Monthly archives: January 2012

Håkan Juholt and his moustache. Photo: Riksdagen

Today, in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, I write about the wife of the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt. In essence, my thesis is that she is a force of good in the Swedish fashion climate with her wild and daring style (a look that sometimes can go a bit overboard to say the least).

This also happens to be the day when the Swedish Social Democratic Party leader is resigning and so I came to think about Håkan Juholt (that’s his name) from a fashion perspective.

Many people have commented on his moustache. Some people from his own party criticised the focus on the bearded upper lip, pointing out that it was a “symbol of masculinity”, but most people saw the moustache as a sign of a less polished, more ordinary politician. He didn’t look like a banker, he didn’t look like he had been created in a PR firm’s lab like so many others. It gave him an air of joviality and honesty.

The Social Democratic Party in Sweden has a history of politicians becoming popular when they don’t come across as too suave. Former prime minister Ingvar Carlsson was portrayed as a shoe on humour show Helt apropå in the late Eighties and former speaker of the Swedish parliament, Birgitta Dahl, was played by a man sporting giant false teeth on the same show. I’d say that the show made both of them more popular. Ingvar Carlsson the shoe even became his “brand” and his acolytes started to call themselves “fotfolket” (literally “foot people” and Swedish for rank and file), wearing pins and T-shirts with Ingvar Carlsson, the shoe, drawn as a cartoon.

Surely, Håkan Juholt’s moustache could’ve worked the same magic? After all, when he was elected, people waved signs with a stylised moustache.

A few years ago I interviewed two Swedish political journalists who hade written a book about the style of politicians, a subject that is rarely touched upon unless someone’s handbag is a bit too luxurious or there’s a radical change in the look (like when former minister Sven-Otto Littorin suddenly appeared in public sporting a goatee). I remember one of the journalist, the left-wing Göran Greider, hoping for a politician just like Håkan Juholt. He believed there was an opening for someone that looked like he came from the countryside, someone who was more ordinary than posh, a politician that wasn’t too aware of his image. I had just asked whether politicians needed to become more aware of the way they looked in these media frenzied times.

That is still the question. Many people will probably see Juholt’s resignation as a sign that a politician can’t ignore the way he or she looks, but I think that in his case the issue was that people (and perhaps he himself) were too eager to make the moustache a part of brand Juholt.

When it comes to fashion and style politicians need to come across as genuine more than anything else. The problem with Håkan Juholt’s moustache wasn’t that he had one, but that people, including himself, tried to turn the moustache into a symbol of integrity. Last summer he proclaimed he wasn’t going to shave it off, thereby suggesting he wasn’t bowing to some perceived media pressure to streamline. But was there ever such pressure? I remain sceptical.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

January 21, 2012

• Anna Maria Corazza Bildt
• Birgitta Dahl
• Göran Greider
• Håkan Juholt
• Helt apropå
• Image
• Ingvar Carlsson
• Media
• Moustache
• Social Democratic Party
• Swedish fashion
• Swedish politics