🗞 The Secret Post | Week 35
We defied the forecast — and it paid off! Swap Picnic on Saturday + Meet-ups this week!
Helsinki, Monday, August 25 — Eyewitnesses confirm: the skies over Töölö cleared against the weather forecast, leading some to whisper that witchcraft was involved. It’s getting hard to defend this Secret Club — maybe they actually are a cult. A cute one, tho.
This Saturday, they had the Secret Club’s annual Swap Picnic, now in its third glorious year.
After two postponements, the women of Secret Club finally descended upon the park with bags brimming full with clothes, accessories, makeup, books, and shoes, changing hands in a beautiful dance of “take it” faces!
There were sightings of Turkish delight (thank you, Lalin, still unforgettable), berries, pasta, all sorts of chips, and cookies! Reports say several attendees left looking even more fabulous than they arrived.
This 2025 edition proved once again that second-hand treasures and shared stories outshine anything money can buy. Sources close to the organizer reveal she calls it her “favorite” event — and though she promises to stop overusing the word, we don’t believe her for a second.
Small? Yes. But this little picnic has grown into one of Helsinki’s most charming underground traditions. We wouldn’t want it any other way.
🍋 Secret Art Party — This Thursday
We’re taking over Roba Buona — a cozy, carb-happy Italian gem on Iso Roobertinkatu — for an evening of painting, sipping, and connecting with fabulous women. Think less “art class,” more “wine, laughter, and oops-I-just-painted-a-bird-that-looks-like-a-potato.”
Guiding us is the wonderfully talented Jana, a local artist with a soft, playful touch. No pressure. Just antepasto, paint, and Italian vibes.
If the skies don’t want to collaborate this time, we’ll simply slip inside. Very Italian. Very chic. Very us.
SHOCKING — the host hasn’t finished The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. Yet that’s hardly the biggest scandal: this 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner split the literary world in two. Critics called it everything from “remarkable” to “a children’s book for adults,” while readers either devoured it in a frenzy (still high from The Secret History) or dragged themselves, page by page, through all 771 of them.
Will you stand with the die-hard Tartt devotees, or the skeptics who never made it past page 200? And let’s be honest: will someone (whisper it) admit they only watched the movie?
Whatever your take, bring it. Because at Secret Club Book Club, it’s never about dutifully finishing every chapter — it’s about conversation as rich as the coffee on the table.
xoxo
🪐 Tássia