STØV, before STØV. How our story began.

Uno dei primi allestimenti nel nuovo spazio STØV_Copertina articolo

Before showrooms, the website, and everything that STØV is today, there was a garage.
To be precise, Mom's garage.

It was 2014, and we had started bringing the first pieces of furniture found during our trips to Northern Europe to Italy. We didn't have a warehouse, a photo studio, or a real exhibition space. We had furniture, plenty of it, that's for sure. And then, boxes, various tools, and definitely not much space to put everything.

Il garage di mamma, primo magazzino di STØV, con alcuni dei mobili vintage arrivati dal Nord Europa.

This terrible but, precisely for this reason, incredibly authentic photo (it brings a tear to our eye just looking at it), perfectly describes the beginnings of our adventure. It shows some of the first pieces of furniture that had just arrived, still packed, a car, boxes, and a large vintage sign leaning against the wall.

STØV was starting from there.

The first furniture that arrived from the North

More than anything else, we loved those pieces of furniture. The essential shapes, the woods, the proportions, the details. We were particularly struck by the fact that objects produced decades earlier could still look so contemporary. And then we wanted to understand more: who designed them, where they were produced, how they were built, and what distinguished an interesting piece from a less interesting one.

So we started looking more and more towards Northern Europe, and Denmark in particular. The first trips came, the first purchases, and, inevitably, the first loads to unload. Il garage, e uno dei primi carichi di mobili vintage in arrivo per STØV. The logistics were quite simple: the furniture arrived and had to fit into the garage. One way or another! And space was limited. A car still had to fit inside, along with everything else normally found in a garage. In the meantime, more and more chairs, chests of drawers, mini sideboards, and small pieces of furniture began to appear.

At that point, all that was missing was a place to photograph them.

Our first photo studio was a courtyard

Fortunately, outside the garage there was a courtyard.

Some of STØV's first pieces were photographed right there: no sets, no professional lights: just the concrete wall of the courtyard and plenty of natural light. Alcuni dei mobili vintage fotografati nel cortile che diventò il primo set fotografico di STØV. An armchair, a chest of drawers, then another piece of furniture and another. Those were, in all effects, our first product photographs.

Today things work quite differently, but we still enjoy looking back at these shots. They remind us of a time when we were learning almost everything: how to find pieces, how to transport them, how to evaluate them, how to arrange them, and, yes, even how to photograph them.

Then a space came along

A couple of years later, in 2016, something important happened: we found a space. To be honest, there wasn't much to see at that moment:

Il primo spazio di STØV, ancora vuoto e prima dell’arrivo dei mobili.

Empty walls, very worn floors, and a lot to imagine (and to do!). We were still very happy, because we finally had a place that could become something. In the meantime, of course, we continued to look for furniture, have it delivered, arrange it, and understand a little better, piece by piece, what shape we wanted STØV to take.

The first time out of the garage

In October 2016, we arrived at our first market: for the occasion, we had a selection of furniture, some lamps, mirrors, a green rug, and a simple STØV sign hanging on the wall.

It wasn't a showroom yet, but it was the first time we put our pieces together in a space designed for other people to see them. The excitement was immense, and people actually stopped! They looked at the furniture, asked questions, and, not insignificantly, some even decided to take pieces home.
What had until recently mainly occupied Mom's garage was beginning to look like a real project.

STØV begins to take shape

A few months later, in February 2017, that empty space also looked decidedly different.

Uno dei primi allestimenti nel nuovo spazio STØV.

The furniture had arrived. Quite a lot, judging by the photo. There were sideboards, chests of drawers, chairs, tables, accessories, and a new STØV sign. There was still much to build, but there was also starting to be something that resembled how we imagined this project.

From then on, many more pieces of furniture, more trips, and more spaces followed. We learned to better understand what we were looking for and to be increasingly selective. The way we work, restore, photograph, and tell the story of each piece has changed.

And inevitably, STØV has changed too.

Twelve years later

A little time has passed since those first photographs.

Today, Mom's garage is no longer our warehouse, the courtyard is no longer the photo studio, and organizing the arrival of a load of furniture requires more than just some free space between a car and a few boxes.

But we essentially continue to do the same thing as always: find furniture we find interesting, bring it to Italy, take care of it, and find someone who wants to give it new life.

And in the meantime, we've kept these photos. Because, if you look closely, STØV was already all there.

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