EINSTAKT

EINSTAKT grew out of Soul Made, an international fashion brand that Faroese designer Beinta Poulsen started in the mid-2000s. Soul Made sold its clothes in about twenty countries, kept showrooms in the US, the Netherlands and Ireland, showed twice a year in Copenhagen, and in 2014 took part in a fashion show staged inside the Eiffel Tower. But success came with fatigue from the fashion industry and its constant race for new collections and bigger numbers. In 2013 Beinta went back to the Faroes to rethink her business. International expansion gave way to a small workshop in Tórshavn, and Soul Made eventually turned into EINSTAKT, which in Faroese means "unique".

Today the designer deliberately keeps the brand small and makes clothes in which modern design meets the tradition of Faroese hand knitting. Her pieces don't go out of date in a season, she calmly puts ten-year-old models back into production, and she sews them mostly from fabric left over from the big fashion houses, that is, from what would otherwise go to waste.

The whole knitted part of the collections is made by about fifty Faroese knitters, many of them already retired, who knit because they know how and love doing it. If you have tried on local sweaters, though, you know that Faroese wool is fairly stiff and scratchy, so Beinta uses it for only five per cent of the total yarn. Everything else is merino, alpaca, mohair and even silk. The patterns, on the other hand, are the real thing, taken straight from the bible of the local knitters: the collection Føroysk bindingarmynstur. It was put together in the 1920s by the tailor Hans Marius Debes on the orders of the Danish queen Alexandrine, to save the Faroese patterns from being forgotten, because until then they had been passed on only by word of mouth.

Wool clothing takes up most of the rails in the shop: wool trousers and shorts, polo shirts and skirts in pure wool, long wool coats. Next to them hang rain jackets in heavy polyester, which on the Faroes will bail you out more often than anything else you buy. Men and children will find a sweater, cardigan or vest here as well, and the home textiles run to soft cushion covers and blankets with the traditional Faroese pattern. And if you are wondering what to bring back from the Faroe Islands as a present, a knitted scarf or hat from EINSTAKT will settle it better than any souvenir shop.

The EINSTAKT boutique stands on Niels Finsens gøta, the only pedestrian street in Tórshavn, five minutes on foot from the harbour and the old quarter of Tinganes. Across the road stands the shop of the legendary brand Guðrun & Guðrun, where the tour groups off the cruise ships head first. In EINSTAKT you will most likely find yourself in silence. It was for that silence that Beinta Poulsen came back from the mainland to the Faroes, so that after twenty years of noise and bustle she could feel direct contact again with the woman who buys her clothes.