’Tis the Season! Mytheresa and Moncler Grenoble Head to Norway for a Snow-Filled Festive Celebration
When you think of Moncler in the wild, your mind may immediately go to a certain kind of glitzy Alpine ski resort: you might picture the brand’s unmistakable blue-and-red cockerel logo on the sleeve of a minor royal bombing down the slopes at Gstaad, say, or being worn by a gilet-clad clubber raising a glass of après-ski Champagne at an outdoor club in Courchevel. Earlier this week, however, the German e-commerce giant Mytheresa—along with Moncler Grenoble, the brand’s skiwear diffusion—decided to head further afield, to a more adventurous corner of northern Europe: more specifically, to Oslo, and to the mountains surrounding the Tryvann lake just north of the city.
Marking the latest chapter in the ongoing collaboration between the luxury retailer and the storied Italian winterwear brand, the two-day affair began with a steady stream of friends of the two brands and Mytheresa clients making their way through a series of suites at the design hotel Sommerro in Oslo’s ritzy Frogner district, ready to be fitted in some of the world’s most cutting-edge—and fashion-forward—skiwear. (The uber-stylish Art Deco-inspired hotel, which served as the trip’s home base, opened in 2022, but has already established itself as the ultimate see-and-be-seen property in the Norwegian capital.)
Then, it was on to the Oslo Opera House—which had been shut down for the evening to accommodate the event, naturally—for dinner, beginning with Champagne sipped under Moncler-branded blankets as guests took in the building’s striking exterior. (Created by the celebrated local architecture firm Snøhetta from dramatic planes of Carrara marble and glass, the opera house was designed to resemble a glistening iceberg emerging from the Oslo fjord.) The first surprise of the evening came soon after, as the Norwegian National Opera soprano Frøy Hovland Holtbakk took to a miniature stage to perform a series of opera classics, before guests were ushered into the building’s dazzling foyer for dinner along an enormous curved table laden with tapered candles and surrounded by sculptures crafted from white flowers and reindeer moss—plus, of course, an ice sculpture or two.
Poppy Delevingne and Julia Sarr-Jamois stopped to chat after posing for photos on the sweeping wooden staircase of the opera house, which twinkled in the light of hundreds of candles, while models Ikram Abdi, Aweng Chuol, and Ceval Omar made their way to the dinner table following a quick clink of their Champagne glasses. And after Mytheresa’s chief customer experience officer Amber Pepper and Moncler’s chief client officer and EMEA president Marco Viganò had offered a brief welcome, a meal of Nordic classics—red cabbage with parsley, potato, and horseradish; delicate local cod with roasted celeriac—followed. But the real showstopper? A five-foot-long baked Alaska, theatrically ferried into the room by a trio of chefs carrying it over their shoulders like pallbearers to a booming waltz from La Bohème, which was then ceremoniously lit to a round of applause and served to guests before they headed into the frigid Oslo night, and back to the hotel.
An early night was necessary, after all, given that the next morning, a fleet of black sprinter vans pulled up outside Sommerro to whisk guests to Skimore, the largest ski area in the Oslo area, just 30 minutes from the city center. (Along the winding roads up into the mountains, you could also spot an enormous—and rather terrifying—ski jump on the side of the road, but we were quickly reassured that we’d instead be having a more leisurely morning wending our way down a handful of beginner’s green and blue slopes.) After a few hours of bombing through the snow—with plenty of stops to pose for photos—the crowd gathered on a terrace with sweeping views of the city to drink Glühwein and hot chocolate and snack on freshly toasted s’mores.
Finally, it was time for a goodbye lunch at the Holmenkollen restaurant just down the road, where the very merry private dining room—think intricately carved pine walls, reindeer antler chandeliers, and a roaring fireplace—had been transformed into a glittering Nordic fantasia, its tables laden with lavish arrangements of local flowers and lichen and oil candles in shimmering blown glass. Over a hearty meal of artichoke soup with freshly-shaved truffle and a perfectly cooked beef entrecote, guests swapped notes on their skiing and snowboarding prowess—and admired each other’s Moncler Grenoble finery, with the patchwork-quilted Leutasch wool ski jacket worn by Lebanese model Louai Alama and Serbian influencer Tamara Kalinic’s brown corduroy number earning their outsize share of compliments. As everyone said their goodbyes, the running theme was a reluctance to leave—but after 48 hours in Mytheresa’s winter wonderland, it was time to return to the real world.
Photo: Lucas Possiede1/28
Photo: Lucas Possiede2/28Fai Khadra
