It's never too late to be fashionably late: The H&Mification of Oslo

Abstract

From 2010 to the present, a different, more fashion-conscious air has arguably been blowing into the capital of Norway; socio-culturally, media-wise and above all as a performed and visual part of the city’s everyday life. Namely, in the shape of the increasingly fashionable way young citizens dress themselves. However, and as argued throughout this thesis, the most notable change over the last few years has been the increasing commercial input from acclaimed design-neighbour Sweden: eight Swedish retail brands opening fourteen new stores within the city centre of Oslo between 2008 and 2015. In short, the shopping topography has changed, and our sartorial habits with them. Or so it seems. Taking my subjective observation, as well as the factual alterations above as my point of departure, I constructed the thesis by thinking the two together, asking the following questions: Why is the style and dress-practise of young, female Oslo citizens arguably more oriented towards international fashion ideals now than a few years ago? Might the change in dress code relate to the recent implementation of trendy, Swedish retail stores? And further, if there is a link between the two, what makes Swedish retail fashion particularly appealing to young Norwegian customers apart from the uplifting price tag? Based on extensive empirical research, I found the young and ‘fashionable’ to unanimously prefer Weekday, Monki and COS, as the H&M-subsidiaries made them feel unique and different. Thus in the end, the thesis came down to dissecting a paradox: How had a mass producing mega company managed to position itself as the one, trustworthy broadcaster of ‘unique’ and ‘different’ fashion? My guess: through dressing monoculture in camouflage and similarity as difference. Analyzing the H&M Group’s aesthetic-didactic aptitude as an incident of micro cultural imperialism, I turned to Tod Hartman’s analyses of the imperialist powers of related company Ikea, changing his highly critical and essentially negatively imbued term Ikeaization into the ambivalent, yet less condemning H&Mification. Through a novel body of empirical research, this thesis contributes to filling a gap in fashion academe, as research on the high street remains curiously limited even in the face of unprecedented fashion democratization. Further, conducting an analysis of Norwegian fashion as a contemporary, everyday practice, I frame two topics not yet researched: Norwegian fashion as a practiced phenomenon – as opposed to one designed and manufactured – and one too contemporary to yet having been granted its own scholarly account. In so doing, I finally venture to make a contribution to a field but sparingly researched within Norwegian academe, and to a discipline not yet established here: fashion studies.

From 2010 to the present, a different, more fashion-conscious air has arguably been blowing into the capital of Norway; socio-culturally, media-wise and above all as a performed and visual part of the city’s everyday life. Namely, in the shape of the increasingly fashionable way young citizens dress themselves. However, and as argued throughout this thesis, the most notable change over the last few years has been the increasing commercial input from acclaimed design-neighbour Sweden: eight Swedish retail brands opening fourteen new stores within the city centre of Oslo between 2008 and 2015. In short, the shopping topography has changed, and our sartorial habits with them. Or so it seems. Taking my subjective observation, as well as the factual alterations above as my point of departure, I constructed the thesis by thinking the two together, asking the following questions: Why is the style and dress-practise of young, female Oslo citizens arguably more oriented towards international fashion ideals now than a few years ago? Might the change in dress code relate to the recent implementation of trendy, Swedish retail stores? And further, if there is a link between the two, what makes Swedish retail fashion particularly appealing to young Norwegian customers apart from the uplifting price tag? Based on extensive empirical research, I found the young and ‘fashionable’ to unanimously prefer Weekday, Monki and COS, as the H&M-subsidiaries made them feel unique and different. Thus in the end, the thesis came down to dissecting a paradox: How had a mass producing mega company managed to position itself as the one, trustworthy broadcaster of ‘unique’ and ‘different’ fashion? My guess: through dressing monoculture in camouflage and similarity as difference. Analyzing the H&M Group’s aesthetic-didactic aptitude as an incident of micro cultural imperialism, I turned to Tod Hartman’s analyses of the imperialist powers of related company Ikea, changing his highly critical and essentially negatively imbued term Ikeaization into the ambivalent, yet less condemning H&Mification. Through a novel body of empirical research, this thesis contributes to filling a gap in fashion academe, as research on the high street remains curiously limited even in the face of unprecedented fashion democratization. Further, conducting an analysis of Norwegian fashion as a contemporary, everyday practice, I frame two topics not yet researched: Norwegian fashion as a practiced phenomenon – as opposed to one designed and manufactured – and one too contemporary to yet having been granted its own scholarly account. In so doing, I finally venture to make a contribution to a field but sparingly researched within Norwegian academe, and to a discipline not yet established here: fashion studies.