Marimekko's Petri Juslin celebrates brand's history and future of design

On Boston’s Newbury Street, the city’s fashion and retail hub, there’s an abundance of little details that  catch the eye. Walking along the street in early spring, you might spot shoppers ducking into the high fashion standards like Chanel and Valentino to escape the unseasonable Boston weather and warm their hearts with luxury purchases. Or perhaps you might notice the line forming out the door of Georgetown Cupcakes (sorry, they're out of the secret flavor) and the friendly faces populating the restaurant patios when it’s finally sunny.

Amid all these details, you would be remiss to overlook the colorful display — pink-and-orange florals on black-and-white polka dots — in the window of 140 Newbury, the Boston outpost of the Finnish design house Marimekko. Known for its distinctively bold printed fabrics and simple styles, Marimekko has called Boston home since the store’s opening in August of 2012.

This month, in honor of the third annual Boston Design Week, Marimekko Newbury held a reception to celebrate the brand’s decades-long history of print design and to explore the ways current designers balance that heritage with an eye toward the future.

The store welcomed Marimekko Artwork Studio Manager Petri Juslin from the company’s studio in Helsinki, Finland to present at the reception on the evening of April 6.

Dressed in a charcoal suit and subtly striped button-down, Mr. Juslin appeared businesslike and subdued next to Marimekko’s walls of colorful throw pillows and spools of patterned fabric. In a conversation with the Daily, the studio manager described the origins of the brand’s iconic patterns, used in women’s fashions and home furnishings, which decorate the store.

“The Marimekko design philosophy was established in 1951 by Armi Ratia,” he said. “It really was one of the first lifestyle companies. There were no colors or materials in Europe after the war — the idea was to bring colors and joy into people’s everyday lives.”

This design philosophy, Juslin believes, has carried through the company’s history and into the present day.

“I think that is still the same idea behind [Marimekko]…as well as [the idea of] encouraging people to express themselves in their homes and their dressing,” he said.

Marimekko found huge success internationally in the late 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the United States after Jacqueline Kennedy wore a number of Marimekko dresses during the 1960 presidential campaign. Two pioneering female designers, Vuokko Nurmesniemi and Maija Isola, were responsible for the creation of two of the brand’s most famous patterns — the striped red and white Jokapoika shirt and the iconic Unikko (poppy) print.

Juslin noted that current Marimekko designers look to these classic patterns for inspiration and have found that they regularly cycle back into popularity.

Pointing to an oversized black-and-white checked jacket, Juslin said, “I was just going through some old pictures in the archives and noticed that pattern was a very big hit, according to the newspaper clips from the 60s. It was a very successful pattern then, and I have big expectations for it now.”

Later in the evening, when presenting on Marimekko’s prominent current designers, Mr. Juslin joked that despite their massive non-digital archives — more than 2,000 patterns are still on film — the company is still coming up with new designs and working toward the future with innovative design technologies and approaches.

“To show everyone [the archives] would be special,” he said. “But we’re more than a gallery.”

Juslin’s ties with textile design and the Marimekko brand are strong. He has been with the company since 1986 and has spent 30 years working closely with more than 150 print designers. His start, however, was not in design schooling or formal education.

“I didn’t have any degree at that time I began,” he explained. “I was 23, but I had a passion for printed textiles after seeing them all my childhood and teenage years. In those days, in Finland, printed fabrics were everywhere in homes, and I found it an interesting form of art, really, which could be developed into different social layers — especially because it's quite affordable.”

The studio manager elaborated on textile printing as an art form and how it influenced his beginnings at Marimekko.

“Screen-printed fabrics are almost like graphic art…I wanted to learn and perhaps test myself to see [if I could] be in the industry," he said. "Luckily, I got a job in the Marimekko printing factory, and soon I was working in the artwork studio. By 1989 I was in charge of the whole studio.”

In the studio, Juslin’s responsibilities are different from those of employees who are strictly designers or business managers. He is familiar with the technical aspects of both design and production, so he acts as the medium connecting the two vital aspects of Marimekko’s production model.

“I’m the main person responsible for adapting the designs into the production, and I’m also helping the designers to understand the possibilities of production and challenging the production to meet the needs of the designers," Juslin said. "So it’s been quite an interesting spot to be in, to see both sides and try to connect them.”

In his presentation, Juslin explored the challenges to production that designers occasionally don’t understand, including color bleeding when using screen-printing and hand printing in designs. Marimekko is working to honor its roots in hand-printing while exploring new approaches to textile designs, he said, including digital and physical modeling with objects like tree branches and torn pieces of paper.

Juslin hopes that these designs will find even larger audiences with Marimekko’s new collaboration with Target, which debuts nationwide April 17.To honor the release, New York City’s High Line featured a Marimekko installation from April 8 to 11, with a launch party attended by A-listers such as Rose Byrne and Olivia Wilde. The Target line will feature products ranging in price from $8 for sunscreen to $500 for a printed paddleboard, though most items will be available for under $50.

 

“Everyone at Marimekko, myself included, is very happy about the results [of the collaboration]” Juslin said. “We think it’s a great opportunity for us to reach some new fans in America.”

In light of the population of student designers in Boston, Juslin also had a few words of advice for young designers.

“Draw a lot, paint a lot, use your hands. You don’t learn it by reading books. You have to draw every day, for hours,” he laughed. “[Pattern design] is a long process to learn. But you must try and learn it.”

With new designers, techniques and collaborations on the horizon, Marimekko will continue their tradition of, in the Juslin's words, bringing color and joy into people’s everyday lives.