Stocking Up in Stockholm

Owner Andrew Duncanson in his gallery-like boutique, Modernity.

PHOTO: Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin

You can tell a lot about a city from its local heroes. In Paris they are the Michelin-starred chefs. In Milan no one gets a reservation at Nobu faster than Donatella. Ask Stockholmers whom they most admire, though, and you probably won't recognize the names. Forget Ingmar Bergman. Thomas Sandell and Mats Theselius are the city's current cultural standard-bearers.

Mats who? Theselius and Sandell are top young Swedish architects and furniture designers, a distinction that means everything in a capital devoted to the sheer beauty and innate value of domestic design. This is a city where subway stations double as art galleries. You may not come to Sweden for the clothes (which are tastefully but generically minimalist), but if you want the perfect final accent for a loft or a country house, you'll find it here. Even better, a shopping spree provides a focused tour of the city, and most shop owners can easily ship your purchases back to the States for you. (Shipping costs range from about $60, for a ceramic vase, to $500, for an armchair.)

Östermalm: Shopping Central

Composed of a string of islands, Stockholm is really an urban archipelago. The best place to start island-hopping is the district of Östermalm, home to opulent 19th-century hotels, grand theaters and seductive stores. The neighborhood's real landmark, however, is Modernity (6 Sibyllegatan; 011-46-8-20-80-25; modernity.se), a furniture boutique devoted to the Scandinavian classics that defined mid-20th-century modernity.

"Sweden didn't have to deal with any wars or revolutions in the past two centuries," owner Andrew Duncanson explains. "So, unlike in other countries, production continued, the nation could develop its own aesthetics undisturbed, and its design stayed pure. The subdued lines you see in Swedish decor are really an echo of Swedish society, with its stress on social equality, modesty and the philosophy that no one individual or design should be too obvious or too loud."

That's a heavy metaphysical weight for a coffee table to bear, but Duncanson's finds--all vintage, though some styles are still in production--stand up under the load. A Lamino lounge chair, a fluid swoop of blond wood, conveys a purely Swedish democratic ease; Duncanson's fifties original, designed by Yngve Ekström, goes for $2,015. Just as sleek are an Arne Jacobsen drop chair ($22,240)--a big teardrop of cognac-colored leather crowning skinny copper legs--and a collection of mid-20th-century Swedish ceramics, including a round green-glazed vase ($4,725) designed by Berndt Friberg in the sixties.

At Asplund (31 Sibyllegatan; 011-46-8-662-52-84; asplund.org), the 21st-century housewares display the same clean forms, executed in natural materials. "We always take something away when we create a piece," designer Eero Koivisto says. "At a time when so much is going on in the world, we need calm surroundings." Koivisto is one-third of a trio of leading Swedish designers who make up the firm Claesson, Koivisto & Rune, which creates everything from blankets to buildings, as well as much of Asplund's furniture collection. Their pieces are abstract yet look comfortable in a smart living room--especially the Totone dhurrie carpet (from $220 to $890), which combines gray and black color blocks. Similarly tempting items pop up at the Pukeberg Stockholm shop (9 Sibyllegatan; 011-46-8-545-850-02), where the glass vases and apothecary jars ($10 to $650) come in neon colors.