Retail

Nina Ugrinovich, Andreas Hoeller and Florian Kaps (all pictured, Kaps on right) founded Supersense in 2008 as a workroom and playground for creative types. “It’s an analogue palace,” says Kaps. In this shop-cum-café, housed in a 19th-century Venetian-style palazzo, a range of analogue tools come together. You can print a poster or record your own vinyl track in the Flabbergasting Record Elevator before taking a break for a handsemmel mit beinschinken (ham roll). Let your imagination run wild.

This furniture emporium combines restored modernist pieces with contemporary items made by owners and founders Dagmar Moser, Philipp-Markus Pernhaupt and Christof Stein. “Our focus is 20th-century furniture from the 1920s to 1970s,” says Moser (pictured). The chairs, cabinets, tables and lamps are picked up at European vintage markets from Italy to France and restored in the team’s workshop in Vienna. Moser is particularly fond of pieces such as the embellished iron hallstands and Roland Rainer-designed Stadthallensessel stacking chairs that formerly graced Vienna’s concert hall. “Every piece tells a story and documents history,” she says. You can pop around the corner to the famous Café Sperl when you’re done perusing.

In the shadow of St Stephen’s Cathedral, R Horn’s stocks some of Vienna’s most covetable accessories, including bags, wallets, pouches, briefcases and holdalls made using the finest nubuck, calf leather or scotch grain (a rough, tough cowhide) sourced from Italian tanneries. The designs are influenced by Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos and the Wiener Werkstätte arts-and-crafts movement. R Horn’s bags can be personalised to suit any customer. As a finishing touch, products are lined with moiré silk or suede.

Alexander Ehrmann’s family have been pharmacists for six generations, so it was only natural that he’d launch his own apothecary. In 2006 he opened this business in a former chemist dating from 1886. Today the ornate 19th-century wooden shelving is stocked with herbal remedies that are homemade from healing plants grown on Ehrmann’s farm. Whatever’s not used in his immune-boosting capsules, soaps or comforting teas is chopped up and served in Ehrmann’s neighbouring eight-seat restaurant, Alimentary, or transformed into deliciously scented cosmetics and sold in the branch across the road. “Healing herbs are the red thread that guides my business,” says Ehrmann, who’s always looking for new ingredients to use in his products.

“I wanted to hide a bit as the centre of town was becoming too commercial,” says South Korea native Myung il Song, who moved her concept shop away from the first district to this quiet stretch of the Praterstrasse. Art, furniture, fashion and design are all under one roof here; drawers contain sparkling jewellery and covert corners hold collections by hard-to-find designers such as Paul Harnden. There are also exclusive collaborations with Lobmeyr and Lock & Co hatters, as well as Song’s own furniture line.