She’s a well-travelled, cosmopolitan type, this stylish young woman in a knitted skirt. She’s wearing a knitted top, too, and around her waist is a low-slung belt decorated with a bronze disc – the ultimate statement jewellery in Denmark. She is lying on a bed of cosy fur, and is nestled down with a woven woollen blanket, pulled up to her chin. Character, outfit, accessories – an expression, surely, of the Danish quality from which there will be no escape this autumn: hygge. Hygge is where it’s at.
I bet that no matter how many episodes of Borgen and The Bridge you’ve watched, you still don’t speak Danish, so let me help you say it. You’ll want to have it on the tip of your tongue, as there are at least five books forthcoming on the serious subject of hygge, and on how to live, like our youthful friend in her elegant knitwear, a more hyggelig life. Try “hoo-ga”, according to one source; “hue-gah” and “hu-ga” are also doing the rounds. Just remember to channel the same slightly guttural, swallowed noise you made when you perfected your pronunciation of “Troels Hartmann” in the days when you were obsessed with The Killing.
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