Style in Sweden

They say it’s tough to be a teenager because you don’t feel like a child anymore but you are not an adult either. It is something in between. I am 26 and I still feel like that.

Some of friends are already married and have kids. When I meet them it’s all about the kids. First teeth, baptism, diarrhoea, diapers…well the usual baby topics.

When everybody knows the latest baby updates we talk about how incredibly old we are although we are all twenty-somethings.

On the other hand, there are my friends who still live in a dorm and enjoy their life as students including sleeping until 2pm and partying four times a week.

Most people I know either are in the student or in the baby stage. I am wondering what happened to the stage in between?! The stage where you build a career, live in a nice apartment, travel, spend lots of money on fantastic clothes and go to hip parties.

I mean there must be something between a dorm and a diaper! I can’t identify with any of them at the moment. I don’t feel old but I am definitely done with my student life!

I read in the German magazine Spiegel that my generation tend to marry at a younger age again due to insecurity – economic insecurity but also emotional insecurity. The latter means the feeling that you don’t know what to do with your life. Starting a family is definitely a way to make life more meaningful and secure because there are people around you who are always there for you (in the best case).

I think the wish to study as long as possible has similar roots. The university gives security since you have a plan of your life as long as you are a student. If people ask what you are doing you always have an easy and clear answer.

I don’t want to criticise the decisions of other people but it would be great if my interests were a little bit more respected because I am sure that there is a stage between the dorm and the diaper. People with babies sometimes forget that not everybody is as fascinated by first teeth as they are. People can have other passions. For me it’s fashion, music and gender politics.

Sometimes students can’t understand if I don’t want to join the next big party and throw a couch out of the window. Therefore I have been called “boring adult” lately.

I am not boring! But yes, I am an adult.

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About every second year one of my New Year’s resolutions is to start working out. The more enthusiastic I am in the beginning the quicker I am getting tired of it. The excuses are always the same: no time, too cold, it hurts.

In Germany it is quite easy for me to ignore my bad conscience because most of my friends are as lazy as I am. However, here in Sweden you can’t go to the supermarket without meeting some joggers. People are obsessed with sports!

I already saw some joggers when I went home from the station to my apartment after I had visited my family during Christmas. It was like the joggers were welcoming me: “Welcome back to Sweden, Mareike! Don’t forget your New Year’s resolutions! Time to move!”

Not only these joggers but also my boyfriend who wants me to work out with him and my regular pain in the neck pushed me to give sport one more chance. Therefore I bought some gym shoes today. New clothes always motivate me to become active. If I have a new dress for instance I want to go out.

At a sports outfitters here in Lund the salesman showed me the shoes for the “running woman” because he thought that they would fit best my plans. “Well, I need shoes for the lazy woman. Shoes that are so fantastic that I start to love working out,” I said. He smiled and showed me some shoes. At least the price was fantastic as I bought them in the sales.

OK, now I have shoes. What’s next? Wearing them! Well, it’s too cold to run outside! What did I say about excuses in the beginning? Anyway, maybe the gym is a better alternative in the cold Swedish winter. I hope I can find one that doesn’t play as much Schlager music as the one where I worked out two years ago.

Do you have any tips and tricks so that I really continue this time and don’t quit after four weeks again? How do you motivate yourself when you are working out?

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“Your style is very metrosexual today. I mean the leggings”, said my friend Monica from Spain with a smile to one of our male Swedish friends. The leggings were actually long johns but it’s probably not that strange that a girl from southern Europe has never seen a guy in long underwear before.

It started snowing in Skåne this week and it seems that snow is the unspoken sign that it’s time for long johns. I can totally understand that warm underwear is useful in the northern parts of Sweden where it’s really cold and icy but is it necessary here in Skåne in the south of the country?

It is not much colder here than in Germany where I come from. I might be wrong but I think no German guy who is older than 12 and not skiing in the Alps would ever wear long johns. Or are just my German friends too vain and feel too cool for this warm underwear?

I am wondering if this small detail with the long johns is connected to the Swedish male role. This is just my personal experience but in my opinion it is more accepted here than in other cultures that men show “weakness” instead of pretending the “tough guy” who is never freezing for instance.

Don’t misunderstand me! I don’t mean that gender roles are completely different here but maybe it is more accepted (or even expected?) that a guy admits that he is not superman and resistant against everything.

Or maybe it is just because of the weather. But as I said, it’s actually not that cold here in Skåne. I can still wear skirts without freezing whereas my male friends put on their long johns. Even when we were in Berlin last winter they were all wearing long underwear.

I don’t care so much for underwear but I think long johns are kind of funny. Imagine you meet a cool Swedish guy at a club and realise later that night that he is wearing long johns. Not that sexy! I think I would also say: “Well, your style is very metrosexual!”

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“There hasn’t been anything new in fashion, music and art in general during the last ten years. The latest trends are only modified copies of old ideas. We are done!” argued a friend of mine who is an art student a few days ago. We ended up in a quite heated discussion. I just couldn’t agree on this statement even though I am usually a critical and rather pessimist person.

On the other hand, I could understand her point. If I describe clothes I often relate to cities (“That is so Berlin…that is so Stockholm…”) or I associate them with former trends. At the moment for instance fashion is strongly influenced by the 1980s. Looking at the latest collections of great designers such as Marc Jacobs but also H&M’s current line, it is striking that typical 80s elements like shoulder pads, leather, fur or high heels are back.

My mom is always kind of amused when I show her my new clothes. “I should have kept my old clothes for you. I had exactly the same dress when I was at your age”, she usually says. I also remember that my friends and I were talking about the comeback of the neon rave look of the 1990s two years ago. At that time I didn’t reflect about it so much but today I am wondering if it isn’t a little bit desperate to talk about a comeback just 10 years after the first appearance of a trend?

Maybe there have been so many trends and changes in fashion during the last 100 years that people need to take a break and look back now. Every fashion decade has its particular features. The 70s were the years of flower power, the 80s were characterised by consumption or punk and the 90s were the decade of neon colours and rave music. I suggest the 2000s are the years of taking a break and enjoy all beautiful clothes that have been designed so far. I mean the good thing is that you can’t do anything wrong in fashion at the moment because everything goes.

However, I am sure that we are not done! There will be something new soon. Something that we have never seen before! Don’t they say that people become more productive and creative after short breaks?!

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Gender roles are changing. Slowely but they do! In particular Sweden is known for shaking up traditional ideas of male and female behaviour. Here porn movies can be feminist and men wish to breastfeed their children.

The world of fashion is usually an area that is characterised by a strong gendered division. However, there are indications that fashion finally also starts to be more open towards gender-neutral collections.

Typical women’s wear consists of dresses, skirts or high heels, which sexualise the body by underlining the female silhouette. Classical male clothing such as the suit symbolises money and power. However, when women started entering the labour market, especially the public sector, in the context of the 1960s revolutions designers such as Giorgio Armani or Coco Chanel invented a female variant of the suit.

Today it is not strange anymore if women wear pants or even a tie. However, if men want to try skirts, dresses or high heels people usually think they are gay, on the way to a costume party or crazy. This attitude is changing according to the Swedish ELLE and the German lifestyle magazine Tush. It will become more and more accepted that men adopt typical female clothing. From dress code to cross-dress?

That would be fantastic! Looking at Swedish fashion, there are at least tendencies for a more gender-neutral focus. The labels Cheap Monday and Acne currently belong to the country’s most successful fashion exports and design lots of unisex garments.

I see this development also in my personal life. My boyfriend and I often buy the same type of pants and if I consider my wonderful friend Niklas I see the perfect example of a style that is not associated with gender. His style is just fantastic, special and unique! I wish there were more people like him!

Picture: Ulrich Hartmann

Picture: Christian Kuhn

Picture: Vanessa Leißring

Picture: Yannik Willing

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Many gay people fortunately don’t hide their sexuality anymore. However, I read in the German lifestyle magazine Neon that some gay men started avoiding this topic again – but not because of shame and outmoded traditional values. They are annoyed by ‘gayophile’ women who desperately seek a gay best friend to use him as fashionable accessory, according to the magazine. Queer is cool!

I thought about this article since I have quite a lot of gay friends. When I was in high school I took dancing lessons and almost every guy who continued after the basic course was gay (I don’t like clichés but that’s actually true). Anyway, I made lots of gay friends there so that I started to go to gay prides and clubs when I was 17. Here in Sweden I don’t know so many gay people but sometimes I still go to the clubs. The music is fantastic (Madonna is best!) and there are no annoying men who don’t understand that I role my eyes and don’t wink at them.

Of course women love partying with their gay friends! It’s not just about that the most popular clubs are gay clubs like the Berghain in Berlin or that many gay men are interested in so-called ‘female topics’ such as fashion. It is also a certain statement and way of life that is conveyed if a woman goes to a party with her gay friend: I’m independent but not alone!

There are for sure some women who consider their gay best friends as fashionable accessories and that’s of course not ok. However, most women who ask their gay friends if they want to be their ‘plus one’ don’t have in mind to pep up their outfit. I think it is more likely that they don’t want to go alone to a party full of couples. Or what about the possibility that they like their gay friends and want to spend time with them??

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Swedish guys are known for their good taste when it comes to clothes. I have often heart that Finnish guys call them gay because of their interest in style. Generally I also think that many Swedish guys put a lot of effort and time into their outfit and, yes, many of them indeed look great. There is just one thing that confuses me every summer here: being topless…everywhere.

Maybe it is just my personal impression but I have the feeling that, as soon as it becomes warmer outside, Swedish guys throw their fantastic shirts away and prefer the more airy variant. I have seen topless guys at the supermarket, gas station, on their bikes, just everywhere. Moreover, it is not just one type of guy who likes to strip to the waist. You see all kinds of bodies from the six-pack stomach to the beer belly.

I’m wondering if it is more socially accepted if guys are topless in Sweden. Maybe I’m wrong but I think topless guys in Germany are more rare if they are not at the beach, drunk on Mallorca or working on some construction site.

I love clothes. Of course I prefer the well-dressed variant! But if I’m right and topless guys are more accepted in Sweden I’m wondering why. Maybe it’s the old weather story that provides explanations for every kind of Swedish behaviour. It’s getting warmer and everybody is so glad and avid for sun that they think the less clothes the better.

Or maybe Swedish guys just didn’t get the message of the Swedish feminist movement “Bara Bröst” (it literally means both ‘bare breasts’ and ‘just breasts’) who has fought for the right that women are allowed to bathe topless at public swimming pools. Who knows?

However, I am thankful if men at the supermarket counter wear a shirt!

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