April 10, 2025, 1:19 p.m. | Reading time: 5 minutes
A cosmetics company recently compared different amenities in a city and their presence on social media to find out which city in Europe is the "most glamorous." Sunnytrips shows the results and classifies them.
“The glamorous, glamorous / By the glamorous / Ooh, the flossy, flossy” from Fergie’s song “Glamorous” can’t be left in my head as I write this text and ask myself why it’s important to know which cities in Europe are the “most glamorous”. But so be it. This question was so important to the cosmetics company Catrice that it started a study on the topic.
How is glamor defined?
When I think of glamour, I inevitably think of New York, of limousines, private jets, champagne, glittering dresses and flowing ball gowns, chic restaurants and cocktail bars, and boutiques where beautiful ladies slip through their fingers on high-priced clothes. Catrice puts the focus a little differently: According to the cosmetics company, glamor is defined “by a mixture of style, beauty and elegance”. The key elements are “personal aesthetics, self-care, looking good and feeling good on your skin.” On this basis, it asked which city in Europe and Great Britain was considered the “epitome of glamour”.
To answer this, it compared the number of beauty salons and spas, shopping locations and annual search volume for nearby yoga and Pilates studios per 100,000 people in 30 European and 20 UK cities. The actual numbers are mentioned in the ranking. The number of annual beauty and fashion events as well as Instagram posts with the hashtags “#[location] aesthetic, #[location] style and #[location] fashion” were also taken into account in the rating. What exactly counts as a beauty or fashion event and the question of how credible Instagram hashtags are in terms of the actual glamor factor of a city remain open.
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This is the most “glamorous” city in Europe
The clear winner of the analysis is the British capital London, according to Catrice “rightly the most glamorous city in Europe”. London particularly stands out with an impressive number of 4,559 beauty salons and 857 spas. For the cosmetics company, “(the city) underlines its global status as a center for luxury and elegance.” There are also 484,000 searches for yoga and Pilates per year, proving that wellness is an important part of the London lifestyle.
In addition, London has 2,088 shopping locations, 857 hot tubs and 4,200 beauty and fashion events such as London Fashion Week. “But London’s glamorous charm only unfolds on social media,” says Catrice, who bases this questionable statement on more than five million hashtags that celebrate “the city’s distinctive style and cosmopolitan fashion scene.” According to the company, London "dominates Instagram with over five million hashtags, including 'aesthetics', 'fashion' and 'style', making it the hottest city on Instagram - both in Europe and the UK."
Zurich and Paris in second and third place
Zurich takes second place among the most glamorous cities in Europe. According to Catrice, the Swiss city is “known for its sophisticated taste and exclusivity.” It offers an impressive number of 158 shopping locations for its just over 340,000 residents. “Easy access to high-quality fashion contributes to the city's glamorous feel and makes it a place where style and elegance come together,” writes Catrice. There are also 549 beauty salons and 160 spas as well as 13,200 searches for yoga and Pilates.
Note: The exact point in time at which Catrice carried out these examinations is not mentioned. However, according to the current figures from the city of Zurich, it had 448,664 inhabitants in 2024 and 448,886 in January 2025, i.e. around 100,000 more than stated by Catrice.
Not surprisingly, the French capital Paris is also in the list of the most glamorous cities in Europe, although only in third place. According to Catrice, she continues to be considered the "epitome of style and glamour" (which should answer the original question) and is "known worldwide for her forward-thinking fashion culture." 1,124 fashion and beauty events take place here every year, including the renowned Paris Fashion Week. When it comes to Instagram hashtags, Paris also offers half as many as London: Catrice states around 2.5 million here.
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However, Paris surpasses Zurich across the board, the French city with over a million inhabitants has more than three times as many beauty salons and yoga-pilates searches, four times as many beauty and fashion events, more than six times as many spas and even more than twelve times as many shopping locations and 55 times as many Instagram hashtags. Even broken down into facilities per resident, the ranking remains unclear to us. An example: Paris had around 2,087,577 inhabitants in January 2025 and therefore around 1 shopping location per 1033 inhabitants. According to our calculations, there is one shopping location for every 2,840 inhabitants in Zurich.
These are the most glamorous cities in Europe according to Catrice
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