Nobel fashion quips land writer in hot water

While the neckline of Princess Madeleine's gown is often under scrutiny by the media during Nobel Week, fashion commentary by one Swedish freelance writer earned her a ban from the leadership of top Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter (DN).

• Pomp aplenty as winners gather for Nobel gala (10 Dec 09)
• What can't be said can be written: Herta Müller (7 Dec 09)
• Nobel Week kicks off with feast and fancy (6 Dec 09)

DN editor-in-chief Gunilla Herlitz said in an interview with Swedish Radio over the weekend that freelancer Linda Leopold would never again write for the newspaper after her “disparaging” comments about the attire of several prominent female guests attending the Nobel festivities, including Queen Silvia.

“It's not at all just about Queen Silvia but about all of (Leopold's) comments about all of the dresses that were written in an incredibly disparaging way, which I just didn't like at all,” Herlitz said in the interview with SR.

In the original article published on December 11th, Leopold described Nobel literature laureate Herta Müller as “the most attractive thing to have come out of Romania since Dracula” and wrote that Queen Sylvia looked like she had “draped herself in curtains from Drottningholm Palace.”

Elsewhere in the text Leopold, on maternity leave from her editorial job at Bon Magazine, likened Madeleine's dress to an evergreen tree.

Economics laureate Elinor Ostrom was also on the receiving end, with the Indiana professor's African creation suggesting to Leopold that she had not been to a party since Woodstock.

Linda Leopold was not available for comment when contacted by The Local.