Section 01 / Awesome Place 11 / Mode: Take home
01.11
The Irma net.
The souvenir for every visitor: Irma’s cotton tote, the Irma girl of 1907 on natural or olive canvas. Irma — Denmark’s oldest supermarket chain, 1886 to 2024 — has left the streets, but Coop still sells the bag in selected SuperBrugsen and Kvickly shops. Køge’s Coop shop on Vestergade is Kvickly, three minutes from the square.
Location: Kvickly, Vestergade 25A — ask at the till · Photo: Coop
File: 13-IRMA-NET / the tote printed through a string-bag mesh
The souvenir
The girl on the bag.
Irma was Denmark’s oldest supermarket chain and Europe’s second oldest, after Sainsbury’s: founded in 1886 by Karen Marie Schepler as a milk-and-egg shop at Ravnsborggade 13 on Nørrebro in Copenhagen, built out by her son Carl into a hundred and ten shops by 1942, and part of the co-operative FDB — today Coop — from 1982. The name arrived in 1907 from a margarine: JRMA, Johannes Rasmussen’s Margarinefabrik in Slagelse, softened to Irma. So did the girl. The architect Sophus Greiffenberg drew her that year with his daughter Else as the model; she was registered as a trademark in 1943, redrawn in the 1970s by Bent Mackeprang and Erik Ellegaard Frederiksen from a child into a young woman, and given the Danish Design Centre’s Classic Prize in 2007 — a hundred years old and still on the bag. The shops closed in 2024; the girl, the products and the bag live on in Coop’s other chains.
The net — the shop’s own word for its carrier bag, as in indkøbsnet — is a cotton canvas tote with long canvas handles and the girl on the front: natural with the girl in white, or olive green with the girl in white. Coop sells it in selected SuperBrugsen and Kvickly shops only, with no webshop and no price list online; Køge’s Coop shop on Vestergade is Kvickly, at number 25A, three minutes from Torvet, so ask at the till. Carry the market home in it on Saturday. The photographs are Coop’s two packshots, printed above the way a net prints — as a net: every strand as thick as the light along it, a knot at every crossing, the girl solid where the thread is white.
Where
Kvickly Køge, Vestergade 25A, 4600 Køge — the Coop shop on the main shopping street, three minutes from Torvet. Coop lists the net for selected SuperBrugsen and Kvickly shops; ask at the till.
When
Monday to Friday 07:00–21:00, Saturday and Sunday 07:00–20:00.
Phone
Kvickly Køge: +45 56 37 14 00.
What
The Irma net: a cotton canvas tote with long handles and the Irma girl on the front. Two colours — natural with the girl in white, olive green with the girl in white.
Price
Not published online; Coop sells the net in its shops only. Check the shelf — this is a demo, not a price list.
Elsewhere
The nearest SuperBrugsen shops are Ølsemagle and Herfølge, both a short drive from the centre; Coop’s “Irma” pages list what else of the brand lives on.
The girl
Drawn in 1907 by the architect Sophus Greiffenberg with his daughter Else as the model; a registered trademark since 1943; redrawn in 1975 and 1978; the Danish Design Centre’s Classic Prize, 2007.
The chain
Founded 1886 on Nørrebro by Karen Marie Schepler; 110 shops by 1942; FDB/Coop from 1982; the last seven shops closed in May 2024 — the products and the bag continue at Coop.
Source
coop.dk, “Irmas ikoniske net”, and Coop’s store finders, read 11 October 2026; Wikipedia (Danish) on Irma. The two product photographs are Coop’s, used here for concept demonstration only.
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