SPECIAL REPORT: Scandanavitrends
After a few weeks in Copenhagen and Stockholm, we explore the fashion and wider culture happening in Northern Europe.
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Most of my August was spent not-at-home but instead in Scandinavia, in the Nordics, where I visiting for work and for a lil vacation. It was cute! And cold, or at least much colder than the wardrobe I packed while fantasizing about the one day in the forecast that was to be a high of 24ºC / 75ºF. But that’s a me thing.
I spent about a week and a half in Copenhagen and almost three weeks in Stockholm, the two weeks in the middle of it “not working” (or, at least, only doing Trend Report™ work). Bobby Aaron Solomon and I saw a lot and did a lot, which fueled a lot of on-the-ground trend sighting and observations about these places — and I’ve gathered those insights for you, in case you were curious what’s happening on-the-ground or are planning a trip to these very buzzy “cool” places. Take these insights as you will! This was how I processed the place and what I thought: all my opinions, etc. are to always take with pinches of salt.
Let’s get into this because we do go a bit long, diving into general thoughts, fashion analysis, food, and culture along with recommendations of what to do in each city.
👀 Overall
I will not sugarcoat this: Stockholm is great, Copenhagen ain’t. “But Noma!” you scream at me. “But the fashion!” you moan — and I get it: there is a lot of propaganda to fill up the (white) imagination about the city. There’s a lot to unpack here, largely that Cope felt like Get Out, that there was a very white and very heterosexual energy to this small city that is suffocatingly expensive yet somehow outsized in the outsider imagination, constantly at the top of lists that fuel distant (white, American) imaginations about “a best place ever.” The feeling with Cope is that it scratches the itch of a MAGA-lite-ness, inspiring articles like this for The Telegraph or this for Monocle, waxing on about a city where immigrants are hidden, where it is quiet and features café au lait diversity, where everyone drives a Tesla and are nice if they are paid to be that way. While there is some style to adore, it’s largely what the artist Reba Maybury describes as “a beige purgatory where comfort and practicality seem to sit smugly over any desire for risk, glamour, or individuality” (which I read in the latest Spike before deplaning in the city, finding it funny — only for the statement to haunt the trip). As I encountered Superflex’s 2002 piece “FOREIGNERS, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US ALONE WITH THE DANES!” days before leaving, I realized that my feeling may not exactly be unique. While I am sure it’s not-all-bad (The Henrik Vibskov experience and team was great, for example!), I was neither warmed nor wowed and certainly felt their right leaning tendencies very early on, which continued to rip my skin again and again like a too small pair of flip flops.
But Stockholm? What a dream, even if it is quite a cold one. Whereas Cope feels like Long Beach by way of Milledgeville, a college town without a college, Stock has the bite of Marseille as tidied up by the global filter of a place like (pre-Trump occupation) DC but placed somewhere far north like Seattle. (Note, which I did not: the closest city as climatically analogous is actually not in the Pacific Northwest but way up in Anchorage, Alaska, the closest latitudinal twin to the city. This is to say: it is up there.) The city is very cool without needing to assert itself as such, making it a casually interesting place, the best kind of city that is eccentrically itself with very nice people, an affordable enough vibe, and everything I wanted from Cope but did not get. In fact! When I mentioned I was visiting the areas, many people reached out and came to local meet-ups (Shoutout to Diane, Jaan, and Ida Therén!) while it was repeated crickets in Cope. C’est la vie!
For any of the “I want to move abroad!!” types, know that both these places are “good” candidates given their tolerance and use of English is quite high. Normally, I study a local language before a trip but, due to myriad work pile-ups, I ran out of time — which wasn’t helped by people telling me “everyone speaks English” which held to be very true. Unlike most of southern Europe, in Spain and France and Italy where you need to know the local language to survive, these places are very much not-that. Do with that what you will! But as an English-speaker abroad, let me tell you: that relationship to English makes life a lot easier, while also speaking to welcome a certain type of internationalness.
Both cities are super bike-friendly, with Cope being very traditional — Bikes only! Everyone looked like Kermit the Frog or some shit!! — while Stock is more non-traditional, with bikes and scooters and unicycles and whatever other inventive form of locomotion that is. Both feature elevated bike paths, which are essentially a sidewalk but for bikes which I am not a fan of, as someone who has been in one too many bike crashes from uneven pavement. While “safe,” there was a striking — And strange! Get Out!! — amount of unlocked bikes in Cope, just resting out in the rain. Couldn’t be me.
Another Cope thing that was so wild: there were kids everywhere, parented by people of all ages and styles, making the city feel like a kindergarten sponsored by Flying Tiger. We attributed this to greater social services, but I smell something fishy given the amount of Teslas in the city and the high price tag on literally everything: it is a very rich place, hence why kids were more present than dogs or queer people, all dressed like small Arket models. Don’t let JD Vance visit or we will never hear the end of this!
Both cities rise early and keep quiet, with little rowdiness seen or heard as places close around 1A. That wasn’t bad but it definitely meant I had to crank a noise machine to imitate being in a bigger city, lulling myself to sleep with automated white noise to simulate the hum of traffic. (Also: consider an eye mask as the summer morning sun is no joke.)
The GHC trap has these cities wrapped around the finger too. They aren’t the worst I’ve seen (I hardly saw any Labubus, for example. I did see them in Cope, though.) but they definitely had a lot more not-from-there than from-there. An example: the wine in Cope was surprisingly American while the cars in Stock were surprisingly non-European (Toyota! Cadillac! Kia! Subaru!), both small signals of soft power influences on very common things. The ubiquity of 7-Eleven also emphasized this!
Another thing that was also Copennotgreat? The inhospitableness. I caught this vibe early in communication around fashion week but the biggest example came from my Airbnb bathroom: I made (What I thought!) was a silly little benign TikTok asking about the curious bathrooms in the city, which resulted in our hosts catching the video, stalking our social accounts, then kicking us out because they thought the video was “invasive.” Mind you: no names or locations are mentioned in the video — and the curious shower-in-sink thing paired and the unlocked-bathroom-door-to-apartment-hallway thing went unexplained by the hosts before, during, and after the stay. It was like getting scolded for making a very obvious observation, which I suppose goes into what people have told me about the area: there is a superiority complex that caves when questioned, as if you held up a mirror to show that there was something in the teeth only to get punched in return. This all reiterated that it really does not pay to stand out in such cities, a recurring trend I’ve felt in many of the more not-big-cities in the EU. Oh! Did I mentioned we got called a slur? It’s all good though: the Get Out vibe meant we left early, getting to spend more time in Stockholm. What a blessing that was! No matter how cute the Airbnbs seem in Cope, know that wandering spirits wander the halls, demanding blankets under you to sit on the couch and no lemons in the kitchen.
The big smelly boat at Vasa, me at Operakällaren, the sunset at Yasuragi, Bobby at Noma, me on a Swedish island
👠 Fashion
The amount of vintage and antique stores is overwhelming!!! And many are great. While Cope’s were a bit more lux (and overpriced), Stockholm’s range was most impressive — and largely with high-quality brands, many of which were American, again speaking to the curious relationship between the continents. Cope was a bit more curious in relationship to these sustainable practices in that racks of clothing and goods would pop up on the street, with items to take as if a free sidewalk sale. Moreover, flea markets seemed to pop up for fun, where vendors felt like someone clearing out their closet. This relationship to cyclicality in clothing definitely reflects societies that take both clothing and waste seriously, even if that doesn’t always translate to something like fashion week.
To the above: many of the vintage spots seem to have in-house designers, enabling upcycling to happen in-house and in inventive ways. This isn’t unique to these cities as this happens in many cities but the quality and pervasiveness was of note, with brands like Beyond Retro being particularly of note.
A few Copenstyles and Stockentrends I observed, as far as “types” that kept recurring in fashion —
