Swedish News

 

• Victoria chooses Chanel.
  The new film about Coco Chanel (“Coco avant Chanel”) is taking Sweden by storm - and Crown Princess Victoria wasn’t late to jump on the bandwagon. At a recent opening of a women’s clinic in Malmö, Victoria came dressed in a luxurious Chanel-jacket, similar to the one Chanel designed back in 1925. There are but seven months till the royal wedding (which will take place in Stockholm’s Storkyrkan), Victoria has said she would like to get married in a Swedish-designed gown, will she now be swayed by Paris?

• We’re all immigrants.
  Swedish researchers have concluded from DNA samples that Scandinavians are descended from immigrants that landed in the region 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. The researchers have studied DNA samples from stoneage graves. The samples come from 19 people who were hunters and gatherers and lived in Scandinavia until about 4,000 years ago. The DNA has then been compared with common DNA sets collected from contemporary residents of the region. "They differ very substantially. The gene pool that we have today could not have evolved by chance alone from that which existed then. Something else must have been added. Either a complete population replacement or gene flow," said Anders Götherström, who led the study at Uppsala University. Götherström explains that the gene pool must have been mixed. "We have not quantified the results so we do not know that much, but my initial conclusion is that it is a mix. But there has to have been immigration. The gene pool among the hunters and gatherers is not sufficient," he said. Götherström led the study, which has involved researchers from Denmark and the UK. According to the researchers the hunters and gatherers lived side by side with groups that began to cultivate the soil. These farmers started to turn up in Scandinavia during the so-called new (Neolithic) stoneage, from around 4,000-1,800 BC. Among the hunters and gatherers there was no trace of the DNA sets common in the region today. "But we found them in the farmer group," Götherström revealed. He also said that the researchers have concluded that there is only one direction from where the presumed wave of immigrants could have come. "That is from the south. But from where and how far they have traveled, is difficult to say." The study will now continue and will include the collection and analysis of more samples collected from individuals belonging to the farmer group. The purpose is to discern from where the immigrants may have come, Götherström said. "Now we want to know more exactly where they may have come from."

• Sonia Rykiel to design for H&M.
  We can report that Sonia Rykiel, the very priestess of Paris chic, is to be the next top designer for H&M. Rykiel will do two seasons for the Swedish clothing chain, a winter collection of lingerie, and a spring collection of knitwear for women and girls. It is the first time H&M does this kind of lingerie collection, and it will be launched in Europe in time for Christmas. It will also be sold in major Sonia Rykiel boutiques. The knitwear will go on sale towards the end of February. Rykiel burst out on the scene in 1968 in the middle of the student revolution that was then taking place in Paris. She is famous for her signature sweaters with bold stripes and for her vintage-look dresses and for using the probably most Parisian accessory of all: the beret.
  
  Well-paid mothers breastfeed longer.
  According to a new Swedish study, mothers with high salaries breastfeed their children longer than mothers with lower incomes. “Our results suggest that those of us within maternal and pediatric health ought to give mothers from low-income groups more attention when it comes to questions about breastfeeding,” said nurse and PhD student Thomas Wallby. Wallby and his colleagues followed roughly 12,000 children from Uppsala County in eastern Sweden for the study, which was carried out jointly by Uppsala University and the county's child health services. Using information collected from the child health service, researchers looked for connections between nursing patterns and socioeconomic factors affecting the mothers. After six months, three-fourths of the children were still being nursed. However, smoking mothers breastfed their children for significantly shorter periods of time, the study showed. The study also revealed differences in breastfeeding habits of women with different income levels. “The higher the income, the greater the chance that the mother was still nursing after six months,” Wallby concluded.

• No “Negro” neighborhood for Karlstad.
  The city of Karlstad in western Sweden should no longer have a neighborhood called Negern (‘the negro’), the town council decided on Wednesday. “They’ve come to their senses,” said Kitimbwa Sabuni of the National Afro-Swedish Association (Afrosvenskarnas Riksförbund) to the TT news agency. Karlstad’s Negern neighborhood has been around for nearly 150 years, but came under fire recently after a private citizen complained that the name was “objectionable, insulting, or just plain rude”.

• Buy Ingmar Bergman’s chess set.
  Bukowskis, the Stockholm auction house, is experiencing rush-hour traffic at the moment as Ingmar Bergman’s belongings go on sale. Bergman fascinated an entire world, and it is interesting to take a peek at what Bukowski’s has to offer. Here’s Bergman’s famous bedside table, which he used as a notebook/diary. “Shitty night”, “Christmas fuck,” and “I’m having a career and I can’t sleep,” are a few of the things the film director jotted down. The table can be yours for 20-30.000 SEK ($2,868 - $4,298). You can also buy the chess set from “The Seventh Seal”, the film with the famous scene where Max von Sydow plays chess with the Devil, to the tune of 10 – 15,000 SEK ($1,433 - $2,152). If that’s a bit steep, then maybe a home-made devil puppet for 300 SEK ($43) will do?