mylifestylenews: 《6 Minutes @ Mika Ihamuotila》

2012-05-11

《6 Minutes @ Mika Ihamuotila》

Marimekko ~ The Finnish brand's philosophy is to spread the joy of happiness to every corner of the world, brought with its signature bold colours and patterns to Hong Kong recently by its charming President and CEO Mika Ihamuotila. The man behind the show shared with mylifestylnews of Marimekko's bright ideas of a colourful lifestyle living in its alluring flagship store. The joy in this Suomi distinctive style shopping continues......

1949, four years after the war was the beginning of Marimekko's story, it took a couple of years before husband and wife Viljo and Armi Ratia's company Printex (wax and prints fabric company) became Marimekko.

Armi had started buying exceptionally colourful and bold patterns when she was with Printex and began making clothes from the unique print fabrics. For a nation struggling with shortages and drabness, Marimekko was a welcome source of colour and joy.

Armi had an incredible ability to decipher the mood of the times and sense future trends, recognizing talent and finding ways to realize the wildest, most imaginative ideas.

She was a textile artist, managing director, creative director, wizard of words, publicity guru, visionary, maternal figure and wellbeing of inspiration.

The Marimekko logo sees day-light. Armi wants a simple and distinct logo, A graphic designer used the letter m on an Olivetti typewriter to create the logo in 1954.

In the 1960s, Armi puts Marimekko into full swing. A new, more open-minded era made its way to Finland. Marimekko expands into a major ideology, "Mari Village" was envision for the communal joy, a utopia where Marimekko was a unique lifestyle before she passed away on 3rd October in 1979 and left an immense void. Armi was Marimekko.

Maija Isola and her daugther Kristina Isola started working as designer pairs in 1978 and actively involved in the design of patterns. Both of their names were printed on the edge of their fabric designs ever since and enjoyed unprecedented levels of popularity in 2000s.

Japanese go crazy over Marimekko in 2006. Within 3 years, 19 Marimekko concept stores were set up on major shopping streets in Japan.

Since Kirsti Paakkanen bought over Marimekko in Sepember 1991 and shock things up with positive cashflow. Young designers like Mika Piirainen and Erja Hirvi joined Marimekko's team of designers.

I joined Marimekko in February 2008 from my routine banking job and became thee company CEO and continue to spread the joy of happiness of the brand's philosophy to everyone in the world.

We always like to project Marimekko as an art brand with cultural background and a trong idendity. A brand that stand out by itself for being who we are and is meaningful for people. Happiness, positive thinking, optimistic visuality are the part of the philosohy for thr brand.

For future collaborations, we wish to seek individual or organization that could share the core value and has the same thinking with our brand. It has to be iconic, playful, colourful with individual charactor and personality, knowing and appreciate the cultural value of Marimekko.

It would be great for us to have an Asian designer who wish to spending some times with us in Helsinki and interpret the Asian's touch to Marimekko's core value design.

It is interesting to see China and Asia with strong visual in thier own culture. The calligraphy and the connection with nature in the far east is totally amazing as well as the roots of the oriental family value.

We decided to come to Hong Kong, China as we think a lot of people's pace here are too fast and no time to stop valuing what is given to them. Gradually, it loses the relationship in everything that they encoutered especially in the family value and their cultural roots. We try to imply Marimekko's philosophy to them and make them feel that the happniness and joy is all around and begin to embrace and appreciate what we already had.

In the next 10 to 20 years, we still wish to see Marimekko making ity to a better place and continute spreading the long lasting happiness to everyone, for not pretenting and true to themselves.

My ideal living lifestyle would be back to the basic. I am a very urban person and yet I love the nature. I love my work and I have a family with 4 children, the core value of a family is very important and is my top priority. Spending time with them is the my ideal way of a living lifestyle.

My current state of mine is like a new born baby, the opening of this Hong Kong store is like a reborn, it is like a when you grow a seed and spreading the happiness, the excitement seems never ends.