It’s just before dawn on a chilly Friday when Monocle arrives to witness the secret delivery and installation of the window decorations. The precious cargo arrives in a huge truck at about 07.00. Nicolas Tillet, the project’s technical lead, is among the dozen workers unloading the pallets and positioning them in the department-store lobby. Tillet is clean shaven but with his grey hair, happy face and spectacles, he resembles an undercover Father Christmas in cargo pants. “Today’s the day!” he says as he greets us, electric drill in hand. Like a dance troupe that has rehearsed for months before its big premiere, Tillet and his coworkers skillfully manoeuvre their pallet jacks through the department store’s main entrance. Not unlike Santa’s elves, the dozen big men take tiny steps to glide past glass cases where customers will soon be browsing jewellery or fine leather gloves. Under Tillet’s exacting guidance, the technicians contort to slide into the narrow window spaces and wriggle the dressing in, all through concealed doors that the public will never see open. 

There are myriad festive gifts, fuzzy toys, shiny wrapping paper and boxes of artisanal chocolate that will be sprinkled around the shop’s 50 street-facing windows. The four most prominent frames will also play host to playful animations, from a makeshift chocolate factory to larger-than-life dentures being polished by toy rabbits – anything goes when it comes to imagining festive themes.

“It’s the busiest time of the year, so we have to get this right,” says Le Bon Marché’s creative director, Frédéric Bodenes, whose aim is to present a concept that will delight the shop’s youngest visitors and entice parents to embrace their inner child. Here on the ground floor, they will find 1,000 sq m dedicated to Christmas shopping, including a set designed to resemble an Alsatian Christmas market, complete with rows of chalets and cobblestoned streets.

This is the 29th year that the broad-shouldered creative director has worked on the windows. Across the decades he has experimented with numerous themes and protagonists, from lobsters to flamingos. “Once, I even did Christmas windows that were inspired by contemporary art – a total flop,” he says, wincing playfully. Since Le Bon Marché does not rent out its window space to brands (unlike most of its competitors around the world), Bodenes and his team can let their imaginations run wild.

“The windows have to be magical and joyful but also a little transgressive to get the parents into that playful space of Christmas cheer,” adds Bodenes. The windows become an attraction in and of themselves, he says with a sense of pride. “Each year, the unveiling draws a crowd – people even travel from outside of Paris to see them.”  

Balancing the need to show something fresh while respecting the sacrosanct boundaries of Nöel is a delicate mission. It’s why the planning phase begins months in advance, in a secret workshop outside Paris. Here, Bodenes and his crew present initial sketches and mock-ups to their teams, kicking off a flurry of discussions around the technical feasibility of each concept. Tillet, who is a specialist in electronics and mechanisation, is the first to be given the brief in early summer. Technicians and lighting designers then follow suit and the creative back-and-forth begins to make what seems technically impossible possible.

Bodenes describes Tillet as the shop’s very own “Gyro Gearloose,” a reference to the infinitely resourceful inventor from the DuckTales comic series, ubiquitous in France. “The first time we worked together I asked him to make me a dancing Christmas tree,” he says, while attempting a ballet pirouette. “He pulled it off, so naturally it was the start of a long partnership.” 

For this year’s storyline, the choice of protagonists comes as a surprise: a group of soft, toy rabbits. The idea came up during a visit to the Nuremberg International Toy Fair. “I saw this big mural of bunnies in all different colours and I immediately fell for them,” says Bodenes. “We had already decided on a traditional Christmas market theme for this year and I thought that they’d be perfect for the window show.” 

The team’s ambition goes well beyond token animation. There is lighting, music and choreography involved, making each window a standalone performance that plays in a loop for onlookers on Rue de Sèvres. “It has to be a real spectacle. The team spends hours mechanising and wiring each toy,” adds Bodenes while Tillet, who leads the mechanisation of the windows, is carefully undoing the seams, removing the stuffing and adding articulated frames and wires to the inside of each toy.

Making it all worthwhile 
Every team member is well aware that this is a high-stakes project – Le Bon Marché’s well-heeled customers feel strongly about Christmas. “One year, we installed the Christmas tree on the earlier side and many customers complained vociferously that it was inappropriate to put it up so early,” says Pierre Dromson, Le Bon Marché’s communications director. That, of course, goes for the windows as well: lifelong regulars feel a sense of ownership over the shop and let their displeasure be known if they feel that the window design misses the mark. 

The pressure is also on because the holiday season makes up a disproportionate number of annual sales for the retailer: the months of November and December alone are responsible for up to a quarter of annual sales. During that period, close to 1.5 million customers walk through the doors. To cope with the surge in foot traffic, executives from every department sign up for shop-floor shifts to assist overwhelmed sales associates or to man the gift-wrapping station – it’s all hands on deck for the most wonderful, lucrative time of the year. “One year I made the mistake of wearing a Christmas sweater on my gift-wrapping shift,” says Dromson. “It got way too hot. You won’t catch me gift wrapping in a cable knit again.”

It might come as a surprise that for a department store known for its fashion and beauty offering, Le Bon Marché’s festive windows deliberately omit traditional luxury goods. Instead, both the street-facing windows and the vast Christmas market focus on the art of gifting: clever knickknacks and trinkets, artisanal chocolates, knitted accessories and even carrot juice are merchandised throughout the space, alongside a selection of own-label products. “We offer gift ideas in dedicated spaces throughout the year, with a natural high point at Christmas time, when there is a strong emphasis on customisation,” says Elodie Abrial, the company’s commercial director. 

By looking beyond its core offer of designer handbags and high-end ready-to-wear items, Le Bon Marché is differentiating itself in an age of online shopping and stiff price competition. But it’s not so much a case of rethinking its role as a department store, than leaning into its long history of hosting cultural happenings. These date as far back as the 19th century, when the shop would host reading salons to entertain men while their female companions had dresses fitted. Since then, they have evolved into a rich, year-round agenda of art installations, performing arts happenings and shopping events featuring exclusive collaborations with designers and artists. 

The holiday season is the most extravagant manifestation of this retail strategy. “We go all out to put on a show that takes over the entire store,” adds Françoise Dilasser, Le Bon Marché’s lead scenographer. As the sun comes up, Tillet and his team continue their work. Several crew members glance at their wristwatches between tasks: every trace of the delivery must be gone by the time Le Bon Marché opens at 10.00.

Inside, the Christmas market is lit up, Le Bon Marché’s instantly recognisable escalators are clad in special, chalet-like decorations. The shop’s four Christmas trees, covered in hundreds of ornaments, stretch up towards the Gustave Eiffel-designed roof. Soon, crowds of passersby will flock to Rue de Sèvres to take in all of the team’s hard work and perhaps drop in to pick up a gift or two.

“It’s the most complex exercise of the year,” says Bodenes. “But when you ride the escalator, you hear customers laughing and you can tell that you’ve put them in the holiday mood – it makes it all worth it.”

I touched down in Toronto this week to meet some clients, scope out some potential business, do a little retail tour, say hello to my new colleague, Sally, at our College Street outpost and watch Prime Minister Mark Carney squeak his budget through parliament. On Wednesday, over drinks at a heaving Ritz-Carlton, I also met with a gentleman hailing from Winnipeg – the city of my birth. I no longer have much connection to the city, so it was like meeting a centuries-ago trader from the Hudson’s Bay Company (more on this in a moment) after his return from years trapping and trading in the Canadian wilderness. 

I wanted to know everything about the city and how it was developing. Had they managed to sort out the Downtown core? Where were the interesting pockets for better dining and shopping? What was the best hotel in the city? And where did he see opportunities? While the gentleman was damning in his assessment of Winnipeg’s Downtown, he was nevertheless hopeful that new initiatives and a group of passionate, patriotic locals were going to turn things around. As the conversation carried on and the hotel bar filled with more Torontonians in search of very early Christmas cheer, it turned out that I, too, was being recruited to be part of Winnipeg’s turnaround. 

As he discussed new developments on the horizon and the success of the city’s arena, my mind drifted to those early years in Winnipeg, when the city boasted a functioning and vibrant Downtown, three department stores on Portage Avenue and not a single vacant storefront along its main shopping strip. The Winnipeg of my childhood was a gateway to western Canada, a transit hub for grain and minerals bound for distant shores via Thunder Bay and even had its own ballet with a royal appointment. On Saturdays, I would go Downtown with my parents to visit the fashion and furniture floors of Eaton’s and The Bay (the retail brand of the Hudson’s Bay Company for several decades), plus a spin through Holt Renfrew for fancier gear. 

At this time of year, department store windows were filled with elaborate Christmas displays and I would jostle with other children to catch a glimpse of what Eaton’s visual merchandising team had created for passing traffic. Inside, I would make my way to the toy department and, for a couple of years, pay a visit to Santa. Eaton’s always had the best Christmas catalogue and I would flip back and forth across the pages looking at new trucks, tanks, planes, Playmobil police sets and scale-model collections of naval ships and armoured vehicles. Down the street, The Bay was housed in a more impressive building and was every bit what one would expect from a big-city department store in the early 1970s. There was a well staffed information desk, a buzzy cosmetics and fragrance hall and across its multiple floors The Bay could look after pretty much all household needs – from fur storage and full dining sets to the latest looks from New York and London. Paris, in most stores, was a bit of a stretch. 

Earlier this year the Hudson’s Bay Company went bankrupt after more than 350 years of business. Like so many North American department stores it shifted strategies on multiple occasions, went through endless management changes, ventured into markets where it didn’t belong and drifted away from its core of being a solid retailer for Canada’s middle classes. Today, Canada’s downtowns and malls are marked by scores of Hudson’s Bay shops that are permanently shuttered and the nation is poorer for it both economically and culturally. 

This week, Toronto’s Heffel Fine Art Auction House put some of the store’s art collection on the block, including fine pieces of Canada’s history that traded hands for quite reasonable prices. I grew up in a Canada that had about 10 national and regional department stores (Woodward’s, Ogilvy’s, Simpsons and more). Today there are two – Holt Renfrew and Simons. I walked past an empty Hudson’s Bay store at Yorkdale Mall (one of the most successful shopping centres in North America) and had to wonder whether, in the right hands, it could have turned itself around and made a case not just for the relevance of department stores in today’s retail landscape but for a thoroughly more pleasant and modern way to consume – and not only during the run-up to Christmas.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns. 

The decision by US president Donald Trump to acquiesce in the release of government files pertaining to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein might seem a surprising one. That Trump was an associate of Epstein is beyond dispute. That Trump is mentioned repeatedly in the tranches of Epstein’s correspondence that have been made public is equally incontrovertible. That Trump might have sat this long on an Epstein email that reads along the lines of, “Just to be clear, though, Donald Trump is a saint among men who stoutly resisted every tacky blandishment with which I ever tried to tempt him,” seems unlikely. 

There are two principal reasons why Trump might have agreed, after months of obstruction and deflection, to go along with this. One is that he has realised that he simply didn’t have the numbers to stop it, even among his usually obedient Republican colleagues in Congress, and is therefore observing the old rule of politics that if you can’t change the direction the parade is heading, get out in front of it. The other is that he has calculated that however gruesome any further revelations might be, his supplicant voters and media outriders will largely not believe them or simply not care. After all, they haven’t yet, through uncountable scandals, uproars and crimes.

Trump might be right about this. The already established and altogether irrefutable public record of Trump and Epstein’s association would – and should – have ended the careers of any other similarly lofty figure. In a few instances, it has. The recent release of correspondence with Epstein has cost the UK’s ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, his job. Prince Andrew is now plain Mr Mountbatten-Windsor. Larry Summers, former US treasury secretary under president Bill Clinton and former president of Harvard University, was revealed to have been soliciting Epstein’s counsel on how to hit on his students up until the day before Epstein’s arrest in 2019. He has announced a penitent slink into the shadows.

Trump has grounds for worry. One of the animating passions of his base has long been a morbid obsession with the idea that a cabal of powerful people furtively operates a child-trafficking racket. This is one of the key tenets of the QAnon cult and the associated Pizzagate conspiracy theory, towards both of which Trump has nodded and winked repeatedly. In recent weeks, Trump has tried to call back to this by suggesting that Epstein was a better friend to various Democrats than he ever was to Trump. But certain of his hitherto most reliable acolytes have been notably disinclined to fall in behind him.

We have, as a world, proceeded a distance through the looking glass where we are regarding Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene as a voice of reason and pillar of decency. She has giddily amplified and endorsed any number of absurd, paranoid, pernicious and/or downright racist manias and been one of Trump’s most indefatigable cheerleaders. She has deserted him over the Epstein matter and he has reciprocated: Trump called her a traitor and has begun encouraging a primary challenge in her seat, Georgia’s 14th district, in 2026. Many of the glassier-eyed Maga faithful will regard this as akin to a parental separation. That feeling was compounded yesterday when, in another unexpected turn, Greene announced her resignation from Congress.     

Given Greene’s record, any assertion that she knows what she’s doing would be a bold one. Given Trump’s, we all know better than to confidently call any impropriety, however bizarre or grotesque, the beginning of the end. But Greene – and a few others – might have divined sufficient Epstein-related unease among the Maga tendency to perceive a first mover advantage in being among the earlier rats off the sinking ship.

I have spent my entire adult life going to the gym. There was a time when I would hand over whole chunks of my salary to personal trainers in the hope of suddenly transforming into some muscle-rippled god. Of course, this never happened. Instead, I would find myself standing with a group of people as they indulged in some fitness banter, debating the merits of various classes or routines, until one of them would inevitably turn to me and say, “How about you Andrew, do you ever work out?” Don’t worry, I have workshopped this with my therapist and moved on. 

Anyway, at this stage in life I am just grateful that they don’t ask me if I have a Zimmer frame parked outside. But you’d think that I would at least feel at ease when heading to a hotel gym for the first time or especially when using one of my regular hangouts. But no, it seems that I am one of those people who suffers from gym panic.

Like lots of folk who are not very fit, I am excellent at paying for gym memberships and currently have two to my name. One in London and one in Palma, Mallorca. The Spanish addition is relatively new and is for the very beautiful Palma Sport & Tennis Club. I can see this low-slung 1960s beauty of a building from my apartment. Indeed, sitting on my terrace, I can hear the music from various classes, see people swimming, whacking balls on the clay courts. This summer, after two years on the waiting list, they buckled and let me join. On my induction day, the lovely staff gave me a detailed tour, explained how the lockers worked and informed me of the various protocols to be obeyed. And then it was over to me.

In the gym, free of my chaperones, I felt like a child joining a new school where everyone knows the routines, how things work. I found myself watching people to make sure that I wasn’t breaking any etiquette codes, that I had the dress code covered. Staring at people in the gym, especially handsome ones, however, needs to be done with extreme caution, so I tried to observe them out of the corner of my eye as though I was in an old-school espionage movie. It probably just marked me out as a bit furtive.

While most of the machines were contraptions that I had unfortunately encountered before, there were several that were new to me and which I approached with the sort of trepidation that a cowboy might display when edging up alongside a particularly troublesome steed. Deep down, I feared inserting myself into a device back to front, or upside down, and hearing the rest of the gym break out in roars of laughter. I read the little charts attached to the machines and finally devised how you were supposed to get yourself into what looked like a fighter pilot’s cockpit. 

I occasionally search for workout-routine ideas on my phone to be prepped and primed but this is especially irksome when using Instagram because suddenly the algorithm starts serving you up invitations to accept all sorts of fitness challenges. “Start your 30-day calisthenics workout tomorrow and by Christmas nobody will recognise you!” declared a recent one. Fine – but I am not sure that it will be helpful sitting down for Christmas lunch and my other half asking, “I don’t mean to be rude but who are you exactly?”

I put in an appearance at my London gym this week – I have been going there for years yet still avoid certain sections that I consider to be for the big boys. There’s a vast muscly guy who I often see in the morning – he’s about the size of Malta – and on Monday I suddenly saw in the mirror that he was heading in my direction. I panicked. Was I in his favourite spot? Had I broken some secret gym rule? I took out my ear-pods. “Grrrrr,” he said a little menacingly. But then he laughed and fist-pumped me (maybe my first-ever first-pump, what a day!), said “Well done” and walked away.

I have tried to workshop my encounter with various people and while the exact meaning might be hard to divine, I am taking it as a compliment – otherwise I might never return. But the gym panic? I think it’s here to stay. 

To read more of Andrew’s columns, click here.

Helsinki in late November is not an obvious stop on the global tech calendar, yet the 2025 edition of start-up event Slush drew in a mix of 13,000 founders and investors. The delegates, representing more than $4trn (€3.46trn) in assets under management, seemed unfazed by the -10C temperature as deals were struck and parties extended into the late hours. The sums alone say something about Slush’s relevance but the event’s real appeal is its precision matchmaking: a tightly curated environment where capital, conviction and opportunity meet with uncommon clarity (and eye contact).

As Slush CEO Aino Bergius points out, more than 80 per cent of the attendees are either start-ups or investors. “If you come to Slush, the likelihood of meeting the right people is higher than ever,” she tells Monocle. That is what the event sells: high-yield proximity.

For investors, the added appeal is efficiency. Zhenya Loginov, partner at Accel, one of the largest VC firms on the planet, describes Slush as “suitably small” and “well curated”, a contrast to the sprawling, low-signal events that dominate the circuit elsewhere. Loginov moved from California to Europe because “opportunity is here”, and views Slush as the clearest snapshot of where value is emerging and which founders are worth backing. 

The dominant theme this year came as no surprise: artificial intelligence cropped up on almost every pitch deck and in myriad conversations. Beneath the hype, investor attention is maturing as behaviour becomes more disciplined and focuses on the offerings that are truly commercially ready. Loginov points to specific applications – developer tools and customer support – as already maturing, while warning that the rush to build ever-newer AI models might turn out to be an overfunded area in the long run. The attraction is obvious but the path to monetisation remains unclear.

A quieter but significant shift at Slush is the renewed focus on deep tech. Founders working in med-tech, space, quantum, advanced materials and energy systems say investor attitudes have changed markedly; timelines once dismissed as “too slow” are now viewed as essential to solving the world’s most expensive problems. “Scientific innovations have been around long enough that investors finally believe in them,” says Richard Jerome, a founder and science-commercialisation specialist. He cites the strong presence of European public funding as another reason that the sector is gaining momentum. 

This reassessment is visible in companies such as Robeauté. Co-founder Joana Cartocci is building microrobots for neurosurgery – tiny devices that move through the brain more delicately than conventional surgical tools. The company has raised €27m this year and is preparing for human studies. She sees investors shifting focus from quick returns to “the hard stuff”, and notes that portfolios are filling up with companies keen to fix society’s big problems. It marks a more ambitious mindset, one that aligns with Europe’s desire to reclaim a more assertive role in global innovation.

Beyond funding rounds, Slush acts as a calibration tool for anyone assessing where the smart money is moving. Jerome, an Insead MBA graduate who moved to Helsinki and launched a start-up here, notes that the event teaches first-time founders how to approach investors and which ones are worth their time. 

Maija Itkonen, co-founder of Onego Bio, a Finnish biotech company producing animal-free egg proteins, says Slush remains uniquely valuable because it forces deep-tech companies out of the lab and into the market conversation. Investors, she notes, now better understand the slower logic of deep tech, capital is moving again, and they are asking for hard numbers, genuine unit economics and verifiable traction. The era of speculative storytelling is fading.

For those trying to interpret where the smart money is going, Slush offers a clear if fast-moving picture.

• AI remains the dominant force but is splitting into the investable and the hopeful.
• Deep tech is sliding back into favour, supported by geopolitics, patient capital and a recognition that Europe must build its own industrial base.
• Climate-related technologies are shifting from moral argument to economic logic. 
• Defence tech, despite significant funding, remained curiously absent from the keynotes and PR pitches. 

Across the board, investors now place a premium on founders tackling real-world problems rather than producing small optimisations. As Bergius said in her opening remarks: “The big question is no longer what technology can do – it’s what it should do.”

Thousands of Belgraders marched down Kneza Miloša street last week, banging drums and blowing horns with Donald Trump’s name ringing out. The crowd stretched across all six lanes of the avenue as it made its way through the centre of Serbia’s capital. 

Those in front carried a banner, bearing the unwieldy but unequivocal slogan, “We will not give away the General Staff building”. It was a message to Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Serbia’s government. The extended Trump family has designs on a prime piece of Belgrade real estate, a ministry of defence complex known as Generalštab, directly opposite the main government building. Kushner’s company, Affinity Partners, plans to build a new development on the site that will include a Trump International hotel.  

Serbian MPs gave the project a significant boost earlier this month when they voted in favour of redeveloping the site that has, for decades, enjoyed protected heritage status. This legislation achieved the unlikely feat of bringing together a disparate coalition of opponents, from student activists and architects to military veterans and right-wing nationalists. War veterans view the site as a memorial. (The complex took several direct hits during the 1999 Nato air-strike campaign against the government of Slobodan Milošević.) Architects point out that the buildings are a rare example of surviving work in Serbia by the renowned Yugoslav-era architect Nikola Dobrović. Meanwhile, students and anti-corruption campaigners highlight the lack of transparency surrounding the decision to sign the site over to Affinity Partners for a 99-year period. 

But what are they protecting? It is a site that consists of crumbling concrete, shattered windows and twisted metal. The ruins have offered the people of Belgrade a daily reminder of wartime ever since. However, it also provides a warped welcome to visitors of the city, whose route often takes them directly past the bombed-out buildings. 

Here lies the positive aspect of Affinity Partners’ interest: it recognises the need to breathe new life into the capital. Three decades on from the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia is still struggling to move forward, with historical arguments dictating the national narrative. Serbia’s leaders, and its people, vacillate between East and West, with exaggerated nostalgia for a warm, supportive relationship with Russia and a long, potholed path to EU membership.

The state of the Generalštab complex epitomises this indecision. Perhaps the site could be respectfully restored as a tribute to Nikola Dobrović. Or, given its utterly dilapidated state, replaced by something that represents the best of contemporary Serbian architecture.

After all, Trump-branded redevelopments have a track-record that could charitably be described as “chequered”. Take the Trump Ocean Club in Panama, later known as the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Ahead of its opening in 2011, it was a controversy magnet, from Trump’s misleading claims about financing and development to his daughter Ivanka’s inaccurate boast that she had personally sold 40 units at the complex. Within two years, the project was bankrupt; the Trump name was later removed and the hotel rebranded as a JW Marriott. Other examples include: Trump International in Toronto, opened in 2012, rebranded as a St Regis in 2018; and Vancouver’s second-tallest building, which lasted just three years as a Trump International before its closure in 2020, when employees learned that they were out of jobs through media reports. It now operates as the Paradox Hotel. The lesson? Serbia’s government should tread carefully.

The Trump International project is the wrong development for a country that needs infrastructure that can inspire for at least 99 years. It is not too late to harness the controversy to produce something better. To do that, however, Serbia must begin to look forward rather than back.

Guy de Launey is Monocle’s Ljubljana correspondent. Further reading? Monocle caught up with Serbia’s foreign minister, Marko Đurić, who has a Maga hat in his office – read the story here. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today. 

There’s a strange thing that happens at this point in the year: time seems to speed up. Summer – at least, in the northern hemisphere – passes at a languorous pace, then autumn pokes its russet-leafed nose in but, when November hits, the toboggan of time suddenly starts careening through the days with gusto, as you hold on for dear life. And then bang! It’s a new year.

Well, this December-January double dose of Monocle is designed to guide you through it all – from planning Christmas, securing gifts (may we suggest a subscription to our magazine?) and plotting your 2026 travels (Japan, here we come) to, hopefully sitting by a roaring fire, contemplating what the year ahead has in store (turn to our perspicacious Forecast pages to find out). But, for all of us, Monocle included, this is also a moment to take stock and ask: what did we achieve in 2025? Regular Monocle readers and subscribers to our daily newsletters might feel that they already know what we have been up to but I’ll flag a few highlights anyway.

In the past 12 months, we have opened a new bureau and café-cum-shop in Paris that has underlined our commitment to taking care of people. Our books team has delivered two new additions to our Handbook series (one on Greece and, just landing, another on Switzerland), as well as the wonderful Designers on Sofas book (fun, quirky, beautiful – what we all need more of in our lives). We also produced a great Companion paperback for the Venice Architecture Biennale. Our events team has bounced around the globe this year but the pinnacle was our Quality of Life Conference in Barcelona – the city shone and our readers once again proved why they are such amazing people. Also out on the road, the team from Monocle Radio turned up everywhere from Abu Dhabi to New York. We continued to invent with print, bringing out the premiere issue of our Design Directory. Plus, we launched a new digital experience, including a sparkling website.

In an industry focused on creativity and finding freshways to deliver stories, I am often asked, “What’s new at Monocle?” I usually need to ask people how long they’ve got before commencing my reply. But I am pleased to add that many are fully aware of Monocle’s ambition and successes – it’s why we have such supportive partners and why this magazine has such a healthy weight. While you catch your breath, let me gently suggest a few stories in the issue that deserve your attention.

In our Concierge pages, we head off for a tour of classic Paris bistros, savouring a feast of seasonal dishes (somehow leaving space for dessert). Our Expo takes you to an island where Swedish and Finnish statespeople meet to discuss their shared concerns; we eavesdrop on the latest get-together. In our design pages, we survey an archive that charts the history of outdoor brands, including the founding days of The North Face and Patagonia. We also look at why Beirutis are allowing themselves to feel more confident about the future.

So I hope that you enjoy this issue and the chute it offers through Christmas and into 2026. And thank you for all your support, ideas and feedback across this year. Here’s wishing you a happy Christmas and the very best 2026. As always, you can contact me at at@monocle.com or check the masthead if you would like to get in touch with any of our editors (we publish all of our addresses).

It’s a crisp autumn morning on Hanaholmen as military officers, politicians and think-tank members sip coffee beside the icy Baltic waters. All are either Finnish or Swedish and are performing a ritual that has taken place here every few months for the past 50 years. This small island, a few minutes by boat from downtown Helsinki, is home to the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Centre, a literal (and littoral) manifestation of the two Nordic countries’ rock-solid ties.

Monocle is here to attend the Hanating defence and security policy forum, an annual event that aims to further sync already close defence ties. Inside, sheltered from the chilly winds behind floor-to-ceiling windows, attendees – who include both countries’ defence ministers – are discussing drone warfare, hybrid threats and the state of Nordic defence co-operation. Outside, on a terrace lined with stone sculptures and fringed by tall pine trees, the air feels lighter, as does the conversation. “I took a dip in the sea last night, followed by a sauna – that’s how you do it, right?” we overhear a Swedish diplomat ask a Finnish counterpart.

Hanaholmen has always been a place where serious discussion takes place in a calm environment. “It’s not just a building,” says Charly Salonius-Pasternak, the CEO of geopolitics consultancy Nordic West Office and a longtime visitor. “It represents the bilateral relationship. It’s a place where ministers, researchers and bankers meet, but it’s also somewhere you can go and dip your toes in the water. It’s not an embassy or a government office. It’s a neutral third space with rich cultural layers.”

Founded in 1975 on a verdant island in the Gulf of Finland, Hanaholmen was created as a gesture of reconciliation and trust. Sweden had forgiven a substantial chunk of Finland’s postwar debt and Helsinki’s way of saying thank you was to invest its goodwill in something lasting – a shared space for dialogue and co-operation. The result is extremely Nordic: a low-slung, honey-toned complex of modernist glass-and-concrete buildings designed by Finnish architect Veikko Malmio. It’s a notable example of 1970s design from the region that still looks contemporary.

Sitting in an orange Yrjö Kukkapuro Junior 417 chair, Hanaholmen’s CEO for more than 20 years, Gunvor Kronman, reflects on the centre’s mission. “Hanaholmen was founded 50 years ago to make sure that the relationship between Finland and Sweden continues to grow,” she says. “It covers all parts of society. We were called a cultural centre for practical reasons during the Cold War but our mandate has always been broad. It includes everything from defence and security to economic development.”

Over the years, this mandate has been expanded further. Kronman describes Hanaholmen as “semi-official, semi-private”, an organisation that can discuss things that are too sensitive for statespeople to speak about publicly but too important to overlook. “We can take initiatives that governments can’t,” she says. “If we fail, it’s our failure. If we succeed, it’s our partner’s success.” Among its programmes are the Hanaholmen Initiative, a crisis-preparedness scheme launched during the coronavirus pandemic; Tandem Leadership, a year-long training network for emerging decision-makers; and Tandem Forest Values, a research collaboration on sustainable forestry. “We believe in personal relationships,” says Kronman. “When people know each other, there’s trust. Trust is the Nordic gold.”

This is built not only through conversation but also setting. Hanaholmen’s interiors exemplify Nordic simplicity: pale wood and clean lines, with furniture and fittings designed by Finnish and Swedish icons. The island houses more than 300 unique artworks, its own gallery and a sculpture park. “Each artist spends time here and picks their location,” says Kronman. “It takes about a year from idea to installation. We don’t want to rush the process.” A recent renovation, completed in 2017 by Helsinki-based design studio KOKO3, honoured the building’s 1970s identity while updating it for 21st-century use. “Moving from the centre of Helsinki to Hanaholmen feels like entering into a different rhythm,” says Jukka Halminen, a partner at KOKO3. “It’s similar to a Finnish sauna ritual: you slow down, breathe and calm down. We wanted the design to support that feeling.”

KOKO3 used natural materials such as brass, oak and stone to keep the original texture of the place, while adding touches from classic Swedish design house Svenskt Tenn to brighten and warm the interiors. The result is neither nostalgic nor sleekly new; it feels lived-in, timeless and quietly Nordic. “We wanted to keep the dialogue between Finland and Sweden visible in the design choices,” says Halminen. “It’s about balance: heritage with lightness, seriousness with joy.” You can feel the same balance at Plats, the island’s restaurant. Hanaholmen’s in-house fisherman, Christer Hackman, catches perch and pike, forages mushrooms and berries, and supplies the kitchen with wild herbs. The menu marries Finnish ingredients with classic Swedish dishes, served in dining rooms that glow with light timber and the burning logs of fitted fireplaces. “Food is an essential part of Hanaholmen,” says Kronman. “It creates a different atmosphere. Sharing a meal changes the tone of a political discussion.”

For those not lucky enough to be a Nordic diplomat, Hanaholmen is also a hotel. The swimming pool and glass sauna, which looks out to sea, are among the most popular in the Finnish capital. “We might be small [66 rooms] but we’re a significant meeting place,” the hotel’s director, Kai Mattsson, says as he shows Monocle around the building’s top-floor suite. “Every weekday there’s something happening. It can be 200 delegates one day and a honeymooning couple the next.” Mattsson describes the hotel as both an engine and enabler. “The commercial side helps to finance the cultural side but it’s also part of the experience,” he says. “People come here for seminars and to discover the art, the design, the nature. It’s not your typical conference hotel.”

Hanaholmen’s blend of architecture, art and natural beauty reflects the belief that soft power becomes tangible through space. “No matter how tough the subject, we try to maintain integrity and decency in conversation,” says Kronman. “That’s how we contribute to an open, democratic society.” At the Hanating forum, that spirit is writ large. Finland’s defence minister, Antti Häkkänen, and his Swedish counterpart, Pål Jonson, are engaged in discussions that mingle military strategy with cultural diplomacy. “Hard defence must be strong,” Häkkänen tells Monocle. “But the political landscape – how voters and politicians perceive the world – that’s soft power and it’s very important. Institutions such as Hanaholmen keep our societies aligned over issues such as Russia and European security.” His Swedish colleague adds, with a grin, “I mostly work with guns, bombs and hard military power but I still value the cultural exchange that Hanaholmen represents.”

Perhaps no one captures this exchange better than Sweden’s hirsute ambassador to Finland, Peter Ericson. “It’s a tremendous asset for the relationship,” he says, referencing the staff and resources at Hanaholmen’s disposal. “I call it a symbiotic relationship: Hanaholmen is the elephant and we at the embassy are the little bird sitting on its back.” He gestures towards the centre’s lobby, which displays photographs of distinguished visitors, including monarchs, ministers and artists. “It’s independent,” he says. “It isn’t part of official diplomacy. Sweden and Finland supervise it together but it is its own foundation. And it has this formula: bring people from both sides, house them, feed them and give them the space to work together. Fifty years ago, it was mostly a cultural exchange; today, it involves anything from defence and civil preparedness to youth issues or the environment. That’s its strength.”

The seasoned diplomat struggles to think of a similar institution anywhere else in the world. “Hanaholmen is unique,” he says. “An embassy symbolises a country. Hanaholmen symbolises the relationship itself.” This distinction might explain its lasting significance. In a world that is increasingly driven by summits, video calls and transactional diplomacy, it represents something older and subtler – the gradual building of trust through shared experience and conversation. At Hanaholmen, diplomacy isn’t performed but practised. “We believe in identifying the right people who should know each other,” says Kronman. “From that, many good things will come.”

This approach resonates beyond Finland and Sweden. The centre has hosted a range of figures, including the Nordic royal families, prime ministers and popular actors such as Mikael Persbrandt. Fifty years after Hanaholmen was opened by the Swedish king, Carl XVI Gustaf, and Finland’s then-president, Urho Kekkonen, the Nordic region, once viewed as a quiet corner of Europe, now finds itself on the front line of geopolitical change. After decades of neutrality, Finland and Sweden are now NATO members. Defence committees from their respective parliaments meet here regularly; they are doing so on the day that Monocle visits. Amid discussions on deterrence and hybrid warfare, soft power is still the centre’s guiding light. “Hard power is obvious – Ukraine reminds us of that,” says Ericson. “But soft power is what keeps our societies attractive and resilient. We don’t have to deceive people to be liked. We just have to be our best selves.”

Digital diplomacy and rotating presidencies can’t replace the continuity that is offered by a physical site. Hanaholmen’s architecture, art and cuisine aren’t just decorative – they’re part of the dialogue. As the afternoon light dims over the Baltic, the conversation on the terrace shifts from air defence to pan-fried Arctic char. It feels both ordinary and extraordinary – the kind of quiet, human-level contact that supports deep Nordic co-operation.

With 15 houses debuting fresh looks under newly appointed creative directors, 2025 was supposed to be fashion’s big moment of change. The industry has collectively decided to put clunky sneakers, all-beige looks and streetwear behind it.

So what does that mean for how we’ll be dressing in the year ahead? “When I think about the new season, I picture a post-luxury world, a return to elegance and interesting colours,” says Hirofumi Kurino, co-founder and senior adviser of Japanese retailer United Arrows. After surveying catwalks, showrooms and exhibitions in Florence, London, Milan and Paris in late 2025, he began to see a subtle shift. There might not be a single new look defining the season (though Jonathan Anderson’s deconstructed Dior Bar jacket is a strong contender) but there’s a new set of priorities: fewer logos and more creative, human-centric designs.

Japanese designer Satoshi Kuwata’s Milan-based label Setchu is a brand to watch in 2026. “Satoshi trained on Savile Row and never uses the word ‘trend’,” says Kurino. “I have a coat by him and it can be folded flat. You can see how deeply he thinks about structure and technique.” Other Japanese designers are also having a global impact, including Auralee, known for its masterful command of colour, and Satoshi Kondo of Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Updating your look for the new year could be as simple as tying a bright-green sweater over a camel coat or layering a yellow trench coat over a T-shirt in a similar hue.

One name who will be setting the agenda next year is London-based Grace Wales Bonner, who was recently appointed as Hermès’s new menswear creative director. For her eponymous label, which turned 10 this year, she offers Crombie coats, elegant short suits and polo shirts inspired by UK sartorial traditions for spring/summer 2026.

“We have been overproducing and overconsuming for so long,” says Kurino. “Designers are now rethinking the system and not just selling products for the sake of selling.” Kurino’s words capture a collective fatigue with aggressive commercialisation and the endless search for novelty. Seasons change but simply knowing that you’re wearing what you like – as well as caring about where and how it’s made – has always been the greatest luxury.

Natalie Theodosi is Monocle’s fashion director.

“Did you see?” asks a friend when we arrive in Beirut. “There are now lanes on the airport highway and the traffic lights are working.” Driving into the Lebanese capital certainly feels different from when Monocle was last here. Back then, the road from the airport was flanked by billboards featuring stern-faced Hezbollah fighters. Today, in their place, cheerful banners declare a “new era for Lebanon”. Downtown, where the streets now echo to the sounds of construction rather than destruction, the ornate Ottoman façade of the Grand Serail, the Lebanese prime minister’s official residence, is one of many buildings shrouded in scaffolding.

“The population is looking for a new paradigm,” says Lebanon’s culture minister, Ghassan Salamé, surrounded by piles of books in his ministry office. “They are fed up with being told to be resilient, to smile.” Whatever it was that has finally moved the dial, there’s a sense that Beirut is beginning to show signs of a long-awaited recovery. This summer, the city’s beaches were packed but, more importantly, its pharmacies are fully stocked and electricity now sometimes stays on through the night. In April the country’s new finance minister signed a $250m (€215m) agreement with the World Bank to support renewable energy and grid resilience.

Lebanon could hardly have ended 2024 at a lower ebb. After months of heavy bombardment by Israel, the south of the country was flattened and swaths of Beirut’s suburbs lay in smoking ruin. Then, in early 2025, something unusual happened. After more than two years without a government, former army chief Joseph Aoun was appointed president. Though criticised for still being a serving commander, Aoun pushed through his choice of prime minister – Nawaf Salam, a veteran jurist and former president of the International Court of Justice – a few days after his election.

Things then began to move at great speed. Salam set about building a cabinet of politically unaffiliated ministers. Gone were the offspring of warlords and, in their place, the new prime minister appointed politicians with experience, talent and a seemingly genuine desire to improve the lot of their compatriots. Used to such governments taking months to form, Lebanese citizens at home and abroad were dumbfounded – in a good way. A 2025 Gallup poll recorded a 46-point increase (up to 62 per cent from 16) in public approval for the government, one of the largest such swings ever recorded in polling history.

Salamé is a returnee to government. The culture minister previously served in the same post between 2000 and 2003, during the heady post-civil-war days when Rafic Hariri’s reconstruction plans seemed to herald a brighter future. After two decades of serving high-level UN global missions, he’s back at the ministry’s helm. Looking ruefully around his office in the newly reopened Lebanese National Library, Salamé is fully aware of the colossal nature of the government’s challenge.

“Our problem is money; the public finances have gone bankrupt,” he says. “So, we’re being asked to do everything with no budget.” He and his colleagues face a breakneck climb on a fraying rope (the next general election is scheduled for May 2026) but he points out that what they have already achieved is extraordinary. “We have done more in six months than previous governments did in six years,” he says, his voice nearly breaking. “If people start to see real implementation, they’ll be more willing to trust us.”

The new government’s good fortune wasn’t down to blind luck. Last year the geopolitical landscape in the Levant shifted significantly. Israel’s attack on Lebanon destroyed key parts of the country but also eroded the military might of Hezbollah and the grip that it had held over the country’s politics for decades. Meanwhile, the fall of Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria eliminated a land route for supplying Hezbollah with Iranian weaponry and a new government was installed next door. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returned home as a result, easing pressure on Lebanon’s politics, economy and healthcare system. For once, it felt as though geo political forces were working in Lebanon’s favour.

Still, it would be naive to be too optimistic. While Beirut is getting its buzz back, the south of the country remains heavily bomb-damaged, with parts of it still occupied by Israel. Hezbollah meanwhile, is resisting the new government’s calls to disarm, prompting fears of conflict to come. Still, after years in which the country’s judiciary has seemed inert, the government has confirmed more than 500 new judges since coming into office.

In another positive sign, a budget was produced on time, allowing two major financial reform laws to be passed, reopening negotiations for an IMF deal. Most importantly for public confidence, ministers have started discussing how much and how soon Lebanese depositors will see financial compensation for the 2019 banking crash, in which the savings of many middle-class families were wiped out. Salamé and his colleagues hope to have some answers by January. “We have lost a lot of young talent to other countries,” he says. “They are watching now to see what we do.”

Crisis after crisis forced Lebanon’s youth to leave in search of opportunity and security. In 2021 there was a 450 per cent surge in emigration. Encouragingly, they have slowly begun trickling back. When the August 2020 port explosion took place, 34-year-old endocrinologist Ralph el Khoury and his colleagues at central Beirut’s Hotel Dieu Hospital had already been working on reduced salaries for months.

That day they treated hundreds of wounded patients for free. Traumatised, El Khoury had reached his limit. “The explosion was the trigger for me,” he tells Monocle. “I felt that the state had really failed us. I was afraid of spending my life in a country that was failing.” Many of his closest friends had already left and El Khoury knew that a stint in France could be a big boost to his career. So he moved to Paris, where he spent five years working on his specialism while learning how to augment healthcare using digital technologies such as AI.

In the French capital, El Khoury formed a close-knit group with other Lebanese expats. They would spend long nights wondering whether they would ever return home. But early this year the mood began to change. “For the first time in a long while, we could actually identify with the people in the government,” he says.

By August he felt the pull home, wanting to put his new skills to use. “It’s a big risk,” he says. “But I want to be here to rebuild my country, not just watch other people do it.” In the past year, hospitals have begun to receive regular medicine and equipment supplies, while the government has started planning the restructuring of healthcare to make it more accessible.

Lebanese architect Carole Azzi has also taken the leap homeward. The 38-year-old left for France a decade ago, thinking that she would only be away a year or two. Now that she’s back in the country of her birth, she is keen to use her expertise in cultural preservation to help Lebanon rebuild. “We’re not even starting from zero,” she says. “We’re hoping to reach zero and then build from there.”

Azzi is now involved in government rebuilding projects and hopes to teach a fresh generation of Lebanese architecture students. She says that she sees a new toughness in her young compatriots. “They are better than we were at that age,” she says. “They have had to be very inventive because those who couldn’t leave had to reinvent themselves here.”

A distinctive characteristic of Beirut is the way that a hot neighbourhood can suddenly be ordained. In autumn 2025, there was a new cool kid in town: Saifi Village. With its salmon-pink façades, 24-hour electricity and Spanish moss tumbling from arched window frames, Saifi has long been considered an oasis in the centre of downtown. Once the preserve of yoga mums, it is now buzzing from dawn until dusk.

Pastel-hued restaurant Malibou sits on the corner of Mkhallissiye Street without a table to spare. “We’ve been busy since we opened in September 2024 but this summer we were packed every day,” says its manager, Hassan Abu Rashed. A quarter of all employment in Lebanon is in the hospitality sector. When purchasing power evaporated, so did the wages. In July the president signed off on a 56 per cent increase in the minimum wage across the private sector. Rashed’s pay packets are back to pre-2019 levels and customers are tipping generously.

Gulf Arabs have got the message that Beirut is again the place to be. The lifting of UAE travel warnings earlier this year was a huge boon for Lebanese tourism. Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport saw a million visitors in June and July – up 15 per cent on the previous year’s summer season – igniting hopes that the country’s tourism industry, which made up 19 per cent of its GDP before the 2019 crash, is back. The city was packed all summer, with crowds spilling out onto the streets, grasping cocktails and dancing to the strains of Fairuz and Umm Kulthum. It felt like old times.

While the city has quietened down since the peak season, the spirit of those buoyant months has endured. Plane-loads of Middle Eastern tourists are descending on Beirut every weekend in search of delicious food and good times. Even short-term stability begets long-term investment. A highway intended to circumvent the dreaded traffic jams that swell on the seaside motorway north of the city every rush hour is finally under way.

The government also hopes to open tender on an airport near Tripoli in early 2026. Intended to complement Rafic Hariri, which is the only operational commercial airport in Lebanon, it will be well placed for the country’s most popular beach resorts. MEA, the national carrier, is launching a low-cost arm to ferry visitors to and from both of them.

Rasha Halabi Assaf barely kept her Saifi Village-based boutique, Label Queen, going through the crisis. She has now opened two more businesses in the neighbourhood. Her café, Roff, serves high-end coffee to the cool crowd. Since starting it in January, Assaf says that it has practically marketed itself. “This year was a big change,” she says. “Brands are launching; hotels are opening. People are optimistic and investing again.” However, she says that the government needs to step in and support local entrepreneurs in the wake of the crisis.

Fellow business owners feel that the private sector is carrying the entire load of the economy, while facing heavy taxes for little return and high costs on imported goods. As a result, they are prioritising low-risk cash investment in retail and hospitality. “If anything happens, the losses are easier to absorb,” she says. “The banking system is there but we don’t trust it yet.”

In 2019, Lebanon’s youth took to the streets to demand change from its leaders. Now they’re coming back to make it themselves. Ghassan Haddad left the country 20 years ago after graduating from high school and worked as a consultant in Europe and the Gulf. When he was first asked to return to serve as chief of staff for the new tourism minister, Laura Lahoud, he was reluctant. But his family convinced him not to pass up the opportunity to be part of Lebanon’s next chapter. Lahoud says that her favourite part of her job is working with younger people such as Haddad. “They’re faster at everything, with a fresh outlook,” she says. “I learn a lot from them.”

Unfortunately, not everyone is so keen. Like many of his peers, Haddad is having to push hard to change mindsets that are still stuck in the past. Modern digital skills have yet to permeate the top of government (aides still write phone messages down on scraps of paper) and increasing efficiency will mean a complete overhaul. “People tell me, ‘That’s not how we do things here,’” says Haddad. “I say, ‘That’s exactly the point.’ The people want change but they don’t want reform.”

It takes a huge leap of faith to give up on the status quo in return for an unknown benefit at some point in the future. That’s what this government is asking of a public that has had little reason to trust its leaders in decades. It’s a sentiment that Haddad shares with many of his youthful colleagues. They often gather in the evening to share their ideas, after a long day spent working to bring their country’s infrastructure up to speed.

In the lobby of Bourj Hammoud’s Cinema Royal, young women drink beer as they wait for a free public screening of 1994 film Once Upon a Time in Beirut, put on by the culture ministry. “How was today?” one asks her friend. “Long, like every day at the moment,” she says. Then she smiles and adds, “But it’ll be worth it.”

This summer there were many such screenings and museum nights. For a few weeks, Beirut lived up to its mid-century moniker as the Paris of the Middle East. Lahoud’s next aim is to project middle-class Beirut’s success to other corners of the country. Her ministry has launched a tourism app intended to direct visitors to less frequented areas.

In common with many of her new colleagues, she never worked in politics before this and knows that it will take time to build trust. None of the current cabinet ministers plans to run in the next election, so they can focus on making meaningful, if difficult, decisions, she says. “We have tremendous natural wealth but our greatest wealth is our people,” she says, looking out from her balcony at the city below. “They find a way to continue.”

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Back to Beirut
A rundown of the key events in Lebanon’s complex history.

1.
Place des Martyrs, downtown Beirut in the 1960s. Before the civil war, the city was known as the Paris of the Middle East.

2.
The Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, led to about 150,000 deaths and the emigration of a million people from Lebanon. The war devastated swaths of the capital.

3.
Crowds in the city celebrate the 1989 Taif Agreement that paved the way for peace. The agreement formalised power sharing between Lebanon’s 18 registered religious groups.

4.
Rafic Hariri served as Lebanon’s prime minister between 1992 and 1998 and then again between 2000 and 2004. In 2005 he was assassinated in Beirut by a suicide van bomb. Hariri’s death triggered further political upheaval.

5.
Riad Salameh was the governor of the Bank of Lebanon from 1993 to 2023. Initially feted for his monetary policy, after the country’s banking crisis in 2019 he was accused of siphoning off millions of depositors’ savings. In 2024 he was charged with money laundering, embezzlement and illicit enrichment.

6.
The 2020 Beirut port explosion was caused by the ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that was being stored in a waterside warehouse. The explosion caused at least 218 deaths, thousands of casualties and billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

7.
The new Lebanese government poses outside the Baabda Presidential Palace in February 2025. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stand in the centre.