Visiting Marimekko in Helsinki

Marimekko has always been one of my big design crushes. So I got very excited when I managed to snatch a visit to their flagship store in Helsinki last weekend. My credit card hurts.

Some of the classic patterns at Marimekko are so bold and simple, it is hard to believe that the company got started as early as 1951. Marimekko was actually set up purely to showcase the prints of the textile company Printex, set up by Viljo and Armi Ratia. Armi decided that the key to success was to make textiles in designs that were entirely different to the depressing post war florals already on the market . She hired Maija Isola to dream up the patterns. The problem was that while Printex's designs got attention, no one knew how to use them. Enter Marimekko.

Printex went bust by 1953, but Marimekko soldiered on through the hard times; the company could only afford to buy it's own sewing machines in 1955. After wowing exporters at the World's Fair in Brussels in 1958, the company got an international big break when Jackie Kennedy bought seven Marimekko dresses at the D/R store in Cape Cod.

[Marimekko facts from Scandinavian Design by Charlotte Fiell]