Jun 3, 2013

Good news and bad news

The good news are that Sami Sykkö has returned as a blogger to Helsingin sanomat. Here is the well written, funny blog (only in Finnish, sorry): Sami Sykön tyylillä.

The bad news are the actual highly embarrassing situation where one of Mariekko's designer has actually copied one piece of folk art to be her print. We are speaking copying here and it is sad and scandalous to such a design house that Marimekko pretends to be. Well it has been that the designer Kristiina Isola was "inspired by" folk art piece created in 1963 by Maria Primatšenko, a renowned Ukrainian folk art painter. The similarity is obvious. Kristiina Isola, a dotter of Maija Isola (one of the most successful designer of Marimekko), has apologized and said she didn't thought of the copyrights, she just wanted to share the lovely feeling of the original illustration. Highly dull from a designer who probably doesn't like if hers or her mothers prints would be copied. Where is the professionalism and designers pride?

The print was in Marimekko's 2008 collection, so it is not on sale anymore, except some companies as Finnair have used the print to illustrate their airplanes...uups. Finnair is about to hide the print asap from its planes. To paint the planes all white.

At the moment Marimekko and the National Museum of Ukraine, to whom the original illustration belongs, are negotiating the next step, Maria Primatšenko's niece has said he doesn't want any compensation as in Ukraine they are violating the copyrights of his grandmother all the time and no one actually cares. Marimekko has also said to continue the collaboration with Kristiina Isola, which I don't know if it is stupid or noble. Apparently there exist already a lack of ideas and honesty and maybe might be a time to retirement for Kristiina Isola. That would be my opinion.



Maria Primatšenko's "A Rat on the Road"

Kristiina Isola's "Metsänväki"



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