In Finland, Luxury Is Not As We Think

As soon as we set foot on the tarmac at Helsinki Airport, our view of luxury changes. Forget flashy shop windows and monogrammed bags, and observe the more subtle and refined elegance of a boutique café that invites you to become more mindful. Relove is the name of this unique place, a high-end second-hand concept store located in the heart of the terminal.

“It's a world first,” says Heidi Johansson of Helsinki Partners. “Never before has an airport dared to combine the beauty of selected objects with the simplicity of sustainable action.” Here, everything exudes Scandinavian refinement. The lines are pure, the wood light, the light soft like a Finnish summer morning. On the racks, fashion items are sorted like confidences: old-fashioned Burberry, vintage Marimekko, silhouettes that tell the story of a former life but have lost none of their allure. A few meters away, a pink onyx counter serves exceptional local, organic coffee, slowly brewed. This is no longer a boutique, it is a stopping place, a manifesto, because Relove is not a marketing gimmick. It is a laboratory for the luxury of tomorrow, one that prefers patina to novelty, meaning to possession. Here, people discuss the circular economy over a cappuccino. The project, born from the minds of Noora Hautakangas and Eero Ukkonen, two figures on the new Finnish scene, is part of a Nordic ethic of useful beauty. “Far from the noise and fury, Finland is charting a unique course,” says ceramic artist Mia Saporito, “one of luxury through accuracy, reconciling man with nature and meaning with beauty.”

In Helsinki, modernity is written in silence: here, people recycle, refine, and sublimate. Even the airport itself becomes a backdrop and a manifesto. Finavia, the operator, understands this: tomorrow, terminals will no longer be waiting areas, but places of experience, sensory interludes. Relove is the symbol of this. The design, by Sisse Collander, combines rigor and warmth, noble materials and transparency, like a metaphor for this country where beauty is cultivated without ostentation. What is at stake here goes beyond the simple idea of responsible retail. It is luxury reimagined, swapping glitz for consistency, lightening its load without denying its roots. Relove speaks of another form of desire: that of traveling more slowly, consuming more intelligently, loving longer.

In a world saturated with images and possessions, Helsinki offers a breath of fresh air. Between two departures, travelers encounter a new Nordic myth: that of luxury that is no longer displayed, but experienced—at the pace of reality. In fact, the Relove concept store is multiplying throughout the city, even on the upper floors of local department stores such as Stockmann. The concept has spread and been copied by numerous second-hand stores that are well established and attract crowds. “This fits well with the Finnish temperament, which does better with less,” says David, author of an untranslated book on the art of being Finnish. “Here, there are no Ferraris; we don't like flashiness, and even the richest people are very discreet. You wouldn't be able to tell them apart on the street.” In the city center, there are no streets dedicated to foreign brands, French or Italian, and no flashy limousines.

The country of saunas and ice baths has invented a new luxury that reflects its image: quiet, sincere, almost spiritual. Water, wood, and light are its three raw materials. “Since the 1950s, Finland has made design a common good,” continues Mia Saporito. “Designs for the people” was the slogan after the war. No frills, no ostentation, just simple, honest, accessible objects made to last." A glass by Alvar Aalto, a chair by Artek, a vase by Iittala: icons that live in homes as much as in museums. This kind of design doesn't seduce, it accompanies. It is attached to life, to everyday living, to the right gesture. And when the architects at ALA—the ones who designed the spectacular Oodi library and the new Helsinki airport—imagine a place, they first think of it as a public service, an extension of collective well-being.

In contemporary hotels such as the Saint-Georges, luxury is subtly reinventing itself. No gilding, but noble materials, hushed comfort, invisible technology, and works by local artists. The new Nordic luxury embraces its distinction without flaunting it. It is less about impressing and more about reconnecting – with oneself, with others, with nature. Luxury is about taking time, working less, breathing.

In Finland, it has a new, calmer face, reinventing itself through a certain sobriety that is no less desirable, as evidenced by the very dynamic Nordic gastronomic scene. Here, locavorism and zero waste are writing a new chapter in Finnish cuisine, with nobility: “Rare, wild, hard-to-find foods and techniques that had been lost for preserving and serving them all year round,” say Anton and Jon of Skörd restaurant, a locavore temple where everything comes from Finland—except the salt. Six dishes of rare subtlety, served as a celebration of the land, accompanied by blueberry or redcurrant wines. Taste becomes an intimate geography: moss, forest, lake, without any pretension. Here, simplicity is not a lack, but a form of abundance. Perhaps this is why Finns consider themselves the happiest people in the world in all statistical studies.

The same spirit can be found at the Finnjävel restaurant, whose name literally means “Finnish devil” and where the chef plays with tradition as if reviving a flame. A Michelin star for a 100% local menu: wild meat, berries, black bread, and fermented milk.

Grandmother's cooking revisited without shame or nostalgia, but with the precision of a 21st-century craftsman. Here, terroir is not an empty word. All over the world, Finnish cuisine is in vogue. In France and the United States, chefs are making more and more exploratory trips to Finland and its neighbors. Finland is fashionable and fascinating. In Paris, at PIASA, auctions devoted entirely to design are breaking all price records and sometimes exceeding the interest shown in Prouvé or Perriand. Moreover, Helsinki's Design District is gathering new energy: young fashion designers, minimalist jewelers, ethical interior design studios, and art galleries.

In the Sarpaneva family, I ask for the grandson, Stéphane. He was born in the 1970s into a Finnish family with a long tradition of craftsmanship. The son of a jewelry designer and nephew of an important designer, he makes luxury watches in Helsinki, but not in gold or set with stones. “Everything made of steel fascinates me. When I was younger, I repaired bicycles, motorcycles, and then cars. It has always been important to me.” His grandfather was a blacksmith, so perhaps that's where it comes from. “Be ready for the next generation” is the motto of this inventor, who for twenty years has been casting his unique eye over watchmaking from his industrial loft in Helsinki and for whom watches must above all be comfortable to wear. The most popular jewelry brand here, Kalevala, has been around since 1937 and produces exclusively affordable gifts in silver that almost anyone can afford and collect.

Inspired by northern nature, it presents itself as the transmission of a craft close to elegant and timeless sculpture. " Here, luxury doesn't shine, it breathes,“ jokes Magnus Appelberg, a former dancer who has become a renowned specialist and author on the art of ice swimming. ”It's about taking your time.

In Finland, opulence is measured by the quality of the air you breathe, the slowness of your steps on a snow-covered road, the warmth of wood after the cold of the bath." Here, we don't talk about Chanel bags or BMWs.

Luxury is time—time to do what you want, to eat well, to breathe, to own nothing unnecessary. In Helsinki, even students learn to cherish their freedom. For them, space is a precious commodity, slowness a way of life.

In fact, 20th-century Finnish star designers such as Aalto and Saarinen are considered to have contributed greatly to this mindset because they designed its framework, its breathing space, and its spirit. Their humanistic and organic architecture translated into material form what is most precious in Finnish culture: harmony between man and nature. Where others built monuments, Aalto designed refuges—spaces where light flows, wood breathes, and every curve mirrors human movement. He knew how to turn everyday life into an aesthetic and peaceful experience: an Aalto chair, a bookcase, or a window in a building in Jyväskylä convey the same philosophy as that of the entire country—one of calm, functional, and sincere luxury. Through his soft forms and warm simplicity, Aalto offered Finns an environment where beauty and simplicity merge. His work, both humble and luminous, has become an architecture of well-being: an art of inhabiting the world without ever dominating it. In short, Aalto gave Finnish happiness a tangible form – made of northern light, blond wood, and human lines. Finnish design is the elegance of the necessary, beauty without noise. It was designed above all for people. Not for an elite.

It is unifying, synonymous with shelter and comfort. Simple, it lasts. From Saarinen to Aalto, from Wirkkala to Isola, it composes a language of discreet happiness—that of pure lines, sincere materials, and inhabited silence. Eero Saarinen was its flamboyant ambassador, sculpting fluid forms that reconcile Nordic rigor and the American dream.

Aalto gave wood the softness of light, Aino the poetry of everyday life, and Marimekko the joy of colors. They all share the same belief in simple elegance: unostentatious luxury born of the dialogue between man, nature, and time. “Luxury is the air we breathe, isn't it?” my guide asks rhetorically. It's his way of emphasizing that while Finland has been the happiest country in the world for seven years according to the World Happiness Survey, this is very relative. The study is based on the Cantril ladder of life: "Imagine a ladder with rungs numbered from zero at the bottom to ten at the top. The top represents the best life possible for you, and the bottom represents the worst. Where on this scale would you say you are now?" Finland comes out on top, followed by Denmark and Iceland. There are several factors that explain why Finns are happier than others: low income inequality (particularly the gap between the highest and lowest salaries), strong social support, freedom of personal choice, and low corruption.

Finland has other assets that contribute to the well-being of its population: a highly decentralized, state-funded public health system, where the private sector is marginal and therefore more efficient than in many other countries. Public transportation is reliable and affordable, and Helsinki Airport is ranked the best in Northern Europe. A Finnish proverb seems to sum up this philosophy: Onnellisuus on se paikka puuttuvaisuuden ja yltäkylläisyyden välillä (happiness lies between too little and too much).

In 2021, a sociology professor suggested that people in Nordic countries are happier because they have more reasonable expectations. Some also believe that Finns, aware of their role in the global survey, now respond to it with more optimism.

Finland ranks in the top three worldwide on more than 100 economic and social indicators. And this without oil wealth and with a GDP lower than that of Norway. This has the merit of opening up the debate and considering new ways of thinking. This is crucial at a time when consumer luxury is reaching its limits and the economic crisis is hitting hard at a model that some hoped would last forever.