There’s a revolution happening at 238 Mulberry St. in New York.
Paola Suhonen, the creator of Scandinavian fashion label IVANAhelsinki, has opened a pop-up shop that not only serves as a temporary home to her clothing collection in New York, but as a factory for artists, much like Andy Warhol’s legendary studio in the 1960s.
Each night after the doors close and the lights go out for the general public, musicians, painters, photographers, writers, performers, and filmmakers gather at the shop to create and share their art while holding panel discussions on love. Suhonen wanted to create a communal movement where people could participate in sharing love and beauty, while surrounded by a constant influx of new creativity.
Already a superstar in her native Finland, and now armed with rave reviews about her recent debut at Paris Fashion Week, Suhonen decided it was time to take on the American market, which she felt needed a throwback to the spirit of the 1960s, a sentiment very much present in her clothing collection and her store.
Each collection expresses a visual language through Suhonen’s now iconic hand-designed prints. The prints are based on a story that is made into a film, presented with the collection.
For this season’s look, the inspiration behind the collection is a circus girl who lost her troop. The designer says that she just kind of “fell into fashion” and as explained on her website, started IVANAhelsinki as: “my own personal art project, but now it’s a way of life. I could easily spend my life as a gypsy or a vagabond; love stories, road trips, strong living…but it’s okay too, to make cute cotton and woolen dresses for charismatic drummer girls and girl women with beautiful souls. They are the girls who love moonlit fields, pirates, dark vast forests, a Champagne state of drunkenness, fragile butterflies, lullabies, and guardian angels…”
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