Ullvøruhúsið

Ullvøruhúsið means "wool goods house" in Faroese. A shop with that name opened here in 1918 and sold yarn, knitted things, clothing, underwear and even sweets. It closed in the mid-eighties, and then two friends brought it back to life, the designers Sissal Kristiansen and Jóhanna av Steinum. As girls they used to come here with their mothers and grandmothers, and in August 2018 they opened a shared shop under the old roof for their brands Shisa Brand and Steinum.

They kept almost the whole interior: the wooden floor, three counters with lots of little drawers, an old set of scales that now holds jewellery, and a door frame from the island of Mykines that they turned into a mirror in the middle of the room.

Sissal Kristiansen works with undyed Faroese wool under the Shisa Brand label and builds her knitted patterns on the contrast of natural shades, from cream to almost black. Faroese wool, by the way, is rich in lanolin and even protects you fairly well from the rain. The year Sissal spent in Japan on a student exchange left its mark both on the name of her brand and on the design of her clothes. The Japanese could not pronounce the name Sissal and so they called her Shisa. And the Japanese style shows in her Tokyo sweater: a loose silhouette, shortened sleeves and high side slits. Taking the traditional sweater of Faroese fishermen, the skipstroyggja, as her starting point, Sissal created an elegantly cropped version for women.

Jóhanna, a graduate of the London art college Central Saint Martins, named her label after her real surname, Steinum, and handles Faroese patterns more freely: bright colours, large and sometimes almost childlike designs, beadwork. Her main material is Norwegian lambswool, which is noticeably softer than ordinary sheep's wool. The range includes high-neck sweaters, cardigans, vests, knitted trousers with patterns, zip-up hoodies, openwork T-shirts, fisherman's beanies and children's clothes. For the winter season she adds beaded Christmas baubles, knitted snowflakes and garlands.

You will find the Ullvøruhúsið boutique in the centre of Tórshavn, on Niels Finsensgøta, the main shopping street and the only pedestrian zone in all of the Faroe Islands. Most of the time Sissal or Jóhanna herself is there behind the counter.