If you’re familiar with the much-loved, much-lauded boutique empire Bird in Brooklyn, you know that the shops defined indie style in the borough for more than a decade (see the NY Times piece Saying Goodbye to Bird, “the shop that created the ‘Brooklyn Look’ of the aughts”).

Plot twist: In 2022, owner Jen Mankins closed her stores, moved to Sweden, and shifted her focus to interior design.

Here’s the backstory:

“I lived and worked in Brooklyn for more than two decades before my college boyfriend-turned-husband and I decided to move to Sweden with our twin toddler sons in 2022,” Jen says. “Our timing coincided with me landing my first professional interior design with Brooklyn-based clients I knew through Bird. Luckily, even though I was moving 4,000 miles away and embarking on a new profession, they didn’t blink an eye.”

In concert with Ingui Architecture, a NY firm known for its focus onm sustainable living, Jen designed the interiors of a six-story landmarked brownstone from 1895. Her inspiration? “Sweden has been hugely influential for me personally and continues to be a never-ending source of design inspiration. On my earliest visits to Stockholm with my husband, I was immediately drawn to the colors and patterns of Josef Frank designs championed by visionary retailer Estrid Erickson at Svenskt Tenn. I was charmed by the whimsical ceramics of Stig Lindberg and Lisa Larson. (Although I can’t deny that my first experience with Swedish design was via Ikea, the design emporium that has for over 80 years brought Swedish style to the masses.)”

Join us for a tour of Jen’s recently completed project:

Photography by Jessica Antola.

For more Nordic design, see our Scandinavian archive.