Iceland’s hidden fashion people

According to column in the Toronto Star, the residents of Iceland have a sense of style that is as distinctively chic as it is overlooked.

Iceland, a country with just 300,000 residents, a couple of shopping malls and more glaciers and volcanoes than designer boutiques, nevertheless emerges as a place of emerging trends and surprising styles.

Asgerdur Snaevarr is a 20-year-old high school student in Iceland. “We’re not willing to give up fashion, lifestyle or drinking just because we live in Iceland,” she said. “Since everything here is expensive, everyone our age has part-time jobs to maintain their look.”

By expensive, she really means expensive. A Big Mac in Reykjavik costs almost USD8, making it one of the most costly in the world.

Hildur Kristin Stefansdottir is a keen shopper. She says Iceland doesn’t have the same brand name stores as other countries and if it did, she probably wouldn’t shop there. “The good thing about not having that chain [H&M] here is that it forces people to be creative,” she said.

Some go shopping in the fashion capitals of Europe for their clothes, others make do with the designers available on their home turf.

According to Saeunn Thordardottir, a sales clerk in a local clothing store, the particular style of Iceland is slowly developing into something distinct.

“It’s not as homogenous because of globalization,” she says. “People have more options because the fashion industry is beginning to blossom. There are more stores and designers, it’s easy to go overseas and the Internet lets people see what is happening all over the world.”