my daughter wants to patent rolling down a dune – #127

Right now I'm in the old town, working my way through the pintxos bars and trying to get the kids to taste a few new things too. So while I feast my way through our first evening in Spain, here's a little backstory on our first stop in this country.

San Sebastián is about four and a half times the size of Merano (where we lived until a month ago), but underneath it's the same kind of town. Both grew up around people who came to get better.

In 1845, a doctor sent Queen Isabel II here for a skin condition, with a prescription for "wave baths" in the bay. She was a teenager. Twenty-five years later, Empress Sissi brought her daughter Marie Valerie to Merano for the mild air, and Valerie was two.

I had always pictured spa towns as places built for (and by) old people. Both of these were put on the map by a teenager and a toddler.

No surprise. Kids pick up far more than you'd expect, as every parent knows who has watched their children play office, phone pressed to the ear like it's a C-level call, using phrases you'd rather not recognize as your own.

This afternoon, on the way down here, we climbed the Dune du Pilat, the highest moving dune in Europe, and looked out over the Atlantic. Our daughter rolled down first. When her younger siblings copied her, she was furious. Now she wants to patent her rolling style so nobody else is allowed to use it. (I wish it were that easy.)

Many people would understand her. But I'd argue that most creatives and makers got their start rolling down somebody else's dune.

One of this week's five is from here, and it's about the rain.

If you’re new around here: Every week, I share 5 of the nicest products from Europe I’ve discovered in the past 7 days.

I scout, you explore.

With love 🌞
Jakob

P.S.: The TURN Lounge Chair by ARWENN was the most-clicked product in last week's issue. The traditional-rug-1.jpeg (low) by Jonas Hejduk came second, five clicks behind.

P.P.S.: If you find something that belongs here (also if you made it yourself), send it.

Aterkiak means umbrella in Basque, and in San Sebastián an umbrella is basic equipment. This print by Nerea Urrestarazu of Koloreka shows the Kursaal bridge on a rainy day, when the wind joins the rain and umbrellas turn inside out halfway across. I walked across that same bridge five minutes ago, and luckily it isn't raining. Every copy is stamped and signed by hand on Canson watercolor paper.

(Frames only ship within Spain, so this one travels the way we do: light.)

In 1939, Marie Nielsen opened a hair salon in Denmark and made a simple request. Her husband Holger answered with the first Vipp pedal bin, which has been in MoMA's permanent collection since 2009. Three generations on, the family makes chairs too: the 453+ swivels on polished aluminum, with aniline leather and a tilt that follows you when you lean back. CEO Kasper Egelund wanted the first Swivel chair, only with the comfort of "sitting on clouds".

(Holger had paid for his first metal lathe by selling a car he won in a lottery at 17.)

I saw these in Paris. laurent badier takes a 40 mm powder-coated steel tube and tops it with 15 mm of recycled acrylic glass, in two-tone pairs like this yellow and violet. Laurent Badier's first collection started from the school chair, as a tribute to his mother, a primary school teacher. The same acrylic runs through his benches, and if a whole stool is too much color, there are drawer knobs for the old dresser you already own.

(The acrylic offcuts don't go in the bin. He turns them into artworks.)

HYMY Céramique is Sophie Faiola, a ceramicist in Bordeaux who throws each cup on the wheel in Limoges porcelain and paints the stripes freehand. Hymy means smile in Finnish, and her very first espresso cup was thrown four-handed with her son Oscar. Every piece is made to order, so allow about three weeks.

(We drove past Bordeaux yesterday. Next time I'm stopping.)

A BIC Mini is the most anonymous object in any bag. julius.works in Berlin gives it a sculptural sleeve in lightweight PLA, with a finish inspired by the shine of an oyster pearl. Shipping rules keep the lighter itself out of the box, so bring your own.

(Most of us have three in a drawer anyway.)