Interview: Dan from Kiosk Store

Dan Johnson started KIOSK STORE in March, a post–lockdown business that is quickly developing momentum with it’s well curated mix of vintage furniture and objects, sold largely via instagram and their website. We caught up with Dan to chat about the origins of Kiosk, a bit of a full circle moment, being a former colleague of Jordans from previous jobs.

Hi Dan, could you start off by telling us a little bit about what Kiosk is?

Sure, Kiosk is a curated collection of furniture, lighting and design objects. It’s a mixture of vintage and also some contemporary pieces. Everything is secondhand, but not from a specific period. The focus is on timeless designs that are going to last and be useable for many years to come and often have had a long history beforehand.

Could you give us a bit of background on the type of design and makers that you focus on, and why?

Yeah so one of things I wanted to focus on going into this was authentic makers. There’s a lot of reproduction vintage furniture out there. And I think that while it’s nice to have those pieces in your home, at a lower price, the timeless nature of things in terms of construction means it’s pretty critical to have the authentic maker and the backing that the construction is solid. All of the most influential designs of the mid-century were produced by the makers for Vitra, Herman Miller, people like that. It’s really about the time when they were operating in their full capacity: that’s when those designers were really up and coming and doing their most creative work. And these makers that are now the leaders in the industry, are the ones who were willing to invest in innovation, technologies and new materials to allow them to push the boundaries of what they could design.