Mjölk Volume 1 extended edition

Mjölk book Volume I

It’s September and we are all officially back to regular hours here at the shop.

It’s been a really lovely summer with enough rain to keep the gardens fresh and green. We’ve been holding back some shop updates so there is going to be some pretty exciting updates this month.

To begin:

We have put our very first volume of Mjölk back into print, which first made its debut way back in early 2011. Even before the store started we had a design blog called Kitka, where we shared stories and photography about the design community in Toronto, our small home improvements, visited and interviewed vintage shop owners and things that we found interesting in the design world.

When we started Mjölk we continued with the blog but noticed that the time we spent creating the articles on the blog would eventually disappear in the back pages as every new blog post pushes the old ones further down. We had been putting so much time into the photography and writing it felt a little sad to lose these stories so we decided to publish a physical book. This time leaning into the Mjölk world and interviewing designers, artisans and creatives, many for the first time ever in English.

The books are written by me (John) with photos by Juli so it’s a very direct narrative for a magazine. If you look at the masthead of a normal issue anywhere you can appreciate how small our operation is. Hence why we only have 5 volumes!

Physical books are a resource and many times I find myself thumbing through our library and picking up design books and spending some time with them.

Hopefully you get some joy out of these volumes and allow yourself to check in on them from time to time.

For the first time all 5 volumes are currently for sale online and our physical store.

We were holding off posting about the books as we know there are some lovely customers we have in the USA that might be interested in them. I’m afraid shipping costs are going to be a little painful for you as we can only send them DHL as USPS is not currently a possible option.

We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Taking a deeper look into our expanded Mjölk Volume I:

Alvar Aalto’s personal home (new!)

Iris Hantverk brush makers in Sweden

Fashion Designer Pia Wallen

Blanket makers Vik Prjónsdóttir,

Perfumer Andrea Maack

Furniture maker Iba Takahito

Wood turner Takashi Kougei

Technical wood worker Tanno Studio

Leather artisan Kusaka Koushi (new!)

Danish furniture collector Noritsugu Oda (new!)

Designer and Architect Makoto Koizumi (new!)

Cafes:

Kafe Moka, Iceland

Konditori Valand, Sweden

Cholon, Sapporo (new!)

Cafe Morihiko, Sapporo (new!)

Takano Coffee, Niseko

A new article on workshop Kusaka Leather from Sapporo, Japan. You might recognize their coin pouches which we previously sold here. We’re looking to hopefully get more of their leather goods stocked here sometime soon.

Alvar Aalto’s personal residence and studio, located in Helsinki, Finland. This was feautured on our blog but never put into print. This home with its live/work space became a big inspiration for our own home.

Finally a larger article on Professor Noritsugu Oda who is an expert and collector of Scandinavian design. Specifically the steward of rare prototypes of Finn Juhl furniture. We got to meet Professor Oda on our Honeymoon trip to Hokkaido, accompanied by designer Oji Masanori.

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(416) 551-9853
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