COSTUME Finland June 2013
Why Finnish Fashion Doesn’t Sell?? A Very Oriental Points of View
Talking about female high fashion, what occurs
most of us might be Chanel or Dolce & Gabbana; going shopping at female
fast fashion, BIK BOK, Forever 21, H&M, TOPSHOP, Uniqlo and ZARA are wide
choices to consider, but none of those concerns the final piece of land, Finland.
Nevertheless, its major city, Helsinki, just having been World Design Capital
in 2012, but how do Finnish designers take care of the silhouette of citizens
and promote the marketing in a country with extremely swiftly-changed climate??
The question is also the main theme of Finnish fashion magazine COSTUME June discussion forum. As the fact, from accessories to women’s wear, Finland never lacks of amazing fashion designers’ brands, such as IVANAHelsinki, jaana haaksiluoto, Minna Parikka, miun, R/H or TYRA THERMAN. Finnish female fashion designers mostly have their very own spirits, their collection/idea is more like the independent house rather than a mass production merely; therefore, each season’s circulation is limited, and accordingly, the charge of the production would be definitely higher.
Finnish fashion insists on ‘design in
Finland, made in either Estonia or Finland’ policy; without relying on
sweatshop manufacturing, the high cost of laboring results in the high retail price,
more or less, the numbers on the price tag reduces the of shoppers’ impulse of
purchasing behavior.
For fast fashion
market, Finnish local brand Seppälä only spreads along Baltic
territories. Its office wear design is less formal than ZARA, nor the
collaboration is highly intriguing as H&M, even the price is less amusing
than Uniqlo.
Perhaps due to the small amount of
population operating one of the most difficult languages on earth, Finland has
never been a leading role on colonisation, industrialisation nor globalisation.
On European marketing, French houses and Italian family having been providing
luxurious and sufficient choices to buyers for centuries, while Finnish
designers being forced to step aside; on Oriental views, most Asians know
Finnish fashion through Japanese’ magazines or programmes, but unfortunately, knowing
is one thing, buying power is yet another issue. Particularly, Finnish brands
have not opened chain stores in the far-eastern regions since a lot of Asians convince
that ‘seeing is believing’. Visibility is the key to sell successfully.
Finnish designers do not have to drift with
the waves. Finnish fashion does sell, but it needs a little bit more time to appreciate
the concept of design and pride of insistence; once you realise Finnish, there
is almost no way back.
Photography & works cited:
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