of five women who work from a studio in North Lotts, in Dublin. Hazel Cullen is the creator of Nadine Ceramics, a contemporary collection of lamps, tile mirrors and candle-holders while Michelle Hannon, also a ceramicist, trades under her own name - check out her lovely dappled stoneware decorated in all shades of aquamarine.
Various Vessels is the trade name of Deirdre Rogers who creates weird and wonderful objects out of recycled glass bottles - night lights, napkin rings and sand-blasted glass clocks. Andrea Cleary comes from a fashion and textiles background. She'll be bringing fine curtains, cushions and other soft furnishings, some hand-painted, to Urbana. Cindy Bartley, the fifth member of the team is a specialist in paint effects and murals and will run a consultancy from Urbana. Look out for her furniture range too.
Boyne Valley Weavers:
The scarves and wraps of the Irish label are distributed widely both here and abroad but now Porterhouse Ltd, a 70-strong company based in Drogheda, is expanding into soft furnishings. Boyne Valley Weavers' unit in Urbana will display a treasure trove of throws and cushions in chenille and wool boucle, with a palette ranging from muted natural shades, through summery blues and purples to rich terracotta and bottle green.
Reyn Furniture:
To the untrained eye, an edgesprung sofa will look like any other - it's only when you sit down that you notice the difference. Patrick Reynolds, who manufactures the sofas here in Ireland and who will be bringing them to Urbana, explains that the normal sofa will consist of a box base topped by cushions whereas your edgesprung sofa has a base, then a mattress and finally, cushions.
Edgesprung sofas have always been available in Ireland but at the luxury end of the market, costing as much as double the price of an ordinary sofa, but Patrick has developed a new method of manufacture that has brought the prices right down. The sofas are available in what Patrick claims is the largest range of fabrics in the country and armchairs, throws and Ottomans can be made to match. Reyn Furniture will also offer a made-to-measure furniture service and design consultancy.
Klim-Bim:
Rudolf Gerhart translates Klim-Bim as German slang for "bits and pieces". The bits and pieces that catch your eye as you come up the stairs at Urbana are rather swanky pots and pans. Stainless steel with an aluminium sandwich base to conduct heat and a choice of handles - marble, pearwood or coloured ceramic.
The shop is also packed with kettles, espresso machines and cups, ceramic giftware by ArteDesign and some very stylish cutlery. These are luxury utensils, perfect for anyone who is a professional, thinks they're a professional or wants to look professional. They range in price from £20 for the smallest pot to £160 for a large catering dish.
District:
Ian and Paula Conroy have been making props and designing sets for the Abbey, the Peacock and other theatres, but have now decided to move entirely into the furniture market. They've used every sculptural technique and material in their book - metal, cast plastic, fun fur and wood - to create a fantastic range of furniture in their Blackrock studio, and each piece is part of a limited run. "We're keeping ourselves interested really; we're trying to be as playful as possible with our materials and keep a sense of theatricality to our work," says Ian. Look out for their great, furry-animal foot-stools.
20th Century Designs:
Fans of Mother Redcaps market will be familiar with Janet Doyle's eye for design. 20th Century Design stocks perfectly preserved antiques from the turn of the century to the 1970s - Art Deco tea-pots, enamel table lighters, Art Nouveau lamps and arts and crafts pieces.