the genius behind Marimekko

Armi Raita

Rise to International FameThe Beginning

The Kennedys

The EmpireMarimekko

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Rise toInternational Fame

Born in Karelia on July 13, 1912, she qualified in 1935 from the influential Art Industry Central School and went on to study in Germany, particularly in Tubingen at a textile manufacturer’s. From 1935 to 1939 she also ran her own weaving firm. During World War II she worked for the Ministry of Defence, and from 1942 to 1949 for an American advertising company.

The Beginning

In 1944 she had been among the 4 million refugees fleeing from the Soviet occupation of Karelia, and on their arrival in Helsinki her husband Viljo Ratia bought an old oil–cloth factory. From 1949 to 1951 they worked there together, and in 1951 founded Marimekko, which became one of the most famous Finnish design firms, producing textiles, clothes, upholstery and even bags and toys, often with simple colors and striking patterns.Armi Ratia was Managing Director

until 1969, when she and her husband separated, and resumed control from 1971 until her death in 1979. Marimekko was exporting to over 20 countries by the 1970s and Ratia was awarded the American Nieman Marcus Award in 1968, and later the highest Finnish honor, the Order of the White Rose.

Karelia

Russia

Finland

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1912

1979

Born in present day Finland on July 13

Died as one of the most celebrated female entrepreneurs in Finland’s history

1935 Graduated from the Art Industry Central School and continued on to study in Tubingen, Germany where she started her own weaving firm

1944 Relocated to Helsinki as one of the 4 million refugees to flee the Soviet occupation

Started Marimekko, which went on to become one of the most famous Finnish design firms

1971 Armi resumed control of Marimekko as Managing Director (after 2 years away due to divorce)

1951

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1979

1935

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1960Jacqueline Kennedy wears a Marimekko dress on the December cover of Sports Illustrated

The Kennedys

Jacqueline in particular was attacked for her love of Parisian haute couture so, fashion and media savvy even then, she bought seven cheap cotton shift dresses from an unknown, bohemian Finnish design house sold by a stockist in Cape Cod. She was photographed on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s December 1960 issue on a boat, wearing one of her new purchases — a pink, loose –fitting Marimekko dress, John behind her in a blue polo shirt looking tanned, windswept and electable. Jacqueline was praised for her down–to – earth tastes; JFK won a narrow victory; and Marimekko was on the map.

It is fitting that Marimekko should have come to public attention via a fashion statement from one of the last century’s most iconic women. It is a proudly female company, run by women, for women, employing generations of women. From the moment you enter its low–rise building outside Helsinki, you know you are on female territory. The wide, open–plan interior is blindingly white in the late summer sun, devoid of the phallic statues that traditionally adorn business HQs, and its famous printed textiles — oversized geometric patterns in vibrant colours —hang down the walls.

Marimekko is undergoing something of a revival. It is currently reissuing archive prints, tapping into the vogue for authentic, retro patterns from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Previously known in the UK only by design aficionados, it is now the name to drop: anything that hip wallpaper companies are now doing, Marimekko will have got there first. Its most recognizable print, the “Unikko” poppy, graces mugs, tablecloths, mouse mats, tea towels, televisions, even credit cards. It has a store in London, concessions in Selfridges, and now a UK retrospective opening this weekend in Glasgow.

It might be going too far to suggest that Marimekko won John F. Kennedy the 1960 presidential election, but judge for yourself. It was Kennedy versus Nixon, and Jacqueline versus Pat: in one of the closest presidential races in history, the first ladies-in-waiting were under the spotlight as much as their husbands.

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From its inception, Marimekko was in the hands of women. Even now, women occupy all the top positions. Founded in 1951 in Helsinki, it was initially intended to be a collaboration between textile designer Armi Ratia and her husband Viljo, who ran a small printing company. Legend has it that Ratia, as a woman, couldn’t get a bank loan, so it had to be done through her husband. But it was she who saw the potential for a designer–led textile house; she took charge and recruited Maija Isola, the first and most important of many young female designers, to create original prints: Marimekko was born. “I had the idea of an entrepreneurial couple with Armi on the artistic side, and me on manufacturing and management,” Viljo wrote in 1986. “But once Armi stepped into the limelight, it was a solo performance.”

The business world of the 50s and 60s was a male affair. Gender, therefore, became part of almost everything written about Marimekko and Ratia, particularly abroad. In the 1950s, an American magazine described her merely as “an attractive blonde.” But progressive Finland was different. It was the first European country to allow women the vote. Today it has a female president, Tarja Halonen.

Mothers who opt to stay at home are frowned upon on. “Men did not have time to establish the same kind of superiority in public life as other European countries,” says Dr. Raija Julkunen of the University of Jyväskylä. “Strong structures of male breadwinners and housewives were never able to develop. Of the two aspects of maternity, earning a living and caring, earning a living has always been the more important. Staying at home must be justified, working need not.” In this climate, Ratia was respected and Marimekko flourished.

Marimekko was also a fashion label. Early on, its clothes were designed to liberate women from the tight, body–shaping dresses of the 1950s to give them clean, loose –fitting smock–like dresses, skirts, trousers and shirts in crisp cotton. The clothes were unconventional, informal, accessible to anyone —young or old, fat or thin. The name itself means “a dress for Mary”—the woman on the street. “Marimekko’s clothing in particular, with its clean unisex lines and free –flowing style, conveyed a utopian feel of sexual equality,” says Marianne Aav, director of the Design Museum in Finland. When Ratia was accused of peddling “sexless” clothes, she replied:

“A woman is sexy, not a dress.”

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The Sports Illustrated cover for December 1960 featuring Jacqueline and John Kennedy.

The company flourished for the next two decades, but when Ratia died in 1979, Marimekko lost its way under the leadership of her son Ristomatti and his siblings. In 1985, he sold it to Finnish conglomerate Amer Group, where it suffered a severe downturn.

Enter Kirsti Paakkanen, charismatic businesswoman and founder, in 1969, of Womena, a ground–breaking advertising agency that protested against the discrimination toward women in advertising (“omena” is the Finnish for “apple”, with all its garden of Eden connotations). She hired only women, and there was no hierarchy among employees. She sold Womena in 1988, and in 1991, when she was living in retirement in Nice, Amer Group asked her to become chief executive of Marimekko. She refused, and Amer instead offered to sell Marimekko to her for a nominal sum. She accepted.

Paakkanen, 76, is regarded as the “saviour” of Marimekko, a heroine akin to Burberry’s Rose Marie Bravo. Her marketing nous made the company profitable within a year; she has turned it into a worldwide “brand”; and she identified the trend for retro prints long before it happened. Up close, she’s an awesome sight: dressed head to toe in wafty black with six–inch heels, bejewelled with dyed black hair, black eye makeup smudged across her eyes and cerise lipstick, she resembles a smoky grande dame of French cinema.

Paakkanen thrusts a sales chart into my hands. The graph shows a steady increase in sales from the 1950s to 1985, then the graph dips under the axis until 1991 when it skyrockets. Her two –inch painted talons jab at the dip: “During these years, men were in charge of Marimekko,” she laughs. “When I arrived in September 1991, it was like the end of the world; there was low morale, dirty windows, a broken building. The first thing we did was clean the windows.”

Her introduction of new business methods are generally credited with saving Marimekko after Armi passed away.

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Isola’s daughter, Kristina Isola, who works at Marimekko, agrees. “If ‘feminist’ in business means women can take care of affairs themselves, then yes, Marimekko is a feminist company,” she says. “We don’t have to lean on men. Marimekko’s success has much to do with the fact it is a woman’s company: we’re practical, we don’t waste, we can do many things at the same time, we’re less nervous about our positions, we express our feelings better.”

She then dismantled the bureaucracy within Marimekko, boosted the role of the designers, and built up the home interiors side of the business. “Home is the most important trend in the world at the moment,” she says. Paakkanen decided to reissue archived prints in new colours, starting with “Fandango” by Maija Isola from 1962, which was launched in time for Christmas. It was a huge success. To thank Isola, Paakkanen sent her a cheque, which she returned with a note saying: “Thank you for the beautiful thought. I think you will have better use for this money than I do.”

No one was surprised a woman was running Marimekko again. “I got flowers and faxes when I took over. People hoped I would take the company back to how it was when Armi Ratia was in charge,” Paakkanen says. She believes women have better business heads. “Men in business start at the top, they create positions for themselves then work down. Women work from the bottom up, and value their workers.”

She knows the power of running a company based upon typical female attributes.

Isola, who was 19 when she had Kristina and died in 2001, left her to grow up with her grandmother so she could travel the world to find inspiration for her textiles. She was unconventional, but as Finnish novelist Kaari Utrio said at the opening of the recent Finnish Design Museum’s Isola retrospective: “An independent woman artist supporting herself was a dangerously original character. Maija Isola belonged to a trailblazing generation; as a result of their work, the path of young women into the arts is no longer lined with thorns.”

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It is fitting that Marimekko should have come to public attention via a fashion statement from one of the last century’s most iconic women.

“

It is a proudly female company, run by women, for women, employing generations of women. From the moment you enter its low–rise building outside Helsinki, you know you are on female territory.”

The Empire

The company was founded in 1951 by Viljo and Armi Ratia, after the former’s oilcloth factory project failed and was converted to a garment plant. Armi asked some artist friends to apply their graphic designs to textiles. In order to show how the fabric could be used, the company then designed and sold a line of simple dresses using their fabric.

It came as an early recognition of fashion as an industrial art and of Marimekko’s role in the process when Finland’s leading industrial designer Timo Sarpaneva invited the company to present a fashion show (albeit canceled at short notice) at the 1957 Triennale in Milan. The garments were eventually showcased in the nearby Rinascente upscale department store under its then store display manager Giorgio Armani.

Marimekko

The name is a play on words,yet completely descriptive.

is an anagram of Armi

means 'dress' in Finnish

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Marimekko was first introduced to the United States by the architect Benjamin C. Thompson, who featured them heavily in his Design Research stores. This is a picture of the Design Research Building in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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known for bold and bright patterns . . .

known for bold and bright patterns . . .

. . . the empire has grown enormously; the infamous patterns can be found on any product one can imagine.

From coffee mugs to cars, the unikko (poppy) pattern is on everything.

Home Decor

living roomart fabricsblankets & throwsholiday decorationspillows

kitchen & diningapronsdinnerwareglasswareplacematspotholders & oven mittstableclothstea towelsteapots & coziestrays

bathbathrobesshower curtainsslipperstowels

storagecontainers

bedroomcomfortersduvetspillowcasesshamssheet sets

On the Marimekko website, these are the categories and products offered.

Apparel

womendresses & skirtshatsjackets & coatspants & leggingsshirts & sweatersshoes

kidsdressesonesiest– shirtssocks & tightsaccessories

menshirts & t– shirtsties

Bags & Accessories

bagscoin purses & walletspurses & clutchestotes & messenger bags

cosmetic bags

umbrellas

scarves & gloves

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The new Marimekko flagship store opened October 6, 2011 in New York City’s Flatiron District. It is positioned for good business at the intersection of two of Manhattan’s busiest streets, Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

As of September, Marimekko had 84 stores worldwide2011

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I often ask myself how it is possible that the world’s absolutely most colorful design and fashion brand comes from Finland, probably the darkest and coldest place on earth. When it is really dark and cold, you don’t want to take the gray and black colors.

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You want to take the bright colors. You want to get, you know, happiness and the energy.” Mika Ihamuotila, CEO

This book was created by Adira Weixlmann in Fall 2011 for the Visual Information studio at Washington University in St. Louis. Fonts used were Archer and Whitney.

No part of this book may be copied or reproduced with out the creator’s consent.

Content in this book comes from:marimekko.comgardiannews.com