Q&a / Marimekko’s creative director talks fashion, flowers and female leadership on the sidelines of Copenhagen Fashion Week
- Style sat down with Rebekka Bay after the Finnish brand’s spring/summer 2025 show
- Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, the unikko flower pattern is the ultimate Marimekko icon
Tell us about the spring/summer 2025 show and the parade of Marimekko flags for the finale.
We really wanted to celebrate all flowers. We have throughout this year celebrated Unikko, our most recognisable flower, and we wanted 2025 to be a celebration of all the lesser-known flowers. The symbolism is really this idea that flowers and nature as a subject can be super abstract and tangible. We thought this was an opportunity to give space to all the flowers in our archive.
The brand is best known for its vibrant prints. How does it stay true to this visual identity while continuing to innovate?
The Marimekko DNA is so strong. A lot of it is not only in the prints themselves, but also how we’ve printed them, with screen printing and the overlap of colours. We’re also constantly commissioning new work – for this collection, we worked with artist Petra Börner to develop the first and last prints. Continuing to work with new artists and talent is a way to add into and diversify our archive.
I remember when I joined Marimekko, getting my hands on 3,500 prints, I was like, ‘How are we even going to do this?’ But very early on I realised that of course you want to honour and celebrate your heritage and history, but you also have to build into the future. We have 70 years of heritage, but we also need to be concerned with what’s going to be in 70 years. It’s a constant movement between what’s already there and how to build on that, to add work that is very much in the spirit of the DNA, but also sometimes a little bolder and outside our comfort zone.
What about Marimekko’s largely female leadership? It feels like a big family business.
