Volvo: Swedish luxury – reconstructing luxury

Quiet beauty, rather than flashy bling. That is the essence of Swedish luxury. Designer entrepreneur and trend analyst Mathilda Tham jumps in a Volvo S80 Executive to go looking for the roots of Swedish style – and ends up in nature and tranquillity.

Luxury, throughout history, has stood for that which is rare and precious. In Western affluent society, with its abundance of consumer goods, it follows that commodities without a price tag, such as the experience of simplicity, silence, time, care and trust have become the new luxury.

These values are firmly rooted in the Swedish heritage – the quiet beauty of the landscape, the care about the environment and the attention to functional detail. Swedish luxury is quiet, simple, with a fine eye for exquisite details and intelligent functionality, following the ethos that ‘true beauty comes from the inside’. It offers an alternative to the flashy ‘bling’ culture prominent in recent years and targets an audience with a confident, conscious and intelligent perspective, a customer that seeks a car that signals good taste.