This Swedish designer hosted a tiny dinner party – and ended up connecting 10,000 women

One night in 2017, Ida Johansson, a Swedish designer, and her friend María Baños, a Spanish creative, invited a group of 20 women over for dinner. Among the people they invited was the artist Olga de la Iglesia, musician Marta Cascales Alimbau, and creative director Eugenia Alejos. Huddled around Baños’ living room in Barcelona eating poke bowls, the women chatted about the female creators who inspired them and shaped their world – from their grandmothers to artists such as Marina Abramović.

“Creative life can be so isolating,” says Johansson, a Stockholm-born stylist, set designer, and creative director who studied handweaving at Handarbetets Vänner. “We were looking for a sense of community.”

The friends were also seeking to create a space where women from diverse backgrounds (professional or otherwise) could come together and find common ground. “This was before the #MeToo movement and the global protests in support of Black Lives Matter,” says Baños, a creative strategist for brands including WeWork and the F1 team Alfa Romeo. “We wanted to come together to share ideas and sow connections, not oppositions.”

From that very first dinner, Muses of Now was then born. Since then, Johansson and Baños have organised dinners, creative workshops, roundtable discussions, and even weekend escapes in Berlin, Paris, Mallorca, and Barcelona, with Copenhagen and New York on the horizon. Each gathering features a cast of local artists, while the remaining seats are reserved for members of the public on a first come, first served basis, with tickets sometimes going in just a few hours.

A recent dinner in Berlin brought together 34 artists including interior designer Nazara Lázaro, DJ Jaxx Tms, and painter Charlotte Klobassa, plus inventive dishes by chef Julia Heifer of Berlin hotspot Gaia Feed. Baños notes it’s not unusual for dinners to go until 2 a.m., with discussions about craft and the creative process devolving into impromptu movement sessions, artistic demonstrations, and, of course, a late-night exchange of phone numbers. “The dinners are like live experiments,” she says.

Thanks to Muses of Now, Johansson, who has lived in Spain on and off for over a decade, never feels far from home. She recalls Swedish entrepreneur Lina Kjellvertz of Dusty Deco, an online vintage furniture shop, attending one of their Mallorca gatherings, and artists Yasmin Bawa and Margaret Flatley chatting about their time spent working for Acne Studios in Stockholm, at their dinner in Berlin. She draws a parallel between Muses of Now and the progg movement of the ’60s and ’70s that influenced her parents and shaped her upbringing.

“Progg advocated for peace, openness, and tolerance,” says Johansson. “My parents taught me these values from a young age.”

For those who can’t make the IRL events, Muses of Now also offers online workshops designed to boost creativity and spark collaboration, like a genre-blurring conversation about astrology, identity, and queerness by astrologer Madeleine Botet de Lacaze. And on their Instagram page, followers can tune in as collaborators like cheese activist Clara Diez identify the women who have inspired them as part of the Muses of Now Invites series.

And in March, for Women’s History Month 2023, Johannson and Baños will launch their new podcast, too, with creative director Anouk Jans as their very first guest.

For Johansson, this year will also mark a return to a slower, more sustainable way of working: she and her family just moved to Mallorca, a place she feels offers the same conscious, back-to-nature lifestyle as her homeland.

“Sweden has always been present and dear to me,” she says from her new home in the north of the island. “In Mallorca, I hope to reconnect with my Scandinavian soul, but with a warm, Mediterranean twist.”