Can you imagine a mash-up of Kikkerland, Ikea and Party City? Well, it opened in New York four days ago, and it is awesome. Flying Tiger Copenhagen is a kind of Danish dollar store. I'd never heard of it, but apparently there are 452 locations, though this is the first in the US. I went in thinking, "I'll just have a quick look," and then my eyes turned into spirals and I whipped myself into a frenzy and my "minimal living" "quality over quantity" "please don't buy anything else, Molly, you make $10 an hour"* went out the window.
Nearly everything costs less than $15. The giant store, at 21st and Broadway, is a kind of maze of white bins and shelves, holding a dazzling array of notebooks, erasers, magnets, placemats, storage boxes, folders, memo pads, bike accessories, luggage tags, potholders, spatulas, paper garlands, patterned trays, utensils, timers, bathroom accessories, pump bottles, wall hooks, stickers, clips, vases, decorative shelves, phone cases, and a doormat shaped like a cat. Many of the items are also grouped into thematic sub-sets--there's a whole area of heart-shaped things, a mustache area (I thought that was over!), a vast assortment of house-shaped things (including an adorable wooden shelf and a ceramic votive holder), a junk food section ($3 tin wastebaskets with photo prints of red onions, lettuce, or french fries; notebooks that look like chocolate bars or digestive biscuits), a wood-grain section, and, my favorite two, a fruit-pattern section (a tissue paper garland shaped like watermelon? Tell me more! An apron with an apple pattern? Get at me!), and the Scandinavian folkloric bird section. One particularly tempting item that I didn't buy this time was the knock-off George Nelson gumball coat hanger.
*not a joke, that is actually how much my summer job pays me
Here's what I ended up with:
1. From the "Scandinavian Folkloric Bird" section, a felt trivet ($2). There were also beautiful felt placemats that looked like papel picado.
2. A printed glasses case ($3). Sturdier than the free cotton one I got with these sunglasses!
3. For Suki the cat and her stinky food, a dishwasher-safe (not that we have a dishwasher) fish ceramic bowl ($2). The cashier wrapped it in mustache paper.
4. For the fridge, a set of plastic jewel magnets ($2). I spent a longggg time considering which magnets to get. There is an amazing selection.
5. Two pairs of knit-pattern socks ($3 each). Can you believe these? They also had the super on-trend translucent-gauze socks, if you're looking for some that don't cost, like, $12. They also had socks with a red onion photo-print.
If you ever have to get a present for a child or a secret-santa gift, or if you want some weird homewares, or if you want to give up on your minimalist lifestyle experiment, you should definitely check out Flying Tiger. I will probably go back tomorrow and grab those apple-print oven mitts.
PS More shopping obsessions and other obsessions are here.
Nearly everything costs less than $15. The giant store, at 21st and Broadway, is a kind of maze of white bins and shelves, holding a dazzling array of notebooks, erasers, magnets, placemats, storage boxes, folders, memo pads, bike accessories, luggage tags, potholders, spatulas, paper garlands, patterned trays, utensils, timers, bathroom accessories, pump bottles, wall hooks, stickers, clips, vases, decorative shelves, phone cases, and a doormat shaped like a cat. Many of the items are also grouped into thematic sub-sets--there's a whole area of heart-shaped things, a mustache area (I thought that was over!), a vast assortment of house-shaped things (including an adorable wooden shelf and a ceramic votive holder), a junk food section ($3 tin wastebaskets with photo prints of red onions, lettuce, or french fries; notebooks that look like chocolate bars or digestive biscuits), a wood-grain section, and, my favorite two, a fruit-pattern section (a tissue paper garland shaped like watermelon? Tell me more! An apron with an apple pattern? Get at me!), and the Scandinavian folkloric bird section. One particularly tempting item that I didn't buy this time was the knock-off George Nelson gumball coat hanger.
*not a joke, that is actually how much my summer job pays me
Here's what I ended up with:
1. From the "Scandinavian Folkloric Bird" section, a felt trivet ($2). There were also beautiful felt placemats that looked like papel picado.
eve is not going to dig this.
2. A printed glasses case ($3). Sturdier than the free cotton one I got with these sunglasses!
3. For Suki the cat and her stinky food, a dishwasher-safe (not that we have a dishwasher) fish ceramic bowl ($2). The cashier wrapped it in mustache paper.
4. For the fridge, a set of plastic jewel magnets ($2). I spent a longggg time considering which magnets to get. There is an amazing selection.
5. Two pairs of knit-pattern socks ($3 each). Can you believe these? They also had the super on-trend translucent-gauze socks, if you're looking for some that don't cost, like, $12. They also had socks with a red onion photo-print.
If you ever have to get a present for a child or a secret-santa gift, or if you want some weird homewares, or if you want to give up on your minimalist lifestyle experiment, you should definitely check out Flying Tiger. I will probably go back tomorrow and grab those apple-print oven mitts.
PS More shopping obsessions and other obsessions are here.
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