💄✨ Status… Moi? Status and Beauty—the Power Couple in the Digital Age.

Today (Feb 13, 2025) I had the pleasure of presenting at Näringslivets Hus in Stockholm, at an event arranged by KoHF, the Swedish industry organization for cosmetics and hygiene corporations, in front of 100 representatives from leading retail and manufacturing brands in the beauty industry.

In my talk, I explored:
✨ Why status is so important to people—but so taboo to admit.
✨ The painful twin of status: envy.
✨ What has been considered status throughout history—and what it is today.
✨ How status-striving is and has been systematically restricted.
✨ And how status today is deeply entwined with all consumer categories, especially beauty.

Pär Svahnberg did an excellent moderation (and for the book! 📖), as well as to the audience for their engagement and great conversations afterward.  Before me, Josefin Liljeteg, Chief Innovation Officer at Hardford,  expertly unpacked what “advanced skincare” really is (and isn’t!), and Annika Svedberg, Director of Pharmacy, Quality & Sustainability at Apoteket Hjärtat, who discussed their bold and media-hyped 2024 initiative to introduce an age limit on advanced skincare products.

Not only was it a fantastic event, but I also loved revisiting my “old” PhD topic of status, which—unsurprisingly—never seems to go out of style!

Journal of Marketing Management: “Masculinising Domesticity”

In this JMM published article I and Marcus Klasson examine how men configure their gendered identity in a traditionally feminine domain; the setting of the domestic kitchen. We identify how feminised masculinities are shaped into hegemonic masculinity.

Reference: Klasson, M and Sofia Ulver (2015) “Masculinising Domesticity: An Investigation of Men’s Domestic Foodwork”, Journal of Marketing Management, 31:15-16, 1652-1675

Read more:

Tandfonline.com

Status movements- Published in European Journal of Marketing 2014

In an economically polarizing world (Piketty 2013), with a growing “precariat” (Standing 2011), previously middle-class consumers around the world increasingly experience that their status position is not as guaranteed as it used to be. This calls for research which explores these experiences of status movement and how it influences consumption. In this article I and Jacob Ostberg set out to do so, and the article is published in European Journal of Marketing 2014 vol 48 (5/6).

Read it here:

UlverOstberg2014.pdf

My book “Status”

Book in Swedish on the concept of ‘Status’ from an academic interdisciplinary perspective.

Book Cover text in Swedish:”Status hänger ihop med privilegier och därför suktar vi alla efter högre status i olika sammanhang. Men det vill vi inte erkänna. Varför är status så känsligt? Och varför är begäret efter status ibland så smärtsamt? Vem har och vem har inte status – och går det ens att ändra på? Den här boken handlar om det laddade och ofta missförstådda begreppet status, och hur det har förändrats i betydelse genom tiderna, från då till i morgon.”

Endorsement: “Statusuppdateringar i sociala media, bilar med hög status och lågstatus-IKEA i all ära. Men denna lilla pärla till bok går längre än så med sin klara bild av vad status egentligen är och hur status fungerar i samtiden. Boken är en djupdykning in i en av de centrala aspekterna av hur social ordning fungerar, och en njutning att läsa.”
Saara Taalas, professor vid Linnéuniversitetet