By: Emily Jensen
studio visits
studio visits
Rolf Ekroth did not grow up dreaming of becoming a fashion designer. Nor did he even begin to study fashion design until he was in his 30’s. And yet he began 2019 by presenting two collections at the prestigious Pitti Uomo — one under his namesake label and one for the Finnish heritage brand Terinit, which he’s been tasked with reviving. With that international recognition, Ekroth’s investors are hoping his label might become the Acne Studios of Finland; however, as the Helsinki native tells us, he’s just hoping to build a brand that’s financially viable.
But considering how rare it is for Finnish designers to start their own labels, simply getting a brand off the ground is no small task. Ekroth graduated from Helsinki’s Aalto University in 2015, ranked one of the top fashion schools in the world alongside the likes of Central Saint Martins. And yet, most graduates go on to work for major fashion houses abroad rather than start their own labels. Ekroth is a rare exception; when sportswear brand Terinit asked him to lead the brand revival, the company also chose to finance his namesake label. “In Finland, it's really hard to find financing for fashion. We're focused on technology,” Ekroth told HYPBEAST.
To understand the unique challenges of growing a brand from the ground up in Finland, HYPEBEAST took an inside look at Ekroth’s Helsinki studio. Read our interview with the designer to learn how Ekroth went from sewing class to presenting at Pitti.
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Helsinki, Finland
www.rolfekroth.eu
Have you seen a big shift in Helsinki’s approach to fashion since then?
ROLF EKROTH
In the last years it's changed a lot. Now you can see teenagers buying Raf Simons and Off-White™, and all the super expensive brands. I guess their parents buy them the clothes, but in my days when we were teenagers we didn't have that expensive clothing. But I think it's fun that people are more interested in fashion.
At what point did you want to become a fashion designer?
It was really by accident. During my 20's I tried to find myself, I don't know, maybe five times. Then when I was completely exhausted and had nothing, one of my friends just said, “You were always a bit interested in fashion, why don't you try that?” Before that I was interested in doing something artistic, but I didn't know what it could be. After that I applied for sewing school and that was it. I hate to use terms like fell in love because that doesn't sound Finnish at all, but basically I fell in love with the idea of making something myself.
Did you feel you had a lot to catch up on?
Walk us through the application process for Aalto.
I just went to a sewing school with grandmas, so I didn't know what people at my stage were doing. I was just trying to learn as fast as possible, and it was always a goal of mine to get into Aalto University. I applied for Aalto two times and I got in on the second one. I was fairly lucky to get in at the right time, because that was just when people in Aalto started winning international competitions.
In the early spring, you get three tasks that you need to hand in. I think you have a month to do them. They qualify I think about 50 or 60 people to come to the school and do some more. Then it's like an intense week of two tasks a day, and they give you points by how well you do in the tasks. Then, at the middle of the week, I think 60 percent of the people get cut. There's like 24 people left and 12 spots. Somewhere in the middle of summer you get the letter that's either you're accepted or you need to try again.
How did your style evolve at school?
I think what most of us do when we get into Aalto, we try to be this great artist and we try to come up with something brand new that nobody has seen. And our teacher, Tuomas [Laitinen], sort of mocks us for a year, and says, “That's just horrible, you should learn the basics.” After a year of that you either get it or you don't. At the end of the first year I got that it's more of being good at the basic stuff, and then applying something new to it.
Why did you choose to start your own label? How did Terinit come to give you financial backing?
The people who own Terinit contacted me last spring and asked me to interview for the job, and at that point I already had [an] offer from [a] bigger fashion house. So I had no pressure going into that interview. Things went really well, and I liked the people who owned it and they asked me would I be interested. I sort of bluffed and said, “The only reason why I would come to work for you is that you would also finance my own brand." I just wanted to see how they would react. And they looked at each other for two seconds and said, “Okay.” So I trapped myself into a really good position.
What was the reception to your brand at your Pitti Uomo presentation?
It was super. I was walking on clouds the week after. It was a super hard autumn to do those, start both brands from zero, so Pitti was such a nice surprise. The article in Vogue was huge for us, and all of the other press. We got lots of important people coming there and doing personal orders, so I hope those will translate into sales as well in the coming seasons.
Besides the financial aspect, are there any other roadblocks for Finnish designers in beginning their own labels?
We need brand managers, we need people for sales. We have a sales agent from Paris at the moment, but it will be good that we would have somebody in Finland also taking care of daily stuff. Because at the moment it's me only, and it's a bit too much to be running all of the stuff and also trying to be creative.
There's Marimekko in Finland, and that's about it. Those companies, Marimekko and a few other big ones, have all of the people who can work those positions in Finland.
How would you describe your style when you were growing up?
Well I was a teenager in the '90s, so it was '90s hip-hop, street style. I wore insanely baggy pants, and oversized T-shirts and hoodies. I tried to mimic everything that I saw on MTV. The '90s was maybe the first time in Finland that we had channels like MTV. In the '80s we only had three TV channels with Finnish programming.
How has your work evolved over the years?
I was doing reverse painted acrylic polymer peel paintings for a long time, and those were hyper-detailed and all super hard-edged and super meticulous. It got to a point with that where I guess around like 2012, I wanted to start doing something more visceral and more painterly and less sort of slick.
Any advice for aspiring artists?
Good advice is work a lot, experiment a lot, and see a lot of art. Find out who the artist is who you really admire and what do you like about their work, what can you bring into the work, but also how can you experiment with materials and make paint do something that's your own language. At least for me, that's always been really important to my practice.
“I just went to a sewing school with grandmas, so I didn’t know what people at my stage were doing.”
ROLF EKROTH
“In Finland, it’s really hard to find financing for fashion.”
In the opposite direction, are there any international students who come to Aalto for schooling?
I don't know if it's the financial people who are leaving. But it's common knowledge that most of the students from Aalto go to work in Paris or London, and in New York. It's a bit of shame because there's so much really good talent just going into bigger companies. I mean, of course, they will learn a lot and maybe one day start their own label in Finland, but if there's not a place here -- which hopefully we're now working on -- there's nothing to come back to.
Do you find many of the talented people are poached by companies in other countries?
The Bachelor’s is in Finnish, so that's Finnish students. But the Master’s is in English, so we have students from all over, from Russia, Japan, France. I do textile collaborations with a Japanese girl that I met in school. You can find there lots of interesting people, and I was super lucky to find Yuki [Kawakami], who I've been working with now for four or five years.
Where do you like to shop in Helsinki?
There's almost only one place that I go to, it's called Centimeter. I think it's one of the only gallery slash boutiques. But mostly when I go abroad I buy my clothes there.
Are there any places you like to go for inspiration? Other cities or destinations?
No. I think I find most of my inspirations on my couch at home, when I'm watching TV or just doing nothing. It feels a bit weird, the whole concept of going somewhere to be inspired. I don't know if I'm a bit boring, but most of my ideas come when I lay down on the couch and look at the TV. I try to take care of myself because I'm old, so when I go running, ideas start to come up.
What brands or designers do you admire?
Actually the story is mostly important, that it's something that's close to me that I'm interested in. And then I just try to find clothing references. I search online, I buy old stuff, I buy new stuff, and then I just start to look at details. I usually have an idea of the colors, but also as a smaller brand I have to accept the fabrics that are selling at the moment. I can't be ordering 50 meters of a specific color. So I'm a bit on trend on the colors, because that's where I have to settle.
Do you start with any particular color palettes or textures for your collections?
That's always a bit daunting to say them because then I'm afraid of people will see it in my clothing, oh you're copying them. But of course for menswear it has to be Raf. Raf has always been super inspiring ever since I've learned about him, which isn't that long. And then I'm a huge fan of Jun Takahashi for UNDERCOVER. I really like the lightness of Dries Van Noten’s fabrics. They're amazing. I like to go just to the stores and touch them. And of course, '90s Helmut Lang is one of the gods, which we all still copy.
In a business sense, are there any brands who model a path that you could see yourself following as a label?
It's hard to look up to, because I have no idea how they did what they did. But my owners, the people financing it, are hoping that we could be like a Finnish version of Acne. And that's maybe an easy place to compare, because they're from Sweden, and they've done an amazing job in growing and growing. But myself, I'm just trying to keep my head over water.