Svennelökar

Amat Levin: Vad är 'svennelökar'?

"Daniel", ordningsvakt: Otrendiga svenskar. G-Star Raw-killar och Gina Tricot-tjejer. Och benämningen är helt könsneutral, jag nekar dåliga tjejsällskap lika mycket som dåliga killsällskap. I de fall stället är inte fullt och jag inte kan utgå från stammisar går jag efter snygga, trendiga människor när jag släpper in, även om jag aldrig har sett dem förut.

"Mattias Norburg & Timmy Kersmo" matchy-matchy at a party for G-Star Raw, from nightlife website stureplan.se.

From the article "Krogpersonalen Avslöjar", or "Nightclub Staff Confess" in the newest issue of Nöjesguiden, all about discrimination in Stockholm nightlife. So much of it was about clothing! I thought the above quote was the perfect pull, with its direct naming of two apparently untrendy brands in such a short sentence. What makes those brands inherently untrendy?

AL: What are 'svennelökar' [ed note: I think "crackers" is the closest translation]?

"Daniel", security guard at a hip club in Stockholm: Untrendy Swedes. G-Star Raw guys and Gina Tricot girls. And that nickname is totally gender-neutral, I refuse bad girl groups just as often as bad guy groups. In cases where the place is full and I can't choose from regulars, I go for good-looking, trendy people when I'm working the door, even if I've never seen them before.

It's a really interesting article in general, interviews with people who work in the business. No one they talk to discriminates, personally, but they've seen other people do it. And no one can define what they mean by trendy! Is it the brands that make the people untrendy, or the other way around? And does the typical (under thirty, city-living, liberal) reader get a specific picture in his or her head of what a "G-Star Raw guy" is? Would the guys in the photo above, pictured at a party for G-Star Raw, consider themselves "G-Star Raw guys" or just visiting?

Read it in Swedish here.

I Make Clothes for People To Wear

Sasha Weiss: So there's a lot more freedom today when it comes to clothing than it was in the 80s, surely, but I wonder now that things are less coded and less formal, at least for people working in a creative setting, it's kind of harder to dress for work, and I wonder how women who are entering the work force learn the norms, because it is harder to draw the line now.

Cartoon by William Hamilton, 1980s (?), found here.

Susan Morrison: That's interesting. Emma Allen, a young Talk of the Town writer here [and I] were talking about this yesterday, that when she graduated from Yale in 2010, every student was given this thing called "Life After Yale," a little publication produced by the Career Services people called a Survival Guide for the Class of 2010. And for women there's a long section about what to wear, and here I'll read a little bit of it:

If wearing a skirt, you need to wear nylons. Sheer is best. Don't forget to keep an extra pair of nylons in your desk in case of runs.

Now, I can't even remember the last time time I owned or put on a pair of sheer nylons. When I first saw this book I thought, "This is preposterous," but then I was thinking about my own teenage daughters, who I think just because they're younger and they don't feel as confident about knowing the ways of the world tend to have more conservative ideas than I do often about what's an appropriate thing to wear.

From The New Yorker's Out Loud podcast, September 13, 2013. Sasha Weiss discussed "Work Clothes" with Rebecca Mead and Susan Morrison.

Are the "rules" of (work) fashion generational? How do you dress for work? Susan Morrison thinks the only no-no is "being inappropriately revealing." But that's relative too, isn't it? Up to a certain point, I guess. Oh, and no flip-flops. Agreed.

This piece has some worthwhile contemporary observation of work dress and dress codes in literary and creative offices.