Vogue Scandinavia is the very first to visit Bianca Ingrosso and Lovisa Worge’s Christmas-themed ANI pop-up. The two influencers and besties give us the grand tour.
Bianca Ingrosso and Lovisa Worge are self-proclaimed Christmas people. Carols, meatballs, The Holiday – they love it all, Ingrosso especially. “When I wake up alone in my apartment, I play Christmas music every morning,” she says. When her family gets together to celebrate – a double celebration, given that her mother Pernilla Wahlgren’s birthday falls on Christmas Eve – things really get extra. “It’s a lot of singers and actors, so there’s a lot of singing, a lot of acting like Santa Claus, we dance around a tree, we celebrate my mother,” she says. “It’s a lot.”
Given the duo’s unabashed love of the holidays, it’s fitting that ANI, the jewellery brand the two besties launched three years ago, would grant its very first pop-up a Christmas theme. Located in the Östermalm showroom of furniture company Layered (the minimal winter white furnishings and plush white rugs are recognisably theirs), the shop-slash-cafe is infused with holiday spirit. A massive Christmas tree, adorned with custom ANI baubles, greets visitors at the door. Above the large square jewellery counter, dozens of white amaryllis flowers hang from the ceiling. On the opposite end, an ANI cafe serves custom matcha and vanilla cakes. “We really wanted to celebrate Christmas with our customers,” says Ingrosso. “I’m very minimalistic, so it’s white and green,” adds Worge. “It’s really elegant, sophisticated and timeless. Like a posh Christmas.”
The shop, which opens its doors for this weekend only, gives fans of the brand the chance to peruse ANI’s holiday collection before it lands online on Monday. Worge points out her own dangling ANI drip earrings as a can’t-fail gift for loved ones. “Perfect for New Year’s and Christmas parties,” she says.
Worge and Ingrosso, meanwhile, don’t have much on their own wish lists. “For me, in general, it’s just to have a very relaxing and calm Christmas,” says Worge. “I never wish for anything for Christmas,” Ingrosso says. “I get really uncomfortable when someone gives me gifts.” One gift that made her especially uncomfortable was a thermos, gifted by her mother. “If I wanted a warm coffee, I would just buy one and I’m never, like, in the woods and in need of a thermos,” she says. Wahlgren later redeemed herself by gifting her daughter a Chanel computer bag.
Ingrosso is more of a giver than a receiver. “Shit, I give good gifts,” she says. “You are like, insane,” Worge agrees. “When I had my birthday celebration this year, I got ballerinas from Chanel.” Once she gave her brother, Benjamin, a Patek Philippe watch. “He doesn’t even wear it,” Ingrosso says.
What Ingrosso is keen to give this year, however, is her time. Especially to her fans, who show up in droves to meet the woman they’ve come to view as a big sister (perhaps you encountered the line outside of her Caia Cosmetics pop-up that snaked all the way down Hamngatan). “I feel them so much when I meet them,” she says. “I want to be so present and look them in the eyes. When I touch them, I want them to feel that I’m there.” Most fans want a hug. Sometimes they cry. Occasionally they’re so overwhelmed, they even forget to take a selfie.
I feel [my fans] so much when I meet them. I want to be so present and look them in the eyes. When I touch them, I want them to feel that I’m there.
Bianca Ingrosso
Worge recalls receiving a call from Ingrosso the day the Caia pop-up opened. She was nervous no one would come. In the end, the line was ever-present for four days. Given that both girls vow to be at the ANI pop-up virtually the entire time it’s open, one can expect a similar pandemonium. “Of course it’s more overwhelming for her,” says Worge, gesturing to Ingrosso. I assure her that she has fans too. “Yeah, her fans,” she says, laughing.
Despite her high-octane Christmas spirit, there is one celebratory staple that Ingrosso doesn’t mess with. “I don’t have a Christmas tree,” she admits. “I’d feel so f***iing lonely, living alone with a Christmas tree. It’s very weird to do that.” What about stars in the windows? “I don’t know how to do that. How do people put those up? Literally, how do they put them up?” She asks. “I know how – I can help you,” says Worge. Just two best friends, spreading Christmas joy.