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"

Garments in Landscape by Satu Maaranen

Inspiring news; Satu Maaranen, fashion designer graduated from Aalto University, Finland has won this years Hyères Fashion Festival held in France. I had never heard about the competition, but apparently it is pretty appreciated in fashion scene. Job guaranteed if you even get to the final, not to mention winning the event.

Nice to hear a Finn has won an international competition and when I saw the clothes I surely understand why she was so successful. The clothes are gorgeous! Really beautiful color surfaces - landscapes as the designer's inspiration was. I am so happy that finally there is a young designer from Finland who uses colors, lots of colors in her clothes and that the clothes have a form and are not too shapeless! There a many appraised young designer's in Finland of course, but they all are pretty dull with the color palette (black, grey...) and really there has been none that I would like or even would understand why the mark would be appraised.

Satu Maaranen has been already collaborating with Marimekko during few years and this year's Spring/summer collection also includes clothes designed by her.

Congratulations for the prize and hopefully she doesn't completely vanish from Finland's clothing scene to the international markets!

Satu Maaranen with the clothes of her winning collection (photo; Sirpa Räihä, HS)

Photos from the catwalk of Hyères Fashion Festival (courtesy of Vogue Italy)

A print by Satu Maaranen and a dress from it, old season of Marimekko

Dresses by Satu Maaranen, S/S 2013 Marimekko

Rainy weeks

Sunny spring didn't last long, we are back to the cloudy rainy weather. Good time to have a glimpse to rubber boots/wellingtons on the market.

Hunter has this year lovely colors; I love the gloss mint boots. My first acquaintance to the brand Hunter came in 2010 when visiting New York. We travelled in March and it happened to be really rainy week in NY and all ladies, well almost all in the Manhattan, were wearing Hunters. And they looked great and surely kept the feet dry and warm. I almost bought a pair to me, but as the price was pretty high decided to fill up my luggage with some other stuff. Since then every year I check out the new colors and if they would have lowered the prices. Until now, nope, although the production has been moved partially to the Far East to lower the production costs. From 1856 until 2008 these iconic British boots were manufactured in Edinburgh. It is such a pity that so many successful brands can see as the only option to transfer the production to the Asia region.

A curiosity is that Hunter was also the manufacturer of the wellingtons for the army in the World War I and II. Wow. That must have been many, many boots.

This spring's new gloss colors, works well in the short model

Everyone surely finds a color they like from this selection

My Marimekko's "Suomu" rubber boots and these are made in ITALY!!!! Good stuff. 

I like the narrow design with high heels and leather detail on the upper part of the boot.

In 1960's Annika Rimala designed a print "Pikku Suomu" and 

it can be still found on this years spring collection of Marimekko. 

Marimekko always recycles classics in its collections.

Winter curtains by Marimekko

We have a small temporary kitchen build by us in a corner of our flat. The building is constructed in 1931 and the room that used to be a kitchen the previous owner changed to be a bathroom as he was a newer cooking, outgoing old man. I am happy to have a big bathroom and now it is really well situated by a long corridor in the middle of out flat, that is fine, but of course now we are lacking the kitchen. Five years ago when we moved in and deep cleaned the flat the only renovation we did was to built an auxiliary kitchen where there used to be a tiny room for gadgets. I like our so called temporary cooking place (temporary as one day we should build a real kitchen to what is now a living room). In order to save space and money we decided use curtains instead of doors in the storage. The thought was also that it is easier to change the look with fabrics.

Well, what is a thought might never happen or only after a long period of time...

Now it has happened; I have changed the spring curtains to the autumn ones! Thanks goes to my Finnish friends who visited me back in autumn and brought this lovely Lumimarjat-fabric by Marimekko. The colouring is from last Christmas edition; dark lila with gold berries. The previous fabric "Kaakaopuu" was also from Marimekko, a fresh bright color design. Both are designed by Erja Hirvi.

Lumimarja is already a classic in the collection of Marimekko and it has a nice story behind the creation; it was created taping real branches of tree to a paper. Apparently that was the only way to create real looking branches. Every year they have new color chart for the design and the pattern is used in several products from bed linens to cups and of course you can buy it in meters as well.

Lumimarja, Erja Hirvi 2004

Kaakaopuu, Erja Hirvi 2007