Shopping
What can Budapest offer to someone coming from New York (or rather: what can any city offer to someone coming from New York) when it comes to shopping? Well, we would like to believe that there is a lot to offer.
There are two musts in Budapest if you like shopping - markets and antique stores, because those are the city's strong suits, no matter how we look at it. There are talented Hungarian fashion designers as well (Natalie Cole bought a dress from the designer we will introduce to you), but if you want shopping in Budapest to be a real adventure, then you should start by the antique stores and markets, and continue with the central market hall (Queen Elisabeth and Queen Beatrix's personal favorite) and other market halls. The dollar is very strong against the Hungarian Forint (HUF) and you should take advantage of that, if you can.
The Ecseri flea market, an antiques market is like an antique shop crossed with a junk store, and by any standard it has an exceptionally great, quality supply. You will see there silver pocket watches, Thonet chairs (Viennese Bidermayer-style furniture of the late 1800's), folk costumes, art nouveau blankets and recast copper lamps, as well as jeans and sportswear. The low price makes it tempting to buy. There are a lot of goods that might not be available in town, so the place is really worth a visit. The market is a museum of man-made shapes, where there is a mixture of old and new, rich and poor, fine and chaotic. You can even try-out your bargain talents here.
Located in Gödör, another exciting place to go shopping is WAMP, which comes from "Vasárnapi Művészi Piac", Sunday Design Fair, on the first Sunday of every month. Most young designers are selling there, and most young budapesters are buying, so it is almost always very crowded, but you can find rarities here.
You can find more about other antique stores, markets and high-fashion below.
If you have trouble finding the right gifts, your hosts will help you.
Antiques and galleries:
Pinter Antik
This shop is a revelation for the uninitiated. The two modest windows hide a 1,800 square-meter labyrinth holding a universe of treasures. Peter Pinter is a mid-career dealer who began selling antiques in the early 1990s in a similarly large space in a no-name area along the outer boulevard. His clients were loyal and followed him to his next and bigger Jozsefvaros shop, and then to this final shop, which is one of Budapest's finest. The variety here is tempting for people from various walks of life - for its style, quality and state-of-repair. The varied space has been restored with an imaginative vein. His wife, Sonja Pinter, opened a contemporary gallery/store in another part of the shop, which has changing exhibitions, all of which are fit for a home in the elegant surrounding blocks.
This shop has forever changed the streetscape. One of Budapest's most important antique shops holds regular auctions and occupies a big space. It is a low-key business with high standards, and is priced accordingly. It sells furniture, paintings, chandeliers, and various pleasant textiles such as blankets, and folk costumes (both old and recent). The staff is always friendly. The gallery commissioned a well-known playful goldsmith (Vladimir Peter, 1997) (seen below) to design a witty and brilliant sign for them.
Vladimir Peter is a professor at the Moholy-Nagy Arts University (MoME) who has taught generations of his students to respect precious metals and to blend the old with the contemporary. This atelier/gallery/shop is a work of art in itself. The small, bearded, long-haired owner tends to be here on Tuesday afternoons. Click here for the wonderful website.
The inauguration of this space was a major social event in the spring of 2001. The formerly derelict cellar, which was used for storing coal and was once flooded with sewage, was converted into a gallery worthy of Manhattan. The space was designed by the owners, Judit Virág and Istvan Torő. The former was the first chartered auctioneer in Hungary. She did her job with such excellence that it helped develop the antique art market at an unprecedented pace. She was also the first to include post-1945 Hungarian masters in her auctions. Apart from paintings, the gallery also sells Zsolnay ceramics (Hungarian china).
Kieselbach Gallery and Auction House
Tamas Kieselbach is not just an important art dealer and a self-made billionaire gallery owner with a large, well-known space on the corner of the Nagykorut (ring-boulevard) and Falk Miksa utca. He also aims to form public taste and to do things that are usually done by museums in other countries. Mr. Kieselbach is a soft-spoken, serious man who dresses in such a classic way that he emanates respectability. His exhibition openings are as civilized as if there had been no tragic half-a-century pause in the history of Hungarian art-dealing. The gallery is located in the former Cafe Luxor, whose praises were sung by famous writers and poets.
Some Contemporary Galleries
Foos- central market hall (Központi vásárcsarnok)
The different waves of diets, vegetarianism, and environmentally friendly consumption have all reached Budapest. This coupled with the indefatigable enthusiasm towards chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver have led to a measurable improvement in the supply of ingredients available at the markets and now even in regular grocery stores. However, this is not what's so great about food-shopping in Budapest. What is so incredible is where you do the shopping. If you go to the Central Market Hall, and look it up, you will understand what this is all about.
At the end of the 19th century the city had five large covered market halls which were built in similar styles. All were opened on the same day. This one, designed by Samu Pecz, is the largest. The structure, the lighting and the cold storage areas were very modern in their time and are still in use. Formerly, laden barges sailed right into a special entrance marked by a notice: "TUNNEL INTO THE CENTRAL MARKET HALL".
The market is changing. The old-fashioned market-women, dressed in black or black and white, and always ready for some loud bargaining, are slowly disappearing. Instead, the rowdy, 30 to 40 year-old small businessman with his well-dressed wife at the stall, cracking endless jokes with the customers, is becoming the typical figure. There are still some - although fewer and fewer - peasant women in black skirts with scarves on their heads, Transylvanian visitors selling clothes, or provincially-dressed smallholders. They all represent the old local color. It's worth walking around to indulge in watching people.
High Fashion
It goes without saying that transition brought the greatest change in Hungarian consumers' lives. In the past 20 years all the European confection brands found their way to Budapest, and some years later great ready-to-wear and high-fashion houses followed them.
Yet what's even more interesting is the slow-paced but very promising change that Hungarian fashion design is going through. It began with a trier of independent-minded designers (such as Márta Makány, Lucia and Anikó Németh, none of whom started off as a fashion designer), who laid the foundations of contemporary Hungarian design, along with Tamás Náray, Kati Zoób and others. But this required a breakthrough in the supply of accessible quality materials as well as a sophistication of the creators' and buyers' sense of quality, which took a couple of decades to reach.
Members of the younger generation, the USE Unused group, Je suis belle, Nanushka, and Bori Tóth have already had the chance to pursue their education abroad, find supporters and investors and fully exploit the benefits of the internet in ordering materials from the farthest corners of the world from day one of their career (The fact that the Hungarian elite is also ready for spending on clothing and keen on promoting Hungarian designers also helped). We would like you to get you acquainted with some of the designers in person and take you to their shows to give you a taste of what is happening in the fashion world in Budapest, which used to be the place the European noblesse would turn to when they needed to add items to their collections of hats and gloves.
Until then, click on the links below for the newest collections of the designers mentioned in the article:
Márta Makány makanymarta.com
Anikó Németh (Manier): http://manier.hu/
Lucia: http://www.luanbylucia.hu/
Tamás Náray: http://www.naraytamas.hu/
Katti Zoób: http://www.kattizoob.hu/
USE unused: http://use.co.hu/
Nanushka: http://nanushka.hu/
Je suis belle: http://jesuisbelle.hu/
TothBori: http://www.tothbori.com/
Márta Makány makanymarta.com
Anikó Németh (Manier): http://manier.hu/
Lucia: http://www.luanbylucia.hu/
Tamás Náray: http://www.naraytamas.hu/
Katti Zoób: http://www.kattizoob.hu/
USE unused: http://use.co.hu/
Nanushka: http://nanushka.hu/
Je suis belle: http://jesuisbelle.hu/
TothBori: http://www.tothbori.com/
Souveniers
There are so many goods to take home from your trip to Hungary that it would be hard to list them all here - porcelain, antiques, Budapest-themed designers' items... one option would always be for you to go to the flea market in City Park, or the designer fair in Gödör. Printa, a store located in the former ghetto area, is also good place for you to check on your quest. It has a gallery and small espresso bar as well, with a great selection of European coffee served by an enthusiastic, though somewhat eccentrics coffee expert. The founder, a charming artist who is always ready to take you around when she's in.
And there are many-many things you could take home. Ask your host and she will provide you with ideas and take you to the right places.