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Abstract
Recognized as the welfare state with a protective social system based formerly on the idea of equality and concern, Sweden in the twenty-first century is undergoing a change in the attitude toward luxury consumption. This article examines the role of lifestyle magazines and social and visual media in creating idealized images that play on the idea of luxury. The discourse produced hereby indicates a remarkable change in the Swedish self-image and its approach to indulgence and excess.
Notes
1 The concept of lifestyle magazine in this study will also include property affair magazines as they feature elements that can be intimately connected to lifestyle, as we shall see in the following analysis. Let us further mention in this context the interesting book Fashioning the City. Paris, Fashion and the Media (2009) by Agnès Rocamora which constitutes an important contribution to the field of fashion press and its creation of fashion media discourse. While Rocamora’s book engages with both words and images, my study is focused mainly on textual analyses from various types of Swedish media including social media.
2 There were formerly a slip of paper attached to the doll's skirt with the inscription: "This doll is made by the princess of King Carl the ninth”,which presumably meant Katarina (1584–1638) or possibly the wife of king Karl IX, Kristina of Holstein-Gottorp. See: http://emuseumplus.lsh.se/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultDetailView/result.tab.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SelementList&sp=0&sp=0&sp=999&sp=SdetailView&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=2&sp=F&sp=SdetailBlockKey&sp=1 (accessed August 18, 2015).
3 Jess Scheer “Top 25 consultants, 2009: Claudia D’Arpizio” http://www.consultingmag.com/article/ART631867 (accessed February 14, 2014).
4 http://www.hui.se/statistik-rapporter/index-och-barometrar/e-barometern(accessed November 26, 2014).
5 What more is, ”omnichannel” shopping is a new experience for the customers, combining digital experience with a physical one.
6 Elias described the importance of the appearance for the courtiers in the following terms: “Anyone who cannot maintain an appearance befitting his rank loses the respect of his society. In the incessant race for status and prestige he falls behind his rivals and runs the risk of being both ruined and eliminated from the social life of his status group” (Elias Citation2006, p. 74).
7 Instagram has today 200 millions of active users sharing 20 billion photos (http://blog.instagram.com/post/80721172292/200m). The app Snapchat has the same principle where people send messages to each other but with the difference that the content disappears as soon as the receiver has looked at it.
8 Dagens Nyheterhttp://www.dn.se/insidan/vissa-betalar-mer-for-att-kunna-saga-det-har-ar-jag/ (accessed February 18, 2014).
9 http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/schuterman-framgangsrika-sticker-i-ogonen/ (accessed February 25, 2015).
10 Ibid.
11 http://www.socialdemokraterna.se/Vart-parti/Var-historia/” (accessed May 15, 2015)
12 I am eschewing deliberately the notion of national character or identity since it can be “one form of national consciousness – perhaps the most specific and tightly focused but still only one among many” (Mandler Citation2006, p. 7).
13 The magazine changed name here to SvD Perfect Guide.
14 http://www.dagensmedia.se/nyheter/print/dagspress/article3901864.ece (accessed June 16, 2015).
15 Although far from any literary genre or qualities, these accounts could still be considered as an ”auto-fiction” which is the literary term of Serge Doubrovsky from 1977 to designate the author’s way of mixing the self-experienced with the fictional. In the case of these narratives too, it is difficult to estimate the degree of reality that is accounted for, despite the fact that one of the authors confirms the factual character of her weekend.
16 The website states that “[t]he distribution is made to selected house-owners in the Stockholm region with focus on a carefully chosen group” http://www.hoom.se/magasinet/index.html, accessed September 2, 2014. HOOM is also web based containing different categories like,” Exclusive bathrooms, exclusive food and drink, exclusive kitchens, cars, boats” etc. www.hoom.se. It is even worthwhile to mention another magazine by the name Connoisseur International that was launched in 1999 and is distributed exclusively to people with a higher income than 1.3 million Kr/year (ca 140.600 €).
17 The two first posed questions are: ”What is everyday luxury for you?” and ”How do you think one can make life more ”everyday luxurious.” These questions were regular in other volumes as well.
18 This magazine is distributed to 45,000 households reaching the most affluent parts of Stockholm city as well as the most exclusive suburbian areas (e-mail contact with the marketing director of the magazine on the April 25, 2014).
19 As mentioned in the introduction on page 3, the writings in World of ESNY are not signed by any specific author.
20 Oscarproperties.com/http://karlavagen76.se/home (accessed June 2, 2015).
21 This kind of collective living is still current in Sweden although it is rather question of people helping each others in daily life.
22 http://www.dn.se/insidan/vissa-betalar-mer-for-att-kunna-saga-det-har-ar-jag/ (accessed June 2, 2015).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Paula von Wachenfeldt
Dr Paula von Wachenfeldt is Senior Lecturer at The Centre for Fashion Studies, Stockholm University. Her research interests are focused on luxury and fashion. She is the author of studies of fashion in fiction, the role of the department store in nineteenth-century Paris, the discourse on luxury in the eighteenth century and is the co-editor of the first Swedish anthology on luxury in history, The Swedish Desire. Centuries of luxury Consumption (2015).[email protected]