see u there

The Dragon Lantern is a essential element in Mid-Autumn Festival. The Dragon is legendary creature, it represents the sacred, people believe it can take wealth and prosperity

When again the autumn chill come crashing in over in Sweden, many Swedes get on the first plane to Thailand. For those who lack the money or the time for that sort of trip, the restaurant Koh Phangan on Skånegatan has been able to act as a substitute for several years.

As soon as you set your foot in the door it’s like entering a new world – Southeast Asia. The interior – floors, tables, the bar – is all bamboo style. There is no other light than strings of tiny blues, greens and reds. The main area is filled with tropical plants and you can hear the sound of crickets. Choose if you want to have your dinner in a hut or a tuk tuk. And if there is a rain storm in the middle of your meal – don’t worry, you won’t get wet.

The food is authentic too. All the important dishes are here, like the coconut soup with chicken, Tom Ka Gai, and the spicy and sour shrimp soup, Tom Yam Koong. Dishes are marked “no hot”, “little hot” and “very hot” and at times the spiciest has made the hot weather in Thailand fade in comparison to the fire in your mouth.

Everybody who’s lived in Stockholm has been to Koh Phangan and marvelled over it ages ago. But the food is still great and for a first time visitor it’s an experience not to miss.

Skånegatan 57 | Södermalm | +4686425040
Mon – Tue 11:00 – 00:00, Wed – Fri 11:00 – 01:00, Sat – Sun 14:00 – 01:00

http://www.kohphangan.se/

IKEA (Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd) .
IKEA was founded in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad in Sweden, named as an acronym comprising the initials of the founder’s name (Ingvar Kamprad), the farm where he grew up (Elmtaryd), and his home parish (Agunnaryd, in Småland, South Sweden.
The ikea vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. It make this possible by offering a wide range of well-designed functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
The company is now the world’s largest furniture retailer.

http://www.ikea.com/

ABBA was a Swedish pop music group formed in Stockholm in 1972, consisting of Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog. They became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1972 to 1983.

ABBA gained international popularity employing catchy song hooks, simple lyrics[citation needed], sound effects (reverb, phasing) and a Wall of Sound achieved by overdubbing the female singers’ voices in multiple harmonies. As their popularity grew, they were sought after to tour Europe, Australia, and North America, drawing crowds of fans.

Due in part to the fact that touring became a contentious issue, being particularly cumbersome for Fältskog, producer Stig Anderson became one of the very first to make promotional film clips which were the forerunner of today’s music video to increase exposure to the group’s music in addition to releasing studio albums to widespread commercial success.

Throughout the band’s existence, Fältskog and Ulvaeus were a married couple, as were Lyngstad and Andersson – although both couples later divorced. At the height of their popularity, both relationships began suffering strain that led ultimately to the collapse of first the Ulvaeus-Fältskog marriage (in 1979) and then of the Andersson-Lyngstad marriage in 1981. In the late 1970s and early 1980s these relationship changes began manifesting in the group’s music, as they produced more introspective lyrics with different compositions.

ABBA remains a fixture of radio play lists and is one of the world’s best-selling bands, having sold over 375 million records worldwide,[1][2] making them the fourth best-selling popular music artists in the history of recorded music. They still sell two to three million records a year.[3] ABBA was the first pop group from a non-English-speaking country to enjoy consistent success in the charts of English-speaking countries, including the UK, the US, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. As well as reaching the top of the charts in different countries like Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru among others, the band also released a compilation of their hit songs translated into Spanish.

After ABBA split, Andersson and Ulvaeus achieved success writing music for the stage while Lyngstad and Fältskog pursued individual solo careers with varying success. ABBA’s music remained steadily popular until several films, notably Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, revived interest in the group, spawning several tribute bands. In 1999, ABBA’s music was adapted into the successful musical Mamma Mia! that toured worldwide and had a movie version released in 2008, becoming the highest grossing film in the UK at the time. The group was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 15 March 2010.[4]

Greta Garbo (September 18, 1905 – April 15, 1990) was a Swedish actress.

She was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children born to Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871-1920) and Anna Lovisa Johnasson (1872-1944). Her older sister and brother were Alva and Sven.

Becoming an actress
When Greta was fourteen, her father died. Consequently, she was forced to leave school and go to work. Her first job was as a lather girl in a barbershop. She then became a clerk in a department store, where she would also model for newspaper ads. Her first movie aspirations came when she appeared in an advertising short for the department store where she worked. That led to another short movie, which was seen by comedy director Eric Petscher. He cast her in a small part for the movie Peter The Tramp (1920).

From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. While she was there, she met the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller. He trained her in cinema acting technique and cast her in a major role in Gösta Berlings Saga (1924) (English: The Story of Gösta Berling). He also gave her the stage name Greta Garbo. She starred in two movies in Sweden and one in Germany.

When Stiller went to the United States in 1925 to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he insisted that Garbo be given a contract as well. But their relationship came to an end as her fame grew. He was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden in 1928, where he died soon after.

Life in Hollywood
The most important of Garbo’s movies were The Torrent (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1927) and Love (1927). The latter two she starred in with the popular leading man John Gilbert. Her name was linked with his in a much publicized romance, and she was said to have left him standing at the alter when she changed her mind about getting married.

Having achieved enormous success as a silent movie star, she was one of the few who made the transition to talkies. Her low, husky voice with Swedish accent was heard on screen for the first time in Anna Christie (1930), which was publicized with the slogan “Garbo Talks.” The movie was a huge success, but Garbo personally hated her performance.

Unfortunately, her one-time fiancé, John Gilbert, whose popularity was waning, did not fare as well after the advent of talkies and his career faltered. When she was filming, if something happened that she was not pleased with she would say, “I think I’ll go back to Sweden!” This would frighten the studio heads, who gave in to her every wish. She was known for always having a closed set to all visitors. No one could watch as her scenes were shot. Garbo appeared very seductive as the World War I spy in the title role of Mata Hari (1932). The censors complained about her revealing outfit shown on the movie poster. She was next part of an all star cast in Grand Hotel (1932).

She then had a contract dispute with MGM and did not appear on the screen for almost two years. They finally settled and she signed a new contract, which granted her almost total control over her films. She exercised that control by getting her leading man, Laurence Olivier, replaced on Queen Christina (1934) with former costar John Gilbert. David O. Selznick wanted her cast as the dying heiress in Dark Victory in 1935, but she insisted on being cast in another screen version of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel Anna Karenina. She had made a silent version, Love, with John Gilbert in (1927).

Her performance as the doomed courtesan in Camille (1937) was called the finest ever recorded on film. She then starred opposite Melvyn Douglas in the comedy Ninotchka (1939) by director Ernst Lubitsch, which was publicized with the slogan “Garbo Laughs.”

Garbo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Camille (1937) and Ninotchka (1939).

Greta Garbo was considered one of the most glamorous movie stars of the 1920s and 1930s. She was also famous for shunning publicity, which became part of the Garbo mystique. Her famous byline was “I vant to be alone.” Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres and answered no fan mail.

After her movie Two-Faced Woman (1941) failed at the box office, Garbo retired at the height of her success, never again to face the motion picture camera. She withdrew from the entertainment world completely and moved to a secluded life in New York City, thereafter refusing to make any public appearances.

Secluded retirement
By her own admission, Garbo felt that after World War II the world changed, perhaps forever. Her movies, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value. In 1951, she became an American citizen. She was awarded a special Academy Award for unforgettable performances in 1954. In the mid 1950s, she bought a seven room apartment in New York City at 450 East 52nd Street, where she lived for the rest of her life.

She would at times jet-set with some of the world’s best known personalities, such as Aristotle Onassis and others, but chose to live a private life. She spent time gardening flowers and vegetables and was known for taking walks through New York City streets dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses, always avoiding prying eyes, the paparazzi and media attention.

She lived the last years of her life in absolute seclusion. She had invested wisely, was known for extreme frugality, and was a very wealthy woman. In 1990, she wrote an autobiography. She died at the age of eighty-four in New York City as a result of renal failure and was cremated. Her ashes were buried at the Skogskyrkogaarden Cemetery in Stockholm.

Greta Garbo has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Robin Miriam Carlsson, better known by her stage name Robyn (born 12 June 1979) is a Swedish recording artist and singer-songwriter. Robyn became known in the late nineties for her worldwide dance-pop hits “Show Me Love” and “Do You Know (What It Takes)” from her debut album Robyn Is Here (1997). Robyn entered Melodifestivalen 1997 as a songwriter with the entry “Du gör mig hel igen” (You Make Me Whole Again). She has since started to gain mainstream success worldwide owing to the popularity of her #1 hit single “With Every Heartbeat” and subsequent album release. In January 2009 Robyn won a Swedish Grammis award for Best Live Act 2008.

Robyn released the first of a trilogy of albums to be released this year titled Body Talk Pt. 1, in June 2010. It is her first album since Robyn (2005). The albums lead single “Dancing on My Own” was released a few weeks prior to the albums release, and became a hit single worldwide, including in the U.K. where it reached the Top 10. A follow up album, Body Talk Pt. 2 was released in September 6 and a follow up to that Speak Your Body: Body Talk Pt. 3 is expected in December 2010.

Hennes and Mauritz is a hugely popular global fashion retail brand that has been hitting the headlines over the past few years with its special collections from luminaries such as Madonna, Jimmy Choo and Roberto Cavalli (none of whom are Swedish of course). But ‘H&M’, as most shoppers on the high streets of the world know it, is as Swedish as Abba and the smorgasbord.
So why is it that Swedish companies are so good at retailing (note Ikea, the furniture giant) and in the world of fashion brands who should you be looking out for when you visit Sweden. With Sweden’s track record of globalizing its ideas and products, some of Sweden’s home grown fashion labels mentioned in this article might be appearing at a high street near you. But why wait? Come to Sweden and see them on their home turf.

The future of Swedish fashion

It doesn’t have a store on Fifth Avenue and it doesn’t repair shoes, but Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair does do fashion design and has a store at Mäster Samuelsgatan 2 in Stockholm. Minimalism, clean lines and a dedication to traditional tailoring mark out FASR, who are actually fashion design duo Astrid Olsson and Lee Cotter. http://www.shoerepair.se

Filippa K meanwhile is an established men and womenswear fashion brand with multiple own boutiques and franchise stores in Sweden and around Europe. The clothes and accessories ‘combine timeless simplicity with contemporary edge’ according to Filippa Knutsson (Filippa K) and the brand is for ‘urbanites’. If you’re an urbanite, then this brand is for you. http://www.filippa-k.com

A Swedish fashion brand that already sells in 38 countries around the world is Odd Molly. This fashion house recently opened a flagship store in Stockholm and apparently more ‘brand extending’ goodies are on the way, including a cosmetics range and a menswear range. ‘Love, courage and integrity’ is the message behind this brand. http://oddmolly.com/

Björn Borg, ‘man of few words’ Swede ruled the game of tennis for what seemed like an eternity back in the 1970s and 1980s. He’s famous also for being the first tennis star/celebrity to see his name appear literally on a range of men’s underwear. Now it appears on a range of men and women’s fashion range and you can catch it at the flagship store in Stockholm. http://bjornborg.com/

Continuing the sporting theme, J. Lindeberg, is a Swedish fashion and sportswear brand that became and still is famous for its cool golf gear with Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik resplendent in its togs on the golf courses of the world. It also does skiwear and men and women’s fashions and can be found in 25 countries around the world. And in Stockholm. http://www.jlindeberg.com/

Acne started as a creative collective in Stockholm in 1996 and produced one hundred pairs of its own-design jeans that it gave to family and friends. It has been picking up design awards in Sweden ever since and its range of fashions for both sexes are now sold from its multiple stores, mainly in Europe and one in New York. It also has two stores in Stockholm and one in Gothenburg. http://www.acnestudios.com/

Cheap Monday is the fashion brand with a skull logotype on its jeans and clothes. From its humble beginnings back in 2004 the brand is now sold from stores in 30 countries and the company just opened its first store in Copenhagen. But don’t worry, it’s a thoroughly Swedish brand selling inexpensive, high quality jeans and clothes.www.cheapmonday.com

Swedish fashion brand Whyred takes its design lead and inspiration from the music and art scenes and the iconic style of the 1960s. Its collections can be found at its flagship store at Mäster Samuelsgatan 5 in Stockholm and in its own stores in Gothenburg and Malmö. http://www.whyred.se

Minimarket, a Swedish design label for the ladies, made quite a splash at the ‘Opening Ceremony’, in Manhattan with their debt line of voluminous outerwear. Label design trio, Sofie Elvestedt and twin sisters Jennifer and Pernilla Elvestedt have a new line out called ‘Mini for many’ at shops in Stockholm and around Europe. http://www.minimarket.se/

Fashion experts who visit Sweden are often fascinated, wondering what it is that makes Swedish fashion so unique. It’s actually difficult to understand and explain. It seems very simple, but when you look closer it’s very contemporary and cool.

We Swedes have essentially a very practical approach to clothes, even if we’re very fashionand trend-conscious. When we dress up, we don’t dress up too much. There’s not such a difference between how we dress at work, in our time off, and at parties. Even when our clothing is decorative, it has a practical function. I think that the Swedish approach fits very well with the modern lifestyle embraced by people all over the world. Perhaps we’re ahead of our time up here.

One positive trend is that Swedes themselves have started to buy Swedish design and that pieces by Swedish designers are now available at more places all over the country, including the big department stores. In Stockholm many designers have their own stores, where you can see their entire collections, like Rodebjer, Whyred, Nakkna, Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, Carin Wester, Anna Holtblad, the jewelry designers David & Martin and many others. Of course Acne is the flagship − they have proven that it’s possible to build a brand on the international market, based on a jeans collection. Cheap Monday is another phenomenon, with its Weekday stores. And you can’t forget larger, established brands like Filippa K, Tiger and J. Lindeberg, and of course H&M, which is everywhere.

In general I think the Swedish fashion scene is good, exciting and creative, with lots of interesting concepts and shops. And you get a lot of fashion for your money. Remember, both IKEA and H&M come from Sweden. Swedes are used to being able to buy contemporary, chic design that doesn’t cost a fortune.”

Cia Jansson, fashion editor at Swedish Elle.