Mari Keto: beauty with an attitude

Memento mori butterfly boxes, huge celebrity portraits made of sparkling rhinestones, IT bag hunting trophies named Fashion Victims, and as a cherry on the cake the pearl portrait of Her Majesty The Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, ordered by the Danish Royal Collection and now in the possession of artist. 

The new exhibition of Mari Keto is a heavy-light combination of beauty, sadness and anger. Her way from a jewellery designer to an artist working with the utmost perfection without losing her soul and heaviness of the message has taken years. 

Now you have the rare opportunity to see her works before they disappear into museums, collector´s homes and bank vaults.

Queen of Pearls and Pearls of the Queen, 2012.

Showroom Helsinki´s gallerist Tuomas Zetterbeg, Delirium (2013) 

and Mari Keto at the opening of the exhibition.

Photo©Paula Hietaranta

Mari Keto: Delirium at Showroom Helsinki Telakkaranta is open until December 15th. Opening hours are Wed 4pm-7pm, Fri noon-5pm, Sun noon-3pm, and also by appointment. Address is Telakkakatu 6, 00150 Helsinki.

www.showroomhelsinki.com

www.mariketo.com

Simply hot

Red - the power color of Finnish fashion. For women and men.

Here you see the evening dress by Jukka Rintala, who really knows how to dress women beautifully.

www.jukkarintala.fi

 

Our international fashion model Suvi Koponen wearing evening dress by Anna Ruohonen as seen in the Gloria fashion show. Anna is as well known internationally: she has shops of her own both in Helsinki and Paris.

www.annaruohonen.com

 

Really hot Turo Tailor/Red Label corduroy suit, vest and shirt by Anssi Tuupainen.

Photos Leena Aro/Scanfotos

One night to go...

... and then Starbucks is here!

First news about the world-famous coffeehouse chain opening a coffeeshop in the centre of Helsinki came in May, and tomorrow is a lucky day to all fans: it is ready to open the doors.

Today charming Iiris was offering the first temptations of candy flavored coffees at the ground floor of Akateeminen kirjakauppa, the corner of Pohjoisesplanadi and Keskuskatu.

Photo©Paula Hietaranta

Artist Cris af Enehielm and her book favorites

Show me your bookcase so I tell who you are. 

(Well, this saying is not so valid any more because nowadays we can read books quite privately on our reading devices.) 

Anyway, the old idea of books as mirrors of the personality is not entirely gone – Cecil  Hagelstam, the owner of an antiquarian bookshop in Helsinki, lets each month a well-known Finnish person to choose their favorites from the selves of his bookshop. 

In November we see the display window with the favorites of the artist Cris af Enehielm.

Her choices tell us that she likes Chekhov and Dostojevsky, Hesse and Kafka, Jouko Turkka and Tove Jansson, Zen Buddhism and history of art. 

Many of them are finds you cannot find any more at bookshops, because the life of new books is nowadays shorter than the life of a butterfly. 

But there are always old books to stay and keep their unique, priceless value. You just might find them here.

C. Hagelstamin Antikvaarinen Kirjakauppa

(C.Hagelstam International Bibliophilic Antiquarian Bookshop) 

Fredrikinkatu 35, 00120 Helsinki.

Open Mon-Fri 10 am AM to 6 PM, Sat 10 AM-3 PM.

www.hagelstam-antikvariaatti.fi/en

Two wonderful fashion celebrity books

Both are available in Finnish and English. Highly recommended! 

Ivana Helsinki 15 Matkalla kotiin – Coming home (Teos) tells the 15 years old story about Paola Suhonen´s way from a Finnish fashion student to an international art-fashion-design-filmmaker personality. 

Paola is a combination of fierce energy and nostalgic feelings, and her memories about the birth of Ivana Helsinki collections are fun to read. Liisa Jokinen has done a great job in writing and editing this book, which is a collection of childhood memories, fashion stories and interviews tied together in an artistic scrapbook style. 

The only sad thing about Ivana Helsinki things is that the old designs are still so appealing but no longer available. So you have every reason to be sorry it you didn´t buy them then, because many are now collector´s items.

Rouva (Housewife) collection AW 2005. 

Paola´s  mother Senja Suhonen was one of the models.

Indian Summer SS 2012.

Ivana Helsinki 15 – Matkalla kotiin

Liisa Jokinen & Paola Suhonen

www.teos.fi

 

Grace Goddington on the cover of British Vogue, August 1962.

British Grace Goddington became a real media person after the film The September Issue was seen at cinemas four years ago. 

The movie about making American Vogue´s traditionally heavy September issue was supposed to be more or less a portrait of Vogue´s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, but the flaming personality of magazine´s creative director Grace really got the audience´s attention, and after that the fashion wizard was world-famous. 

Grace Coddington: Elämäni muodin maailmassa (Grace: A Memoir) is a lively illustrated memoir about her long life in fashion – she started as a teenage model and is now 72 years old. It does certainly appeal everybody wanting to dive into the tempting depths and gossips of the international fashion scene from the Fifties to today. 

The photographs of her modelling days and Vogue fashion articles are nice, but the felicitous drawings by Grace really add the flair to the story! Here you see Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs and Grace at the launching party of Grace´s book Catwalk Cats.

Grace Coddington: Elämäni muodin maailmassa 

(Grace: A Memoir) has now been translated 
into Finnish by Sini Linteri and published by 

Kustannusosakeyhtiö Nemo.

www.nemokustannus.fi