Imperial shopping in Vienna

[bengal-stripe]

I don’t think there are many of the smart Viennese shop and stores left. Two years ago the grandest of them all, E. Braun & Co at the Graben, closed shop for good to be taken over by that Swedish cut-price upstart Hennes & Mauritz. All right, the grand façade of the 1904 shop and sections of the oak intarsia interior with its spectacular chandeliers have a preservation order. But it’s not the same.

Vienna like all other cities of the world has this mixture of all the international brands: the usual suspects like Cartier, Gucci, Zegna, Hermes etc. But the biggest stores at the Graben (the prime shopping street) are occupied by H & M and Zara. At least the coffeehouses have survived with Demel at the Kohlmarkt the grandest (and priciest) of them all. Of course Demel had an Imperial warrant for services to the court. The story goes, that Frau Katharina Schratt, the Emperor’s mistress, baked every morning a Guglhupf cake for breakfast. But just in case, a disaster happened and the morning cake would not rise, there was always a standby, waiting at Demel (conveniently just across the road from the city palace, the Hofburg).

Some of the old Viennese stores that have survived:

http://www.albindenk.at/ (china and table ware)
http://www.lobmeyr.at/ (glass and chandeliers)
http://www.heldwein.com/d/adr.htm (jewellers)
http://www.koechert.at/ (jewellers)
http://www.kukhoflieferanten.at/jungmann.html (fabrics)
http://www.springer-vienna.com/ (rifles and hunting equipment)
http://www.knize.at/de/content/1.html (no introduction required)

A list of all the firms with Imperial Warrants:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K.u.k._Hoflieferant

For those who can read German:

http://www.handelsblatt.de/hbiwwwangebo ... 0/depot/0/
http://www.czernin-verlag.com/czerninve ... xml?id=244