Nordiska Treasury of Rya Rugs

A recent find: two catalogs, Nordiskas Design, published by Nordiska Industri AB, a Swedish manufacturer of rya rugs. One from 1967, one from 1968.

The rya rug sometimes gets lumped in with the general "shag" rug trend of the 60s and 70s, but it is an age-old textile technique that goes back thousands of years. From the catalog:

As a warming quilt it was found during most the 18th century in the homes of the nobility as well as in simple peasant cottages. It belonged to the standard equipment at sea until the end of the last century.

During the 18th century a new rya was introduced, now with the pile turned upwards. Beautiful rugs with many colours. Family emblems were knotted in, so were initials together with the number of the year and other kinds of decorative designs. The technique was also used for wall tapestries, cushions and stool covers. Many are still preserved.

Since 1879 Nordiska has carried on this old tradition. Everything has been preserved in our ryas. The design, however, is still in keeping, following with today's modern requirements.

Nordiska appears to have produced both completed rya rugs as well as rug kits to be knotted at home.

A good rya rug today is a great find. Here are a whole slew of highlights from the catalogs (even more after the jump.)

Isblomma, design Aappo Härkönen 

Mila, design Gerd Stenberg-Allert

Symfoni, design Maud Johanneson

Eros

Online advertising has really pulled the rug out from under magazine publishing, at least in its mass-distributed form. One of the byproducts of this has been the rise in popularity of the specialty magazine (or journal, or bookazine, or magbook or whatever). They tend to have a higher price point than your typical newsstand read, and they are beautifully printed and have great, specialized content. The idea isn't new however, and one of the greatest examples of the subscription magazine/journal is Eros, a groundbreaking magazine from the early 1960s.

First published in 1962, Eros was a magazine devoted to eroticism. It was geared toward intellectuals and in its four issue run covered a broad range of stories about sexuality in history, politics, arts and literature. Available only through mail order, it featured top talent, starting with a fantastic design by the legendary Herb Lubalin (even then a leading typographer and art director) who was engaged to help elevate the project above the era's popular notion of sexually-oriented publishing.

Glassware

I pick up a lot of vintage glassware. It goes with the gig.

Some of these are in constant rotation in my own household, some are in (or will go) in the shop, some I just pick up to use for a bit and resell online, because I can't just leave them behind.

Sometimes in photos the details aren't really discernible, glass being transparent and all. But all of these are handmade, the craftsmanship is noticeable when you hold it. After so many years of buying vintage glassware I can usually tell if something is worth getting just by picking it up, and as a matter of fact I've found some of my best glasses buying on a hunch.

If you do enjoy adult beverages it's worth it to pay attention to the delivery mechanism. When I say that using good glassware makes it better, just know that I speak from experience.

Hanging around the house today (from left to right):

"Linear" champagne & water glass, Rosenthal Studio-Line, Germany, 1963

"Canada" port & cordial glass, Per Lütken for Holmegaard, Denmark, 1955

"Ultima Thule" double old fashioned, old fashioned and extra large old fashioned, Tapio Wirkkala for iittala, Finland, 1968

"Varm/Kall" combo hot glögg/cordial glass, Lindau & Lindekrantz for Orrefors, Sweden, 1971 

"Skibsglas (Ship's Glass)" wine glass & cognac glass, Per Lütken for Holmegaard, Denmark, 1971

"Gaissa" double old fashioned, Tapio Wirkkala for iittala, Finland, 1973

"Kluk Kluk" decanter, an historic design repopularized by Holmegaard in the 1950s

"Princess" cognac glass, Bent Severin for Kastrup/Holmegaard, Denmark, 1957

"Aarne" cocktail glass, Göran Hongell for iittala, Finland, 1948

"No. 5" whiskey glass, Per Lütken for Holmegaard, Denmark, 1970

"Tsaikka" hot beverage glass, Timo Sarpaneva for iittala, Finland, 1957

Martin Burgers

Dean Martin's contribution to Dinah Shore's 1966 The Celebrity Cookbook.

House Beautiful Indeed

One of my favorite homes, located on the water near where I spent some of my formative years, is the Hawkins Ferry house in Grosse Pointe.

W. Hawkins Ferry is best known for authoring the definitive book on Detroit architecture, The Buildings of Detroit. But he was also a philanthropist, art collector, educator and modernist and was responsible for such great things as the core of the Detroit Institute of Art's modern art collection, the Marcel Breuer-designed Grosse Pointe Public Library (including Calder sculpture) and his own International Style home on the shores of Lake St. Clair, designed by noted local architect William Kessler in the 1960s.

Built as a house for art and entertaining, the residence was featured as the cover story in the September 1969 issue of House Beautiful. Here are a couple scans of this really incredible house to inspire you, or make you feel really inadequate. Most of the art you see in there (dig the Giacometti sculpture) can now be found at the DIA. The floorplan should be helpful to you when the time comes for you to design your own home.

Source Material

The old Playboy buying/gift guides from the 60s and 70s are some of the highlights of the magazine, and early on were part of the inspiration for the first Hugh pop up. The products were vetted, the styling was straightforward, and for a lover of vintage stuff there is always something cool to see.

Take, for example, this bar gear guide from 1961. A Dansk Fjord bar tool set was $15 (about $120 today if you trust the consumer price inflation calculator). Dunhill had some pretty hip silverplate bar accessories with that 8 inch cocktail jigger and tapered cocktail shaker. And Raymor was selling a streamlined martini pitcher I'd be happy to stumble on today.

Which watch

We sell some great watches, specifically the reissued 1970s Braun wristwatches. We love them, especially this digital baby.

1978 Braun DW30 Digital Watch reissue, Dietrich Lubs & Dieter Rams

We don't sell any of the watches below featured in the August 1969 issue of Playboy. They don't even make any of them anymore. But they remind us to buy cool watches while the gettin' is good. From left to right: Bulova, Longines, Bueche-Girod, Omega, Piaget, Girard Perregaux.

Watches of the era, Playboy August 1969