The rose petal night for Tiia Vanhatapio

If you thought that being a fashion designer is like dancing on roses, you were right. Only that more often it is not dancing on rose petals but on thorns.

Anyway, there are those rose petal moments, too, and for Tiia Vanhatapio one them was last Friday. It was the opening night of her shiny new store in the excellent location at the heart of Helsinki.

Tiia´s wonderful fashion sense reminds me of the sweet and dramatic moments of life. Here you can buy her seductive dresses for the moments you´ll remember forever and her lovely-funny baby clothes. And in the cellar is Kuilu Galleria for art exhibitions, at the moment you can see there the works by Rosa Liksom.

In the opening night Tiia was wearing Skin Sleeve Dress of her AW 11/12 collection and her man Eero Leppänen dark shades to hide his weary eyes. Having the shop ready for the opening night did not leave too many hours for the sleep...

Tiia Vanhatapio Store is in the newly renovated Kiseleff house, Unioninkatu 27 B, 00100 Helsinki. Open Monday-Friday 11-19, Saturday 11-17.

www.vanhatapio.fi

Cassiopeia Dress and Mamie Short Sleeved Bolero 
from Tiia´s SS11 Druides Collection. 

Photo by Nina Merikallio.

Let´s celebrate new Finnish Young Designers!

The Young Designer of the Year Prize 2011 was today awarded to Laura Laine and Heikki Salonen, who both got 2500 euros and a tiny exhibition in the cellar of Design Forum Finland. It was great to notice that in Finland fashion is not a dirty word but is at last getting the attention it should have deserved ages ago.

Ladies first – designer Laura Laine has an astonishing career as an illustrator whose work is seen not only in Finland but also abroad. Her signature way of drawing looks like a stylish tornado had visited a A3 size white paper - the hair and clothing of the girls are in a constant movement and all the girls have a mile long legs. (Needless to say: so has Laura herself, too.) 

Heikki Salonen is now the creative director of Italian Diesel´s women´s wear, but at the same time he works with his own label as well. Ethical, ecological, inspiring challences – these are the qualities he wants to realise in his work. So goodbye rapid seasons of cheap so-called fashion and welcome interesting well-made collections by Heikki! (You can see some them in Helsinki 10 concept shop.) And we welcome Heikki as well: after many years abroad he has now a new home in Helsinki.

Young Designer of the Year 2011 exhibition is open daily until 18th September 2011 in Design Forum Finland, Erottajankatu 7, Helsinki.

www.designforum.fi/youngdesigner

The tender eyes of Hannah Modigh

Hannah Modigh: A snake in the car.

Who would have thought that this pretty, pocket-size Swedish photographer Hannah Modigh has guts to go to places that are both dark, desperate  and dangerous. And capture the beauty in them.

The months she spent 2006 in the small coal mining town St. Charles in Virginia, USA, photographing people and their poverty resulted a book Hillbilly Heroin, Honey that won last year Svenska Fotobokspriset, award given to the best Swedish Photobook. 

Now a limited selection of those pictures are to be seen in Helsinki. But buy the book, if you want to see more!

Hannah Modigh: Hillbilly Heroin, Honey in Galleria Luova, Albertinkatu 16, 00120 Helsinki until 19.6.2011. Open Tu-Fri 11-18, Sat-Sun 11-16.