Digital Cover: How Leonie Hanne became a reigning queen of Haute Couture

Leonie Hanne is in the thick of the “busiest two weeks of her life”, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Long blonde hair in gentle waves, understated glow-y makeup done just so, wearing a structured white strapless bustier and a megawatt smile that rarely leaves her face, the Hamburg-born, London-based influencer looks, frankly, red carpet ready. I tell her as much and she laughs it off. “I was just at the hairdresser because of Paris Couture,” says Hanne, who grabs the Eurostar to Paris to sit front row for the most beloved French houses just a couple of days after we chat. “So they just popped a little wave in my hair.” She’s sitting beneath soaring ceilings in her minimalist greige apartment, which, despite being in West London, appears plucked from Östermalm in Stockholm or perhaps Frederiksberg in Copenhagen (she cites Danish influencer Pernille Teisbaek’s home as a personal favourite). “I think if you have a busy brain, you need a peaceful interior,” she says, whipping the computer around so I can get a look at her open, marble-heavy kitchen. “I don’t like a lot of furniture. I really like the Scandinavian style.”

So what has got Hanne so, as she puts it, “switched on”? Well, there’s the aforementioned Couture Week – a full-time obligation on its own. Hanne, whose 4.8 million followers tune in for pure, unfettered fashion fantasy, is deep into packing mode, meticulously preparing her looks. Not just looks for the shows, mind you – those will meet her at suite in Paris, couriered straight from the fashion houses (“I’m constant contact with Schiaparelli or Elie Saab, sharing my favourite looks while they check what’s available”) – but her outfits for everything in between. “Travel looks, dinner looks, outfits for evening events, even coffee runs,” she says. “Honestly, it’s the biggest workload for me because I have to anticipate every scenario.”

True to form, she nails it, pulling off killer fashion moments for the likes of Iris van Herpen and Elie Saab, a handful of evening events and at least five dinners. What was the mood this season? “I definitely love a bit of butter yellow, but Paris is not so summery, like Italy or South of France,” she muses. “So I always tend to mix in a bit of Burgundy. It’s my favourite colour.” Also on the moodboard: tube tops and capri pants.

For Hanne, each look that ultimately arrives on her carefully curated feed is a dialogue between herself and a designer. While she certainly has a defined aesthetic – one that favours floor-sweeping gowns and thoughtful embellishments, one that’s both feminine and romantic but never twee, polished and thoughtful but never stiff – she also likes to step into a designer’s universe. “I really like to lean into the brands I work with,” she says. “It’s really important in my job that I can be a Gucci girl but still myself, I can work with H&M and be myself, I can do Couture, but I need to balance it so it’s not overpowering.”

Related: “I wanted to reference bridal style in a more subtle, personal way”: Inside Leonie Hanne’s elegant Parisian engagement party

For last week’s Schiaparelli show, for instance, she wore an extraordinary white draped gown with a built-in denim corset – unmissably a stunning Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli expression, but perhaps a bit sexier than Hanne’s usual looks. She made it her own, however, with an elegant chignon, minimal makeup and simple black pumps. “It’s one of my favourite shows and I got one of my favourite looks,” she says, proudly. For Iris Van Herpen, meanwhile, she wore a short pleated number with a built-in cape and geometric print, which she accessorised with Alaïa pumps and an off-white Hermès mini Kelly.

Also happening in Paris last week: her engagement party; a lavish celebration of Hanne’s forthcoming nuptials to Alexander Galievsky, her partner in life and business (in 2014, he left a successful career in finance to work full-time with Hanne, travelling the world to her various obligations, capturing her content and brokering her partnerships). That required another two outfits. When we spoke, Hanne was a bit stressed about placing her two large suitcases – stuffed with couture and designer handbags, jewellery and covetable footwear – out of her direct eye-line on the train (they arrived safely, thank heavens).

And, finally, there was our Vogue Scandinavia digital cover shoot, which finds Hanne, one of the reigning queens of Couture, clad in decadent creations by the likes of Fang and Stéphane Rolland. On our digital cover, she wears a decadent grey couture dress from the latest, ocean-inspired collection from ArdAzAei, which came down the runway just days before the shoot. Founded in Stockholm by Swedish-Iranian artistic director Bahareh Ardakani (a mathematician and engineer by training), it’s the only fashion house on the official Paris Couture calendar with a Scandinavian at its helm.

Born of Ardakani’s exploration of sea urchins, the details on the cover look are otherworldly. Adorned with 34 handmade macrame urchins (each took between four and six hours to craft), intertwined with pearls and silk georgette, the sculptural dress is, as the designer puts it: “An homage to the ocean and the maritime roots of macramé, the technique of knotting cord created by sailors at sea.”

Related: See all the looks from ArdAzAei's AW25 Couture show

Hanne, meanwhile, wears this couture creation – with its alluring complexities and intricacies – with a rare ease. In fact, when Ardakani describes the ArdAzAei woman, she could easily be speaking of Hanne specifically. “The ArdAzAei woman is modern, balanced and pushes limits. She is curious and interested in art,” says Ardakani. “Her beauty comes from within, like a gemstone. She has this sense of freedom and a contemporary approach in a way she embodies this new luxury.”

It’s no surprise Hanne took to the dress immediately; she has a great reverence for Scandinavian design and the way in which Scandinavian women style themselves (a stark contrast to the “uniform” nature of her native Hamburg, she explains). “Scandinavians are very strong at playing with neutrals, but they also have a lot of fun styling. Germans can sometimes lack a bit of creativity – we love to be classy, we love to be elevated, but also let’s have some fun,” says Hanne, playfully. “Copenhagen might be one of the most stylish cities in the world – some of the stylists and influencers there are really at the top of the game. And I’m like, ‘How can it only be a three-hour drive from Hamburg to Copenhagen?’ I find that so funny.”

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Meanwhile, despite its over-the-top intricacies, Hanne wears the ArdAzAei couture gown with apparent ease and regal poise, lounging comfortably in a corset and commanding the moment.

How did we get here? Rapidly, for one; Hanne, who turns 37 in a week (another opportunity for a great outfit), only downloaded Instagram about 10 years ago. She was working as a strategy consultant in Hamburg at the time and had begun developing a following on a re-selling platform, where fellow fashion-obsessives, inspired by her taste, would ask for her Instagram handle. Her friends and colleagues, too, urged her to get on the platform. “I said, ‘It’s already done’ – there’s already Chiara Ferragni and other OGs,” says Hanne, noting she came in the “second wave” of influencers. “Back then, I thought, ‘I’m too late’.”

She wasn’t. When Hanne finally caved and downloaded the app, she found her audience almost immediately. They came for the designer looks – unapologetically glamorous and girly – and a boundless positive energy that seems to jump through the phone screen. That positivity served Hanne especially well during the pandemic. Under lockdown – first in London and then in her native Hamburg – she saw an opportunity. “I really wanted to offer something uplifting – something that gave people a little hope, happiness, and everyday inspiration,” she says. “So, I started filming videos and styling looks at home. That’s when everything really took off. It connected with people on such a deep level and it completely changed everything for me.”

Hanne has always been a hustler. Growing up in the suburbs, the daughter of down-to-earth, “hippy-dippy” parents (her dad worked in a grocery store at first, and later an insurance company. Her mom went back to work as a teacher when Hanne was in fifth grade), there wasn’t much pocket money lying around. So Hanne, who had already caught the fashion bug, went to work as a teen, diligently saving up her paycheques for designer purchases (secondhand, often). Her first gig was working in a shop for high-street Danish brand Vero Moda. “We had one mall and that was the coolest place we had,” says Hanne. “I still know the names of every leather jacket, every wash of denim.” When she had finally saved up enough money, she went to Berlin to make her first major luxury purchase: a Celine Trapeze bag.

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Though London is firmly home these days, Hanne and Galievsky are in the process of renovating a flat in Hamburg (it’s perhaps a bit more Södermalm or Vesterbro, with pink onyx and matcha-coloured accents). Lately she likes going home, even if she’s a bit too out-of-the-box for her hometown. What do her parents think of her career – her couture looks, her millions of followers? “My little sister is a doctor and my big sister is a teacher and I feel like my parents never really cared what we’re doing as long as we’re happy,” she says, noting that both of her sisters were always best of class. Ever the hustler, Hanne told her mum she could be best of class, too. For a while she was, before fashion came calling. Her mum was all for it, saying, simply: “Someone needs to make the parties and have fun.”