"The Government congratulates the newlyweds," read the caption alongside the photo. I have been invited to observe the morning send-off from across a receiving room in the residence, a modest 19th-century wooden mansion with a view across a cove of the pale-gray Baltic Sea, which was once the summer redoubt of Russian governors general. In the home scenes, there’s plenty of natural light, and Marimekko ceramic plates and bowls.For her own wardrobe Marin sticks to Finnish brands like Ma-ri-mek-ko (of course), Uhana, Papu (“Designed with love in Finland; made with care in the EU,” its labels read), and Nouki. In Finland, the future was already here.Or at least the future as we imagined it back then. A few days after becoming prime minister, Marin met her European counterparts in Brussels, where in a sea of dark-blue suits, two women in particular stood out: Marin and Merkel. The practice dates to the 1930s and was a way to encourage mothers to get prenatal care. Marin’s government is fragile by Finnish standards, and its critics say it has set impossible goals—trying to boost the economy while also capping carbon emissions. “One of the reasons why there are so many populist movements in Europe, right-wing movements, is that people are frustrated and lacking hope,” she says. “If there is a situation where Emma is sick and we have to take her home, it’s my husband’s job to do this.” Räikkönen seems like a great guy, I say. “That was my daughter,” she says by way of greeting. Once Emma and her grandmother are out the door, Marin offers me a brisk handshake. Emma babbles something in Finnish, and Marin explains she’s saying she no longer needs her little pink hooded wool collar now that she’s back inside. While Ms Marin looked stunning in a floor-length white gown with long sleeves, Mr Raikkonen chose a classic tuxedo for the big day. Marin greets her and helps her take off her muddy purple plastic rain boots and her red overalls. All that was still to come when I sat down with Marin. No need for the future is female T-shirts. Let me take you back—a postcard from the not-so-distant past.It is a drizzly gray January day in Helsinki, and Marin is crouching by the front door of her official residence, tucking her chatty two-year-old daughter, Emma, into waterproof red overalls. Gabriela Hearst dress. They are worried about the future of their children. “She knows what she’s talking about,” Ari tells me. Suddenly her image was ricocheting around the world, with British tabloids storifying Marin’s well-curated social-media feeds and declaring her a leader for the Instagram era. While we’re speaking, a woman with a baby in a winterproof stroller and a squirmy toddler comes to sit at the next table over. Along with her photogenic governing coalition of four other women, most under 40, Marin was hailed as an icon of progressive feminism, a new leader for a new era—with an ambitious agenda to match. (The Finns were thrilled when Marin announced in mid-March that Finland, like a few other European countries, would close its borders to try to prevent people infected with the virus from coming in. She doesn’t recognize Räikkönen, and that’s how he likes it. Populist parties give simple answers to complicated questions.”Marin has smooth, pale skin, round cheeks highlighted with a tiny bit of pink rouge, and alert green-blue eyes. “I find that our job is to give people hope for the future,” she says. “Climate change is the issue that everybody in my generation thinks about. Marin waves to her, and then it’s back to work.The latest fashion news, beauty coverage, celebrity style, fashion week updates, culture reviews, and videos on Vogue.com.Prime Minister Sanna Marin has declared a state of emergency in Finland. “He’s the best,” she says, and here she really does smile.The couple met when they were 18, in Tampere. The water is normally frozen this time of year, but it’s been an unseasonably mild winter.
Even in super-egalitarian Finland, such gender imbalances are common.Marin wants to fix that, too. In December, when her predecessor—Prime Minister Antti Rinne, a male, boomer-era former labor-union leader—was forced to resign in the wake of a postal-worker strike, her party chose her in a narrow vote to replace him. Marin at home in the Finnish city of Tampere with her daughter, Emma, and partner, Markus Räikkönen. “I think it was the frustration of noticing that the older generation didn’t realize how important it is,” she says. Ms Marin, 34, announced the marriage on Instagram this Sunday and wrote "I am happy and grateful that I get to share my life with the man I love". She first gained prominence after video clips of her chairing contentious me… We hear Emma in the other room, who has returned from frolicking outside with her grandmother. On her Instagram feed, Marin has mastered performative pregnancy and motherhood. On a rainy weekend afternoon I poke into one, called Relove, and strike up a conversation with a woman named Suvi waiting in line for the fitting room.
She’s the new Nokia,” says Anna-Liina Kauhanen, a reporter and columnist for Finland is a small country of 5.5 million people, but it punches above its weight in terms of soft power—the egalitarianism, family benefits, and forward-thinking environmentalism that Marin embodies.