What’s the world’s most elegant city?

What’s the world’s most elegant city?
By Daisy Doctor


Here at TW, we’re huge fans of elegance.

Admittedly, we do not always possess the qualities of elegance, but we have a firm understanding of what it means to be elegant.

We think.

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Luckily for us, while we need not always be elegant, there are certain cities whose sophistication and class one-up the rest.

So what is the most elegant city?  Not Sydney, surprisingly.

German company Zalando has been on the hunt to find out.

From the grandeur of the Vienna Philharmonic, to the effortless sophistication of the French Riviera, elegance wears many masks.

It’s not just the people, but the cities themselves, with their unique architecture and cultural landscapes, that make a destination elegant.

Money can’t buy it, and yet billions of dollars flow through the fashion and tourism industries each year to evoke the quality.

The secret is that elegance can be achieved with a simple flick of a €2 scarf, a picnic in a beautiful, clean park, and a glass of good quality red wine.

Zalando put its preconceptions to the test, using data to define and evaluate where in the world the most elegant cities can be found.

The study used three key categories to score our list of 80 cities: Fashion Factors, Urban Factors, and Accessibility.

“We studied thousands of cities to hand-pick 400 places widely considered to be elegant in either fashion or architecture.”

“We ranked them by relevant factors and selected the top 80 cities to compile the ultimate Elegant Cities Ranking, with every city included a world-class destination.”

In order for a city to rank highly, cities must have a thriving fashion scene, culturally and historically significant architecture, high tourism desirability, and an attractive point of entry for visitors, as first impressions matter.

It must also rank highly in our expert surveys, which we sent to over 5,000 fashion and architecture experts around the world.

The Accessibility Score ranks how affordable markers of an elegant lifestyle are according to cost of living and local purchasing power. The results reveal the definitive list of the most elegant world cities this 2017.

Check out the top 10 most elegant cities here:

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Click here to see the full list.

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