While I not often advise making life-changing choices on a whim, that’s precisely what I did after I moved to Denmark. It was the first spring of Covid, the top of lockdown, when my weekly highlights included Thursday night claps for the NHS and digital quizzes on YouTube. I had simply handed in my college dissertation and was briefly sleeping on my sister’s couch. Add to {that a} current breakup and the everlasting query of what I wished subsequent… There was lots to think about. One morning, when making an attempt to determine my plan, one of the first ideas that popped into my head – it sounds clichéd, however it’s completely true – was Scandinavia.
The pull north had been simmering for years. In 2013, I went down a rabbit gap of Nordic music, and by 2015, my playlists have been overrun with Ásgeir, Aurora, Sigrid, Robyn (and, of course, ABBA). I’d additionally been learning trend idea and had developed a agency fixation on the area’s artistic pulse. Fashion manufacturers, from Ganni to Acne Studios, have been starting to form the business globally.
When I ultimately visited Stockholm and Reykjavík for the first time in 2017, I fell in love with the lakes, inexperienced landscapes, and the slower, grounded tempo of on a regular basis life, which felt like a stark distinction to life again in the British metropolis. In Scandinavia, it felt like somebody had hit the pause button. So when my intestine intuition kicked in throughout the pandemic, I made a decision to go along with it.
I arrived in Copenhagen for the very first time with two suitcases in hand, and had an prompt feeling of residence. The plan was to remain for 3 months tops, however over six years have handed, and I haven’t returned. Instead, I’ve had stints dwelling in varied locations throughout Denmark and Norway, with loads of lengthy stretches of travelling in Sweden.
As it seems, many different expats have been charmed by the ever-happy Nordics. Australian-born Isabella Rose Davey, COO of Copenhagen Fashion Week, places this fairly aptly. (*3*) as British-born Isabella Maidment, Chief Curator at Henie Onstad, reminds us. And then there’s the folks, “the amazing creative community and friends” that you just’ll “have for life,” as Australian-born, Stockholm-based PR and artistic advisor, Alice Ekberg Betts, says.