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The Kolaportid flea market feels transported from Brooklyn.
(Photo: Courtesy of Kolaportid) |
Dive into Reykjavík’s world of avant-garde fashion at Kiosk, a shop on Laugavegur co-owned by nine local designers who take turns behind the counter. Many of the city’s stores went bankrupt after the 2008 financial crash, so a group of young Icelanders�like Hilda Gunnarsdóttir, who launched her gamine, print-happy label Milla Snorrason after graduating in 2009�combined their means to open shop together. Step past the corrugated metal façade to browse gold and fuchsia bead bracelets by Hlín Reykdal (from $49) and check out Helicopter’s chartreuse prints, surrounded by birch branches and pendant lights. Request custom-tailored pieces from Eygló Lárusdóttir, whose eclectic designs range from cropped, diamond-cut sweatshirts (from $249) to sheer silk tees with appliquéd tea leaves (from $269). Custom items will be ready within a few days and come with no extra charge.
Explore the city’s burgeoning contemporary art scene with a long walk through downtown Reykjavík, where dozens of vibrant murals and art displays dot the streets. Start on the corner of Laugavegur and Snorrabraut and walk west toward the harbor. Two blocks down on your right, you’ll see graphic, Pop Art renderings of Icelandic stamps on a dark-blue wall; two blocks farther, a red-and-taupe color-blocked owl, spreading its wings. Keep walking with your eyes trained right, past an installation of lost gloves with a sign, �Single Gloves: Speed Dating,� until you hit a Banksy-style giraffe wearing 3-D movie glasses at Skólavörðustígur. Walk up the street to see a bright-yellow version of a Picasso self-portrait, or head down to the Reykjavík Art Museum’s waterside Hafnarhús location (from $13) and soak in the graffitilike collage art of Icelandic artist Erró. Stop by the newest galleries to open in Thingholt, the city’s old town, like Tysgallerí, which is known for nurturing local contemporary artists, like abstract painter Marta Maria Jonsdottir and found-object artist Olga Bergmann.
Dig through piles of sheep’s wool scarves and costume jewelry at Kolaportid, a Brooklyn Flea�like market in an old warehouse down by the harbor. Kolaportid has picked up steam in the past couple years, since the city’s hipsters started visiting each weekend to page through antique Íslendingasögur (13th-century prose books) and buy Icelandic translations of Tintin comics (from $25). Racks of vintage clothes line the back of the warehouse with the kinds of '50s work shirts and '80s teal track jackets that you’d see in Bushwick. Barter for a lopapeysa (from $100), the iconic round-necked sweater with a patterned yoke, from local glass and lava artist Gudfinna Porvaldsodóttir, whose wool comes from the sheep raised on her farm outside the city. Then sample traditional Icelandic snacks from the market’s food stands�the daring will try fermented shark, fish jerky�before taking your flatkökur, a smoky flat rye bread that predates the 18th century (from $3), out by the water for lunch.