Pii Wahlroos

Piinkova

Pii Wahlroos’s graduate collection centers on the self and everyday experiences of clothes, and how work and rest can be combined. The latter materializes in the exhibition as an inflatable bed on which the designer has piled clothes in various states of process. Being the protagonist of her work, she uses self-reflection and intuitive embodied information as tools in her research on a garment’s shape and feel. Conventional ways of patternmaking and building a piece of clothing are stripped back to the most basic forms.

Visual world of Wahlroos’ collection began with hoarding archived pictures of historical artefacts, mainly from the early 20th century Finland. This rather temporal starting point morphed into something that, instead of looking back, is trying to be here, in the present, in the now. Wahlroos aims to capture a sense of timelessness, a sense of clothes that have always been here. Simultaneously, when doing everything by hand, she also makes a statement about her embodied presence: “I was here.”

– For me this project is about growth. Realising that working on this is also working on myself. Using my own body as a research tool not only to design a garment but also to come to terms with and realising my own perspective on the world of fashion, Wahlroos says.