What would Denmark Do?

So did anyone catch Oprah the other day when she did one of her "How Other Women Live Around The World"-type specials? On this installment she featured women from Dubai, Istanbul, Rio and off the top of the show featured Denmark - she spent almost half the show on Denmark... and clearly Oprah is fascinated - she even admitted to indulging in some oddly pronounced Danish bread every morning since her trip...I think it was called like Rougruud... or some other Ikea-esque name.

And quite frankly - being the easily-swayed woman that I am - since that show, I have been obsessed with the women I saw featured in the show... Nanna & Stine.

Nanna is featured in the picture above with Oprah - she's 44 (!) and was like this Amazonian pale blonde (ok, so maybe Amazonian wasn't the right adjective) independent powerhouse. Stine, with her 5 kids (!!), was a similar sort - in her minimalist apartment, with her plainly fabulous hair and perfect skin.

In short, I would like to be Nanna & Stine.

Except maybe I'd keep my own name. And maybe I wouldn't leave my baby outside of the house or cafe in a stroller - which is apparently, quite seriously, what people in Denmark do with their babies. When asked by Oprah if they were scared that their babies would be kidnapped or some such, Stine looked at her confused and asked "Why would someone steal your baby?"

A fair question.

But anyway, this all led to wonder what lessons I could incorporate into my own life - other than the weirdly named bread - to be a little more like Nanna & Stine. Here's what I've come up with:

1. Wear more black dresses during the day- pretty much every Danish woman featured in the piece was wearing black - and a black dress at that. Sounds a bit morose right? Yes, except because they were always smiling and were generally happy (why wouldn't they be) they ended up looking relaxed, classic, lovely... I imagine Nanna & Stine only have like 2 very expensive Jill Sander or Commes De Garcons dresses in their very small but efficient wardrobes. I wish I could dress like this - eg., save all my money to just buy 2 very good pieces and wear them all the time. If you read this regularly, you know that I clearly can't do that but I will continue to aspire to this. You probably have a dress in your wardrobe already that you could wear but if you were looking for something, I like this dress from Urban Outfitters (it actually looks nursing friendly too!). Look for something simple but a little avant garde and pair it with black tights.

As a side-note, I tried to wear a black dress that was in my closet yesterday and although I was pretty pleased with myself, within 1/2 hour of playing with Archer on his playmat, me and my perfect black dress were covered with my cat and dog hair. Curses!!

2. Wear less makeup/focus on good skin - I don't really wear a lot of makeup but Nanna & Stine looked like they were wearing none - they just had like perfect skin. Not like botoxed-out perfect skin, just like clean, rosy, nice skin. Of course, having the perfect skin look, usually does require a little makeup so I would concentrate on lots of moisturizing before using a tinted moisturizer as foundation (I like Stilla). Use a little cream blush, a little brown mascara and a little lip gloss and be done with it. You don't need any more.

3. Be happy with less - Yes, I focus a lot on buying stuff in this blog but really, I would like to be the kind of person - like the Danes - who focuses on life more and consumerism less. We convince ourselves that it's hard to do but maybe it's not. Nanna & Stine seem pretty darn happy about it!