Katarina Premfors

Photographer
     
Raggare, Sweden
Public Project
Raggare, Sweden
Copyright Katarina Premfors 2024
Updated Jun 2022
Topics Culture, Culture stories, Documentary, Editorial, Journalism, Personal Projects, Photography, Travel
After buying a farm in the middle of nowhere in Sweden in 2017, I was excited to see a convoy of American classic cars with 'Raggare' driving past our sparsely travelled main road.
Raggare is a Swedish subculture that is akin to the the American grease and rockability sub-cultures.
Hot rod cars, Rock and Roll, pin-up and 50's American Pop Culture. This style of the 50’s is considered a golden age for 'Raggare'. It is a peculiarly Swedish subculture that has, so far, stood the test of time.
The first rockabilly groups started to pop up in the late 1950s and to this day, a large group of Swedes live their lives as if they are in ’50s or ’60s America.  
The 'Raggare' culture is about much more than just showing-off their wheels. It’s about the lifestyle, music and culture and fashion. 'Raggare',the word, stems from the truck drivers’ slang for “gathering,” which was used in rockabilly times to mean 'collecting women in cars'.
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