This moment has finally arrived!

As you probably have already learnt from our Facebook page, we have opened our first Virivee Shop in Budapest.

We knew from the very start that we didn’t want to open a traditional shop for tights, because as pretty and interesting our tights are, a shop selling tights only sounds rather boring :)
We wanted to add something special to the mix, and come up with a unique, new and exciting pairing which fills our customers with as much awe as the tights themselves. We had some brainstorming, and the most important question proved to be: “What do women crave?” Well, the simplest of answers was: nice tights… and, of course, CHOCOLATE.

So our concept was born to sell small and delicious hand-made chocolates besides our special tights, since most of our customers would surely like them. This pairing might sound weird, but it seems to be working, because it lures in passers-by from the street (with a wondering and happy expression on their face), and it also drew the attention of known Hungarian magazines which plan to write articles about the shop.

We assume you already know the history of Virivee and the tights, but let us introduce this tiny women’s den (as we call it) a bit more, assuming you haven’t already been there.

The shop is situated in the most popular part of Budapest, in the middle of the party district, at the corner of the Dob and Kazinczy streets. This area is the historical Jewish district of the city; the Orthodox Synagogue is only 60 meters away. Nowadays these streets are more famous for those more than 300 bars, pubs, coffee shops and restaurants that opened in the last few years and turned this formerly desolate part of the town into a district bursting with life all day and night.

The shop itself was in a very bad shape before renovation. It hasn’t been used for more than 20 years, and even back then it must have been quite run-down. We would like to show you what it looked like and what we were able to do with a copious amount of tiring and hard work:

Before:

After:

As you can see, we didn’t only do some repainting on the floor and walls. We transported some more than 100 years old wooden beams from Kóspallag (a little mountain village) which gave some rustic charm to the place. If the beams could talk, we could be listening to tales of old all day long… And have a look at our wall drawing! It was drawn by Viri for three days with a marker pen, because we couldn’t make a decision about the color of that wall.

The result speaks for itself. You can find the patterns of our tights there, the cats, robots, little hearts, owls, birds and fishes, and of course Sándor (Alexander in English), who seems quite grumpy for some reason (Sándor was named after your votes on Facebook, by the way).
All in all there are 173 cats on that wall, and everybody can tag herself or himself on the one she or he finds the cutest. The wall is not completely finished, we plan to put a writing somewhere in the middle. We also keep working on primping and designing the interior of the shop; there is still work to do, but we wanted to open as soon as possible.

We keep collecting cute little decorative items, Sophie for instance just found a little porcelain deer in a shop window, and she bought it without hesitation. Bambi was since accompanied by a porcelain origami bird (yes, you heard that right), and who knows what else will be moving in into our shop later. We also have an octopus, Mathilda, who happens to be a piece of carpet. Mathilda was born at the end of a long day when Viri cut some shapes out of the carpet, completely random, as you do. There was a little piece left, and an octopus girl was born out of it. Mathilda gets fresh flowers in her hair every day; the japonica standing in the corner keeps her decorated with its fallen petals.
But, to be serious, we quickly inhabited this tiny shop, and we are very happy that you also like it, judging from the feedbacks we get.
We have some surprises in store, and we hope you will like them.
Until then, you are welcomed to visit our shop from Monday till Saturday between 11 a. m. to 7 p. m. Feel free to have a closer look of the tights, try on leggings and taste chocolates!

By the way, chocolates. You can taste exquisite chocolates on a really friendly price; they are the perfect solution if you are looking for some small pleasure or a cute little gift. If you’re out of ideas for a birthday or an anniversary, or you just want to give a little surprise to a dear friend, we can offer you an assortment in a beautiful gift box, all chocolates chosen by you.

Just to water your mouths a bit: we have gingerbread, tropical fruit-caramel, sour cherry liquor, orange-marzipan and Irsai Olivér (a type of Hungarian wine grape) flavored chocolates. Viri’s favorite is the lavender flavored chocolate, Sophie prefers the Sleeping Beauty, a mixture of rosehip and white chocolate, while Gitta likes Bailey’s truffle the most.

Pay us a visit! We are finally here and we are planning to stay for a long while! 🙂

Address: 1072 Budapest, Dob utca 24. Open: Monday-Saturday 11am-7pm