The Monocle Minute

Something happened yesterday amid the rocky outcrops, tree-freckled islands and summerhouses of the Stockholm archipelago. That said, I shouldn’t really be telling you about it. It was here that the city’s Handelskammare (Chamber of Commerce) arranged a summit for 325 business leaders and more than 20 industry-leading speakers from across the Nordics. The venue? The seemly Artipelag art gallery. The rub? The conversations here – about Scandinavian competitiveness, fixing cities and geopolitical risk – were conducted using the so-called Chatham House Rule: namely, under anonymity.

While we recorded interviews with some top CEOs and leaders that you’ll read and hear over the coming weeks, Monocle’s editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, and I also found ourselves inadvertently becoming diary editors for the day: picking up snippets of information and story leads from people who would rather remain nameless.

Here’s a little of what we learned:

1. Sauna boats are hot property. On our journey from Nybroviken to Artipelag, we saw one such boat and the Swedes aboard agreed: it’s a great idea and a buoyant industry. Things are set to get steamy.

2. Sustainability comes in many guises. Our boat, the Waxholm III, was built in 1903 (about the same time as the founding of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce). I can’t imagine many of today’s electric boats serving a century or more on the waves.

3. Entrepreneurs are finding Norway taxing. A levy on assets rather than income is pushing businesses and value generators away.

4. Norway is sick. Illness-related leave is double what it is in Sweden – not ideal for global competitiveness. Perhaps some healthier incentives to get back to work might help?

5. Corporate neutrality is over. Whether they like it or not, some companies are being pushed to become political, sometimes by dint of where they’re based and at other times due to the demands of staff or their board. But what does it mean to be a “Western” company? Does every firm need a worldview?

6. We need to be “a little more like South Korea” – or so a senior figure demanded on the issue of rising defence costs. Security won’t come cheap but not arming our nations and Ukraine adequately might cost us all more in the long run.

7. “The West will win,” insisted another leader. The next big innovation isn’t coming from China or Russia, they say. Creativity can’t survive in an autocracy.

8. Sweden is suffering. A stubbornly high crime rate, the issue of organised gangs and dissatisfaction over education and infrastructure were common refrains. Perhaps being a globally competitive country comes with growing pains?

9. Stockholm is well placed to respond to those challenges. We’ll see if falling immigration numbers help with integration but there’s also plenty of good things about living and working here that the modest Swedes seem too bashful to boast about – sauna boats among them.

10. Not everything needs to be broadcast. It might be a curious observation from a journalist but the day’s Chatham House Rule helped people to open up and engage differently than if they were facing a mic and knowing that they’ll be identified.

As the sun sets behind the pines and light dances on the water, Stockholm is making it easy for the Chamber of Commerce to suggest the city’s charms as a place to live and work. But that’s where I’ll need to leave you – I’ve already said too much.

Josh Fehnert is Monocle’s editor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Turkey’s top diplomat, Hakan Fidan, will join EU foreign ministers today in Brussels as they meet for their annual informal summit. As a result of long-running disputes over migration and human rights, it has been five years since Turkey, an EU candidate country, has sat at the table. But Ankara needs friends. In recent years, cash injections from Russia have waned, while Turkey’s refusal to stop doing business with Moscow has brought the threat of secondary sanctions from the US. Its neighbourhood has also become more volatile since the invasion of Ukraine.

The trajectory of future relations between Turkey and Europe depends on whether Recep Tayyip Erdogan deems friendship with the continent to be beneficial for him at a domestic level. The next Turkish presidential election is scheduled for 2028 but, as the country’s economic crisis continues to bite, there’s increasing pressure for earlier polls. In the past, Erdogan has whipped up Europhobia as a surefire way to win nationalist votes. Should a snap election be called before the economy shows signs of recovery, he might wager that closer ties with the EU can be sacrificed.

For more on Turkey’s diplomacy with the EU, tune in to Wednesday’s edition ofThe Briefing, on Monocle Radio.

The 2024 Paralympic Games have officially started in Paris. Over the next two weeks, 4,000 elite athletes with disabilities from across the globe will be competing in 549 medal events. Among the biggest challenges that the event faces is to maintain the momentum generated by the Olympics. One way to do so is through consistent design. Monocle spoke to the creative team behind the branding, W Conran Design, about its philosophy. “We developed a visual identity for both events,” Jean-Jacques Charrais, the company’s creative director, told The Globalist on Monocle Radio. “The idea was not to differentiate them but to say that all of the athletes have the same desire to win gold.”

The creative team reinvented the pictograms used during the Olympics to help people find their way to respective arenas and venues but ensured that there was a continuity in graphic identity. And the Phryges, named Olli and Para, are the mascots of both events. The latter’s visible disability sparked conversation among children and Para plush toys have been selling faster than Olli ones – showing that subtle design choices can make a meaningful difference.

For more on this year’s Paralympics branding and our conversation with W Conran Design, tune in to Wednesday’s edition of ‘The Globalist’ on Monocle Radio

US label Woolrich has begun a fresh chapter under creative director Todd Snyder, the menswear maverick who also runs his eponymous label in New York. Snyder is working with the brand’s design teams in Milan, New York and Tokyo on its heritage and technical collections, adding a stronger luxury flavour to the Woolrich Black Label range. Here, he tells Monocle how performance wear is infiltrating urban wardrobes and discusses Woolrich’s potential to lead the sector.

What drew you to Woolrich?
I was excited to work with a brand that has a heritage of almost 200 years and pretty much invented outdoor apparel. My idea is to fuse this heritage with modernity, street styles and luxury. I also see an opportunity to use nature as a muse and design garments for all seasons. It’s all about an active lifestyle, whether you’re in the countryside, the mountains or the city.

Are people engaging with technical clothing in new ways?
Athleisure used to be everywhere but now outdoors wear is the new streetwear. People are wearing technical clothing to the office – maybe even to go to dinner. Recently, many people have embraced hiking, camping and fishing. It’s a natural evolution and that’s what inspires me. We need to keep telling new stories.

Tell us about your new collection.
It was inspired by the Pacific Northwest and embodies the outdoors lifestyle. Woolrich is known for heavy parkas so I have also been thinking about how to lighten things up. You’ll find a lot of track shorts, as well as lightweight cashmere shirts. My aim is to take classic silhouettes and rework them by using innovative fabrics or adding new details.

For more engaging conversations and in-depth reporting from the world of fashion and retail, pick up a copy of Monocle’sSeptember issue, which is out now.

Monocle’s Petri Burtsoff tours the Northvolt Ett factory in Sweden, one of the largest EV battery plants in the world, to explore the company’s mission to revolutionise green energy. Plus: Andrei Danescu, co-founder and CEO of Dexory, discusses how his business’s autonomous robots and AI-powered platform are transforming warehouse operations for major clients such as Maersk and DB Schenker.