Month: June 2025

Noticing in the forest

In this collection, sensorial experiences in nature serve as the starting point to discuss clothes and the fashion
industry. A collaborative approach with the forest and its entities has been employed to trigger a shift towards a
more sustainable approach to fashion design. Here, the temporalities of nature and the fashion industry are
confronted and lead to the question: Can clothes designed in/with the forest inspire commitment and care?

– In the forest, I was drawn to textures, temperatures and different materialities. I felt the need to
touch them, explore them, not only with sight but also with other senses. Sometimes there could
be an unexpected smell or sound, the moss could be surprisingly wet to the touch, and a
mushroom could produce a muffled sound when tapped.

The development of the collection started with hand weaving, the qualities of different yarns and materials
approached as reminders of those sounds, smells or textures. Weaving brought together memories and
sensations through hands-on experimentation to further connect with the environment and as a catalyst for
inspiration.

–In the forest, feeling different materialities was making me emotional; I wanted to remember the
moment of discovery and the feelings it was causing. I had the desire to bring these materials
home with me or to adorn my body with them.

Through a trial-and-error approach, these sensorial and emotional memories have come to life as hand-printed
textiles, textured knits and woven jacquards, in high-quality materials intended for long-term use. At the same
time, the forest was a playground for volume explorations.

–I was grounding myself in the moment and closing my eyes while touching moss and bark.
Through this, I was noticing for the first time the clothes I was wearing, feeling them as an
obstacle to movement, being too tight in some areas while moving, but also being afraid to get
dirty when approaching the ground. I was feeling contrasting emotions.

Noticing in the forest is a collection that aims to open a dialogue about the material value of clothes, to inspire
commitment and care towards the environment, and to attempt to infuse the beauty of the Finnish forest into
clothes.

Contact information:
Vanessa Agostini
vanessa.agostini@aalto.fi
+39 340 90 11 545
@agostinivanessa

T-shirt, T-shirt, Construction yard

It was between the shelves of a grocery store that Oliver Saarinen’s collection first
took shape. The careless mixture of clothing that is between the first in line on your
way out the door and something that you are already wearing. The everyday
uniforms. In his BA thesis work, Saarinen explores how the person wearing the
clothing and the environment in which it is worn affect the way we perceive everyday
clothing. And what if we change something we have become so used to?

– For me, the most interesting thing about clothing is seeing the garment in use.
A person can use the same pair of pants and a jacket on two different
occasions, yet the environment can make the garment appear entirely
different.

All design choices in his collection come from observations about his environment,
personal likings or from something needed from the garment. When living in Helsinki,
the effects of nature are present, so when dressing up, you can’t ignore the
possibility of quick snow or rain. The collection is also heavily inspired by sports and
outdoor clothing used daily.

Materials and a train-kind-of-thought are central in Saarinen’s design process. In the
work, surplus and waste materials are given new meanings in the garments.

– My way of working has always been very homegrown—making something out
of whatever is available. Being creative to me is problem-solving. In this
collection, I wanted to use materials that are familiar to everybody, like basic t-
shirt cotton and see how it can be used in something like an outdoor jacket.
Using mostly surplus and waste materials also helped me with the problem of
choice. When having certain fabrics at hand, I can change the look and feel
by dying, bonding and different finishings.

Oliver O Saarinen
oliver.o.saarinen@aalto.fi
+358505850860
@saarineno

Dressed Performance

’’Dressed performance… My senses follow the rhythm of the river flows, slowly and
consciously’’

Niklas Järvi’s MA thesis collection is based on historical research into traditional
clothing used by fly fishers and sailors, highlighting their ingenuity and the balance
they maintain with nature.

– My creative process begins with storytelling, drawing from childhood
fishing memories with my grandfather. His legacy and our shared passion
shape both emotional and material choices in the collection.

These themes inspired Järvi to create something that merges tradition, functionality,
and artistic expression. The goal is to explore the potential of natural materials such
as wool, leather, cotton, and linen to create water-resistant and durable garments.

– I aim to offer alternatives to synthetic materials and fast fashion by
developing long-lasting, aesthetically pleasing, and functional clothing
following the principles of slow fashion. I source yarn materials from small
businesses, their own farms, or use deadstock and recycled fabrics.

The collection includes five outfits designed to meet the needs of fishing, hiking, and
wilderness survival, turning these activities into a dressed performance. Each outfit
features a different material, chosen based on its unique properties and the insights
gained through research.

Niklas Järvi aims to combine functionality, beauty, and ecological sustainability,
offering new perspectives on fashion design. The garments and accessories will be
tested in nature before their public presentation, emphasising their practicality and
the essence of this collection.

Niklas Järvi
niklas.jarvi@aalto.fi
+358 445123453
@niklas.jrvi

Busy Bees

In a future where bees have vanished, the Earth faces a crisis. With ecosystems
unbalanced and agriculture collapsing, humanity must rebuild itself, mirroring bee hives,
where survival depends on collective function.

In Busy Bees, garments become tools, each piece reflecting a societal role within an
imagined post-bee city, inspired by the jobs within the beehive—guards, foragers, nurses,
cleaners, etc. Miska Kettu’s MA thesis collection explores how fashion communicates
purpose and necessity, and also reinterprets the essence of cooperation and adaptation,
emphasising the connection between humans and the essential role of every individual in
shaping the future.

– For the creative process, I imagined modern uniforms for everyday workers in
this imagined world. I wanted to create characters that we see in our everyday
life. Their garments reflect their roles and importance within the ecosystem they
live in. But what is workwear in 2025? Especially in a context where we see
technology and machines taking work and slowly replacing us. For me,
workwear can be summarised by protective and functional garments.

In the collection, classic workwear elements were combined with a twist. Fashion is about
storytelling, and this collection tells its own story.

Essential techniques for this collection are artisanal leather work and jacquard-weaving,
elevating workwear and challenging the traditional hierarchies of material use. Instead of
treating workwear as disposable, the collection sculpts it with intention, embedding labour
with beauty and strength.

– Working with this collection has been a long road, a lot of mistakes and
errors, but now it sees the daylight. The most rewarding thing has been the
leather work. It is an unforgivable material to work with, where you truly must
take time & precision: glue, topstitch, glue, topstitch, glue, topstitch. But as they
say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Contact information:
Miska Kettu
miska.kettu@aalto.fi
+358458782265
@miskakettu

West coast glory

Martta Penttinen’s BA graduate collection West coast glory captures her hometown Turku, through the lens of documentary filmmaking by transforming garments into cinematic memories.

By drawing visual motifs from the cornerstones of French documentary history, such as cinéma vérité, Penttinen’s collection presents a line-up that acts as an evolving personal documentary, like an Agnès Varda film. Each look becomes a scene unfolding near the Aurajoki riverside, the symbolic spine of the city. Instead of a linear narrative, the collection embraces observation, fleeting memory, and subjective emotion.

– I imagine the Aura River as the heart of the city – a central place where people come to be perceived. By revisiting my own footage of places that hold personal significance, I began to understand the visual rhythm of my hometown — a process that shaped the ironic tone of this collection, Penttinen explains.

Humour plays a defining role in Penttinen’s work. Tackling themes of class and wealth, the collection delves into Turku’s unofficial reputation as a city of generational affluence, referenced in golden accessories and elegant materials. Elements of luxury are playfully distorted, including the Turku coat of arms silk robe looks like a hyperlocal take on prosperity. A personal documentary unfolds through the garments, featuring digital prints of Penttinen’s film stills, embroideries, and materials locally sourced from Turku.

West coast glory reflects on the emotional landscape of a city— the anonymity, the intimacy, and the personal mythology that emerges when gaining distance and perspective from the place where one grew up. West coast glory is a city as a collection, where garments become fragments of a remembered urban reality.

Martta Penttinen
martta.penttinen@aalto.fi
+358 40 689 4442
@maraz0_0

The Sensation of Cold

A collection by Markus Anttonen

“I started with the sensation of cold, not just its temperature, but how it makes the body move, shrink, wrap, and seek shelter.”

The Sensation of Cold explores the lived, bodily experience of wearing clothing in cold environments. Drawing from research into proprioception and kinesthesia, the collection investigates how garments relate to the body beyond visual aesthetics, through weight, pressure, movement, and touch. Instead of using traditional references, the design process was grounded in wearing-based research, allowing gestures like wrapping, hiding, and adjusting to guide silhouette and form.

The garments were developed intuitively, beginning with ambiguity and uncertainty.

“Without reference images or pre-existing shapes to hold on to, the process felt disorienting at first. But eventually, the sensations translated into sculptural forms, draped, wrapped, or shaped by instinctive motion.”

Materials such as felted wool, upcycled blankets, and textured knits were chosen for their tactile qualities and their capacity to evoke warmth, weight, and shelter.

Techniques involved digital pattern-making tools combined with physical fittings and draping. Forms evolved through iterative trials, closely informed by how garments behaved during actual wear. Several silhouettes extend or exaggerate bodily boundaries, mirroring the body’s attempt to preserve warmth. “The work became about negotiating space between the body and the outside world, about what we do to feel protected.”

Sustainability is approached through the reuse of surplus materials, slow construction techniques, and a focus on durability. Each piece is meant to be lived in, adjusted, and shaped by the wearer.

Contact information:

Markus Anttonen

markus.anttonen@aalto.fi

+358404195008

@markus.anttonen

I Have Lost My Marbles

Marine Puumala’s  MA graduate collection, I Have Lost My Marbles, examines the intricate intersections and societal links between creativity, the Western construct of womanhood, and mental health. With a title that nods to the idiomatic expression of perceived madness, the collection serves not as a literal interpretation, but as a poetic inquiry into the fragmented nature of reality and the emotional architecture and psychology of the creative process.

Rooted in an intimate dialogue with the self, Puumala’s collection emerges from a desire to confront creative blocks and understand the emotional terrain that surrounds them. Her design process is marked by intentional disorientation: allowing instinct and curiosity to override logic.

– My favourite thing is being immersed in making something with no predetermined end goal, just a play of perception and possibility, stepping back, and seeing something surprising that feels nonsensical in some way. Kind of like a narrative glitch.

Utilising deadstock materials and existing garments, the designer combines intuitive crafting of sculptural elements, draping and dressing with deconstructing and distorting existing garments. “The doughnut shapes became a sort of psychological bumper and offered something other than the body to relate to and to dress.”, Puumala explains.

Trompe-l’oeil prints of deconstructed garments capture impossible drapes where the technical properties of different parts of the mockup couldn’t coexist functionally.

As a designer, Puumala constructs a narrative that refuses resolution. Instead, I Have Lost My Marbles dwells in the liminal space where madness meets method, where the creative process mirrors the destabilising experience of questioning one’s perception of reality.

Contact information:

Marine Puumala

marine.puumala@gmail.com

+358452514303

@extraultramarine

Runway Ready

Konsta Eskola’s BA graduate collection, Runway Ready, draws inspiration from airline uniform dress codes and explores the associations and connections between airline uniforms and their wearers. All textiles in the collection are sourced from used Finnair uniforms, which Eskola has deconstructed and repurposed into new materials. His personal experience of working as a cabin crew member, alongside a deep interest in second-hand materials, has been the key motivation behind the collection.

Central to my collection are the questions: Who holds the power? and ‘Who dresses whom, how, and why? I view airline uniforms as intricate, performative embodiments of dress, manifesting both power and powerlessness. The uniform grants the wearer authority yet blends them into a collective identity. This paradox—where clothing both empowers and restricts—is what made this topic so compelling to me.

The materials in Eskola’s collection are the outcome of carefully developed surface treatment and bonding techniques, resulting in a range of shiny, stiff materials that play with the structured, polished aesthetic of airline uniforms.

The manipulation and reworking of the second-hand materials I received from Finnair was an incredibly important part of the process as I wanted to make the materials truly my own. Another goal was to turn mass-produced garments into truly one-of-a-kind pieces. While I aimed to change the look and the feel of the materials, I also wanted to honour their origins and preserve some aspects of them—such as the subtle variations in colours and the natural signs of wear and tear.

The collection also features garments made from second-hand leather and handcrafted aluminium accessories. Both materials nod to airplane interiors and aircraft design, tying everything back to the world of aviation. In line with Eskola’s design philosophy, the leather is second-hand, and the use of both leather and aluminium was optimised from pattern making to the cutting of the final materials. Even scrap pieces of aluminium were reworked into buttons and other metal details in the collection.

Contact information:

Konsta Eskola

konsta.eskola@aalto.fi

+358440170198

@konstaeskola

Everybody Wants This 

Everybody Wants This is a playful, somewhat autobiographical and perhaps almost self-satirising reflection of the culture of the fashion industry, which you can’t help but love and hate at the same time.

Katariina Salmela’s BA thesis collection explores the myth and magic of fashion and the culture of the industry through an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-inspired story. A curious and analytical protagonist follows a white rabbit and enters the magical and strange field of fashion, often portrayed in the media and popular culture as a world where everything sparkles and people live extraordinary lives.

Stemming from her previous studies and research literature on consumer culture theory (CCT) and sociology of fashion, the concept of Salmela’s collection is inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s notions on fields, their hierarchies and field-specific cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital. Referencing movies and TV shows such as The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and Gossip Girl (2007–2012), the collection explores the stereotypical depictions of characters, such as busy and underpaid assistants tackling seemingly impossible tasks for their ‘evil queen’ superiors, to become a part of the extraordinary world at any cost.

– I like to start by sketching. It allows me to focus on the ‘what’ instead of the ‘how’ and helps me feel less restricted when it comes to more dramatic shapes. After that, my approach is quite analytical, almost architectural. During my fashion design studies, draping has become my preferred method of working – building garments piece by piece and editing and adjusting as I go.

With meticulous attention to detail and beautiful finishes, the otherworldly collection aims to explore how a garment can change the habitus of the user, and to distinguish the hierarchical positions of the fictional characters – i.e. the different looks – from each other.

CONTACT DETAILS

Katariina Salmela

katariina.salmela@aalto.fi

+358440552888

@kat.fi.sh

UN(SUIT)ED

The idea for this MA thesis collection came to life while Nicoloso was working in the menswear department of an international fashion brand. Here she began to observe how the womenswear/menswear dichotomy was deeply embedded in the brand’s structure. This binary division not only dictated silhouettes and materials, but it also influenced the whole organisational structure of the brand. This led to a personal interest in understanding how the normative perception of menswear is affected and reinforced by biases related to this dichotomy.

Having been raised in a bourgeois family in northern Italy, Nicoloso wondered how to question normative masculinity embodied in the men’s style that surrounded her when she was growing up. The collection’s research is based on the history of Italian men’s style, together with an analysis of academic studies on fashion, gender, and identities.

– The relationship with my partner is central to developing this collection. Through him, I discovered a kind of masculinity I’d never really known before. One that is gentle, generous and altruistic, and not afraid of complex, illogical emotions, that does not claim to be right beyond logic. Sometimes it seems that we share the same level of ’femininity’, yet I still perceive him as masculine. Somehow, this drives me to imagine how a menswear collection could represent this type of man.

Fabrics play a key role in the collection. Fine Italian wools in blue, brown and grey are combined with silks in vibrant colours, creating a fresh balance between traditional fabrics and untraditional materialities. Manipulating fabrics by hand through meticulous needle felting craft and advanced printing and dyeing techniques was a way for the designer to appropriate them, and further embed the concept on different levels of the collection.

Overall, shapes and colours are carefully balanced to bring new freshness and modernity to the classic bourgeois wardrobe, while offering new tools for free exploration of the masculine identity.

– I felt the need to speak about this topic to share my idea of what I wish masculinity could be and mean, especially in opposition to the more rigid and harmful archetypes of men often reinforced by contemporary culture.

Elisa Nicoloso

elisa.nicoloso@aalto.fi

+39 3393523028
@sourlyblond