News, 1.10.2007

The Resurrection of Finnish Fashion

By Heini Lehtinen, Editor-in-Chief of fashionFINLAND.com What is Finnish fashion? Is there such a thing? Definitely. And Finnish fashion design is coming back in earnest.

Finnish fashion might not be a household concept in the major fashion countries but it is a definite success among its aficionados in Japan, UK and Spain, among others. As one visitor put it in the forum of fashionFINLAND.com, a portal and a web magazine of Finnish fashion: "I live in England and I buy some IVANAhelsinki clothes every time I visit Finland. And, oh boy, how much comment do I get from people here in England? They nearly rip the clothes off me!" That's the way it goes…sometimes.

The history of the Finnish clothing industry has been glorious, but it has also had its hard times. It all began with fabric factories in the city of Turku in the 19th century; continued with more fabric and tricot factories in the towns of Porvoo, Hämeenlinna and Tampere, went on with fashion garments made in ateliers and culminated in the heyday of the industry in the 1970s.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Finnish clothing industry was not yet very industrialized but it witnessed the start of many success stories. Outwear company Luhta, for example, was established in 1903.

IVANAhelsinki, spring/summer 2007

Everything changed in 1939, when war began. The war ended in 1944 but it was not until the 1950s that the industry started to recover. Marimekko's predecessor, Printex, was established in 1951 and the first export contracts to the Soviet Union were signed.

The following three decades were a time of glory – a real heyday of Finnish fashion. The industry employed some 35 000 people, orders for the Soviet Union were enormous and factories suffered from a shortage of labour. At the beginning of the 1980s, exports of clothing were four times as big as imports.

But by the end of the 1980s, Finland had become a country of expensive labour. Production in the clothing industry was halved in the period 1986-1990 and more than 2 000 employees lost their jobs each year. Economic recession completed the downhill process and only a few companies survived.

The new beginning

The times had changed and so had the ways of running a business in the fashion industry. The first young-generation companies started in the mid-1990s, the most famous of them being IVANAhelsinki and Hanna Sarén. Designers Hanna Sarén and Paola Suhonen, the latter designer of IVANAhelsinki, are well known and appreciated in Finland and abroad.

Today, many of the old companies have renewed their images and are successful in the business. Take Marimekko and Nanso, for example, and Luhta, Halti, Turo Tailor, Andiata, and Seppälä, among others.

The new, rising generation of young designers is still considered the most interesting part of Finnish contemporary fashion. Names such as Paola Suhonen and Hanna Sarén, Samu-Jussi Koski and Mika Piirainen, the two last-named working for Marimekko; Aki Choklat, who designs for his own shoe label AC, Daniel Palillo, Tiia Vanhatapio, shoe designers Minna Parikka and Janne Lax. They have all gained attention both in Finland and in the international market. And let's wait for those talents still studying in Finland or in the best fashion design schools around the world.

Finnish fashion design has always been very pure and clear, very postmodernist. This is still true among the young generation of designers but there are other inspirations, too, that the young generation is not afraid to take advantage of.

Finland has always been stuck between two powerful countries and cultures, Russia and Sweden, the East and the West. Both dominated Finland at different times until Finland became independent in 1917.

Today, some young designers are proud of the Russian influence in Finnish culture. Calling the ensuing trend Fennofolk, it is a style that combines Finnish and Slavic influences to create something offbeat and slightly sombre. Others still swear by the term Scandinavian, pure postmodernism.

Ready to grow

However, despite the buzz going on around Finnish designers and fashion companies, the truth is that many of them are newcomers and that the fashion business is not very big in Finland – yet.

The annual turnover of the biggest Finnish clothing company, Luhta, amounts to 170 million euros. The next, though perhaps the best known, is Marimekko, with its turnover of 71 million euros. The small ones are struggling to become known, successful and profitable. The industry now employs about 6 000 people.

The value of exports of Finnish clothing, shoes, textiles, furs and revised leathers rose to 1.1 billion euros in 2006, 14 per cent more than the year before. Imports of these products climbed up to 2.2 billion euros.

The industry, and especially its newcomers, is in desperate need of finance from the government and financiers. There is not much financial aid for companies starting up, but the situation might be changing. Two large associations within the industry merged in the summer of 2007 and the goals of the new association sound promising.

There is a lot to do, but there is so much talent and so many fresh ideas in the industry that it's worth working for - and working hard.