This month, we had the pleasure of visiting Kitty and Josh from BUTIK, based in Stockport.
Back in January 2023, the vintage-inspired duo set off for Denmark to discover their first round of iconic pieces that would later grace the BUTIK shop floor. Since then, the pair have developed their passion into a space that holds heritage, design and sustainability at its soul, catching the eyes of the rest of the UK and beyond.
How did BUTIK first come about, and when did you realise you could turn your interest in furniture into a business?
BUTIK started simply as a result of spending more and more time in Denmark visiting Kitty’s family. Her grandparents live in a very beautiful former summer house designed by Danish architect, Flemming Lassen - after seeing some of the great design in their home, I started researching how I could bring this back to the UK.
Why do you think Denmark has such a special relationship with furniture and design?
I think Denmark has always had a very practical relationship with design. Equal to making something look good, it has to function perfectly as whatever it’s designed to be.
I also think the Danish lifestyle has a lot to do with it. People spend a lot of time in their homes, and a lot of time hosting friends, so naturally people really think about how furniture should work to assist them within their own homes. There’s a great deal of thought behind Danish furniture - it’s designed around how people actually live.
What’s the most interesting piece of furniture you have at BUTIK right now, and what makes it particularly special?
I think the most interesting piece we have at the moment is a really early example of Arne Jacobsen’s Series 7 desk chair, dating from around 1965.
Underneath the leather, these chairs have a wooden frame wrapped in foam. Over time, the foam perishes and breaks down into a horrible, sand-like material, which makes the chair both uncomfortable and, eventually, unusable. Unfortunately, repairing them usually means removing the original leather, which can be particularly beautiful, and replacing it along with the padding.
With this particular chair, however, a very skilled upholsterer has managed to salvage the original leather while completely replacing the padding underneath. I fell in love with it straight away because it has such an honest, original condition, yet it remains completely usable today.
You must have had some interesting experiences while furniture hunting around Denmark. Is there one story or find that particularly stands out?
We’ve had plenty, but the one that stands out for us is running out of fuel in our van at 2am in rural Denmark. We ended up hiking across about four fields before eventually having to knock on the door of the only house for miles to ask if we could borrow a jerry can.
Thankfully, the guy we met (who I still talk to on Instagram) saw the funny side of it and drove us to a petrol station before dropping us back at our van. When we drove the van back to his to return the jerry can, he’d gone to sleep, but had left a bag hanging on his front door with a few cold beers in it and a note saying it was lovely to meet us.
We still owe him a pint if he ever makes it over to Manchester.
How much work typically goes into a piece between finding it and it being ready to sell? Are you regularly having to restore or refurbish what you bring back?
It’s a lot of work but a total labour of love. Often the best things we find are a total accident, something amazing hiding in a basement or garage or a piece of furniture overlooked by the owner as just ‘something they’ve always had around’.
Once we bring these items back to the studio nearly everything has to have work done but we will always try to sympathetically restore rather than make it brand new.
When restoring vintage furniture, how do you balance bringing a piece back to life while still preserving its original character and signs of age?
Kitty’s expertise as a textile designer is making sure any new fabric or leather we choose is as authentic to the designers vision as possible and my part as the restorer is to make sure that we can sell something in useable condition whilst allowing the traces of it’s past to still be shown. We recently salvaged a number of beautiful former school desks from the 1950s, each with graffiti from the various students - during the restoration we decided to bring the top surface to almost brand new condition but to save the writings on the underside as a nod to where they came from.
Is there a particular designer or piece of furniture that’s still on your bucket list to find?
There are so many! If we had to pick a couple, one would definitely be a Flemming Lassen ‘Tired Man’ chair. Lassen designed Kitty’s grandparents home in 1946 as a summer house and it’s honestly one of the most beautiful and well thought out houses I’ve ever visited, both the architecture and the way they’ve furnished it over their years in the house has created such a sense of calm - i’d love to be able to have a nod to that in the studio.
A second piece to find would be an original Vibeke Klint rug. Sadly this is likely impossible as these are really regarded as museum or gallery pieces and thus very expensive - we can dream though.
With so much furniture now designed to be cheap and replaceable, why do you think people are increasingly drawn back towards vintage pieces that have already existed for decades?
I think people are becoming increasingly tired of the throwaway culture that surrounds so many of the objects we buy today, from poorly made clothing and technology to furniture.
We’ve found that an increasing number of people, particularly those buying their first homes, are moving away from this throwaway culture and slowly building a more thoughtful collection of things in their homes. There’s something more meaningful about owning pieces that have a history, as well as a huge amount of development and thought behind them.
The likes of IKEA will always have a place as a source of low-cost, functional furniture, but sadly, even the cost of this is increasing without a corresponding increase in quality.
Danish furniture, and a lot of other mid-century furniture, can be expensive and isn’t always something that can be justified over buying something from IKEA or Habitat. But I think people are beginning to recognise that sometimes, buying something right the first time is important.
Kitty wears: Summit Half Zip Fleece Rich Plum & Everyday Trouser Sand
Josh wears: Amble Jacket Black & Warp Trouser Ecru
