The competitive cult of cosiness

Do you remember the first wave of hygge, in 2015? It seems a long time ago — back in the freewheeling technicolour of a pre-Covid world — but at that time hygge was the hottest thing to come out of Denmark. The country already attracted envy for its vigorous welfare state, covetable knitwear and high rating on the international happiness index, but the new export outshone them all. It roughly translated as ‘cosy’, people said, but the English word was frail and puny next to the soul-feeding, friendship-cementing, quasi-spiritual force that was hygge. The latter signified home-baked bread and cakes, hand-knitted socks and friends laughing around a wooden dinner table as a hotpot bubbled on the stove.

It was a feeling, a philosophy, a way of life, and the publishing industry went nuts for it: there was The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking; Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness by Marie Tourell Soderberg; and The Book of Hygge: the Danish Art of Living Well, by Louisa Thomsen Brits, among others.