Publication No.42

Swedish midsummer and slow reading my way.

Jun 21, 2026

This was a mixed week in June. It started at 12 degrees rain, meetings, deadlines, a creeping sense that autumn was already on its way in. Then, a cut to the archipelago. A boat ride out into open water, and suddenly summer arrived, right on cue for Midsummer.

I traded the leather jacket for a white skirt. Stress for soul care. Being constantly online for being properly, gloriously offline. City life and archipelago life speak two different languages and this week, I lived in both.

I’ve gathered it all here in words and images, the way I like to tell a story. From white peonies in the city to a handpicked purple bouquet in the archipelago. Enjoy!

This publication contain adlinks and advertising my own business.

7 days 7 looks

Here is the week in wardrobe…everything Swedish summer is. Leather jacket and twelve degrees in the city, rain, summer out in the archipelago, and twenty-three in the sun. Jeans, midsummer dresses, loafers, and the season's matching sets.

| Embroidery top | Denim jacket | Embroidery skirt |

So many of you have been writing to me about my collection, and it makes me so happy. Unfortunately everything is sold out and we won't be restocking. But I have happy news! This top and my scarf were delayed in delivery and will be released tomorrow! I celebrated Midsummer in the top and skirt that I designed for exactly this day.

Launching tomorrow.

Note to self

FRANCE’S ISLAND GETAWAY.

Summer vacation around the corner. How about a trip to the France island Saint-Martin-de-Ré, and a stay at this boutique hotel..?

“…In Saint-Martin-de-Ré, Hotel La Baronnie calls itself a “village within a village.” It’s an 18th-century estate with 23 uniquely designed rooms and suites. Amenities include the Bar 1721 and the island’s only Cinq Mondes Spa, featuring a hydrotherapy pool, jacuzzi, sauna, and a curated menu of signature massages and treatments.”

Read the full getaway guide from Condé Nast Traveller, here.

NEW ISSUE.

“Architectural Digest is the world's foremost design authority, showcasing the work of top architects and interior decorators. It continues to set new benchmarks for how to live well—what to buy, what to see and do, where to travel, and who to watch on the fast-paced, multifaceted global design scene.”

New decoration, global design, homes and travel tips from this issue of AD. Get it here.

NEW FRAGRANCE.

”At the heart of the collection lies the concept of the “Intrecciato duo”, pairing an ingredient from Italy with another from elsewhere, weaving together cultures, landscapes, and traditions through scent. Balancing brightness and depth, freshness and warmth, the collection unfolds through unexpected combinations, including a stracciatella accord of milky vanilla and chocolate notes that expands the idea of what an Italian fragrance can be.”

Bottega Veneta introduces Alta, a new fragrance collection composed of ten Eau de Parfum creations. Alta offers double the olfactory possibilities of the original collection, launching with 10 distinct fragrances. Read the full launch article here.

Stockholm art and objects

Frank’s Flower Fields

There is something about Svenskt Tenn in summer that feels like stepping into someone’s very good dream. The walls stay that particular shade of blue-grey. And this year, the whole place has given itself over to flowers.

The summer exhibition is built around Josef Frank’s pattern California designed in the 1940s, inspired by botanical illustration, and somehow still completely alive. Sweet pea, pansy, dahlia, all woven together in that loose, rhythmic way Frank had of making abundance feel effortless rather than overwhelming.

What I loved most wasn’t any single object but the way the rooms held together a dining table dressed in deep botanical print, forest-green glass catching the light, a blue puffed ottoman sitting beside a burl wood table like it had always been there. A lichen-covered branch on the floor. Roses pressed against the window from outside.

It runs through 23 August. Worth going slowly.

The office as an atmosphere

Some meetings happen in places that stay with you long after the conversation ends.

When I met my agent at the Patriksson Group’s office in Stockholm, I walked into a room that felt like it had been composed rather than decorated. Black marble floors, a deep burgundy fireplace, a staircase with clean steel lines cutting through the double-height space. On the long walnut table: a handful of books, a single candle, a glass globe holding wildflowers — cornflowers, loose-stemmed and slightly unruly against all that precision.

There were two paintings. One abstract, almost geological in texture, hung above the fireplace like a piece of quarried wall. The other figurative and dense figures in an interior, a broom, a cup, a bird the kind of painting you return to. I asked about the painter but forgot to write it down.

I’ve been thinking about what it means to work in a space that takes beauty seriously. Not as decoration but as a form of argument. As if the room itself is saying: this is how we think here.

Black and white, and very Swedish

There is something about Mikael Jansson’s photographs for Toteme that feels less like fashion and more like memory. Shot in the archipelago on flat grey rock, by still water, inside a summer cottage with lace tablecloths and binoculars on the windowsill they carry the specific weight of a Swedish summer that doesn’t need to perform itself.

No colour. No warmth filter. Just high contrast and long shadows, the kind of light you get in early June when the sun sits low and sharp even at noon.

What stays with me isn’t the clothes. It’s the chairs facing the sea. The radio on the table. Two women sitting on a dock, not looking at each other, not looking at the camera. The feeling that you interrupted something quiet.

Toteme has always understood restraint. But this campaign, titled Archipelago, feels particularly still and in that stillness, somehow, completely full. Love it.

Add to cart

When midsummer meets days in the archipelago. Floral prints, crispy white and fresh blue hues, summer berries and a clear scent. Simple as that. Here are some inspiration and links that caught my eye this week, from me to you.

Old and new. I love the mix.

Highlighting other women’s work

Every week I open up my inspo folder for you. And give credit to other women and their work. Copy with pride. And don’t forget to give love to people that inspire you.

There are accounts you follow for the content, and then there are accounts you follow because something about the aesthetic stays with you. Nina Takesh falls firmly in the second category.

Los Angeles-based and Iranian-born, Nina grew up between Tehran and Beverly Hills before spending formative years in Paris and the fashion world you can feel in every room she creates. Her work sits at the intersection of European classicism and something warmer, more layered, more personal. Parisian proportion, yes, but with a richness that reads almost cinematic. Dark walnut cabinetry framed by arched plaster doorways. Calacatta marble that seems to glow. Rooms where the vintage and the contemporary exist without friction.

What I find so compelling is the conviction. Nothing in a Nina Takesh interior feels like it’s waiting for permission. The checkerboard marble entry floors, the moody living rooms anchored by sculptural furniture, the kitchen framed like a painting through an archway it’s all considered, and all deeply committed to a point of view.

Her latest chapter brings that same sensibility to walls. The Eastern Blush collection, created in collaboration with Swedish mural specialist belarteSTUDIO, is a wallpaper series that traces the two strongest threads of her life: Persian heritage and European classicism. One of the standout prints — L’Air des Jardins — draws from 18th-century chinoiserie and hand-painted silk panels, with flowering branches that unfurl across a wall at mural scale. In warm browns and creams, it turns a bedroom into something that feels both ancient and entirely now. The kind of wallpaper that doesn’t just decorate a room, but gives it a story.

And what a story it tells. Well done Nina.

→ @ninatakesh / ninatakesh.com

Best of budget

Beauty

In my bathroom this week…

Oribe Gold Lust Dry Heat Protection Spray. I use this spray to protect the hair from heat tools. This multi-tasking spray repairs, nourishes and protects damaged hair up to 232°C. Leaving a silky smooth with a frizz-free result.

Redken All Soft Heavy Cream Treatment Mask. One favorite hair mask. An intensive and nourishing mask for dry hair that contains Redken’s Moisture Complex. When using, it gives radiant shine and softness.

Oribe Gold Lust Nourishing Hair Oil. If you missed my choice of hair oil, here it comes once again. A lightweight hair oil that nourishes and strengthens hair while smoothing and adding shine. Contains both UV and heat protection.

Take a seat

Midsummer — finally, my favorite tradition of the year. Flower crowns went on, family and friends gathered, and we simply let ourselves enjoy it. The weather was on our side, the kind of soft, golden light that makes everything feel a little more magical.

I set the table with my Svenskt Tenn midsummer cloth, which I do every year, and at each place a different floral plate from Pick a Poppy — every seat its own small bouquet. There’s something about mixing patterns like that, the cloth as the steady base and the plates each telling their own story, that feels very midsummer to me.

We did our duty by Små grodorna, raised glasses of elderflower snaps, and my daughter and I put together dessert: equal parts cinnamon buns and mini pavlovas. You’ll find the full recipe in my book, Till bords.

One day I want to open a bakery with my daughter.

Midsummer captured by my friend Anine. Memories from her Leica.

When in Stockholm

The Östermalm lunch spot I keep recommending: Nybrogatan 38. A proper kvarterskrog open early, stays open late, with bar service running through the day. Lunch is unpretentious and well-executed, the kind of place you go without a reservation drama. If the afternoon allows, a glass of wine at the bar afterward feels like one of Stockholm's quiet little permissions. My go-to when someone asks where to eat in town without the fuss.

And a coffee at this spot.

Screenshots from my phone

A mix from my phone. I magazine cover on my wish list, a lot of research, beauty and a dress that I just ordered. See you soon.

On that note

I’ll end this week’s letter the way I want to remember it with the scent of this bouquet still on my hands and this view stretched out in front of me. Lilac and catmint, sea and stone, that particular pink the sky only does out here. My heart is full after days with family and friends.

I wait for this place for half the year. And I wait, too, for this exact moment early summer, with all of it still ahead, nothing yet spent. Let it never end.

I hope this gave you a few minutes of slow reading on a Sunday. Thank you for being here. See you next week.

Love from S