Ivana Helsinki 25th anniversary show at the Paris Fashion Week, 25th september 2023

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Ivana Helsinki returns to Paris Fashion Week

25 September 2023 at 18-21
73 Rue de Richelieu, 75002 Paris

Ivana Helsinki’s 25th anniversary show and the concept launch of a completely new, 2.0 responsible fashion philosophy

“Edition of 50 Pieces”

Ivana Helsinki celebrates its 25th anniversary in a spectacular way at the Paris Fashion Week with its own show. Paris Fashion Week is the world’s most prestigious and most important fashion event, bringing together the industry’s elite in the city. This year Paris Fashion Week takes place between dates 25.9-3.10.2023.

In year 2007 Ivana Helsinki was the first Nordic fashion brand ever to be accepted to the main show calendar of the Paris Fashion Week.

“Return to Paris felt obvious when I thought about the location of the celebration year. Over the years, we have hosted numerous shows in New York, Copenhagen and Tokyo, but Paris was the first place for us to make an international breakthrough. I have a lot of nostalgic and dear memories associated with the city,” describes Ivana Helsinki’s artistic director Paola Suhonen the reasons for choosing the venue city.

The show will take place on the opening day of the Paris Fashion Week in an abandoned bank building in the centre of Paris. The show is a comprehensive art experience taking place on four different floors of the building. In recent years, Ivana Helsinki has expanded in the direction of making more and more diverse art, music, film, photography and, of course, fashion which all are on display in Paris.

In Paris, a vinyl bar is located on the ground floor of the show building. You can listen to and take a memory of the occasion in the form of the vinyl record by Paola Suhonen´s band Lone Deer Laredo (vol 2/7). Vinyls represent the landscape of Ivana Helsinki. They are analogue, concrete, present. Music must be experienced from vinyl in its most beautiful form.

The live music of the show is performed by New York City-based Lee Ranaldo, who has become known as the founder and member of the legendary Sonic Youth band.

“We met with Lee during his visit to Finland and after I moved to New York, we worked with him and his wife, artist Leah (Singer). Their children starred in my first feature film and Lee performed an avant-garde guitar performance in our store in Nolita, NYC. He will do a live composition now at our Paris show in September. Music is born at that moment. Lee returns to Sonic Youth’s early experimental, avant-garde sound world and creates a unique, intense atmosphere for the show. Works by artist Leah Singer are exhibited as well.”

The evening’s experiences include Paola’s cinematic projections, the Finnish candy bar (Kouvolan Lakritsi) and an art photo gallery. Paola travelled to Eastern Finland, Koli, in the summer to capture the national landscape of Finnish nature with wetplate collodium technique.

“Finland has always been a part of my visual identity – ruggedness, strength, roughness and deep, silent beauty. I wanted to bring into the show the strength of Finnish nature, cinematic drama and a touch of darkness. The images are large-scale, black-and-white images in which the Scandinavian melancholy and momentaryity of time are perpetuated. The clothing collection itself presents bold prints, as is the soul landscape of Ivana Helsinki’s aesthetics. We see fresh graphic prints, a strong retro touch and an entirely new Ivana Helsinki, moving into a new era, even surprising.”

The shoes on the stage are from Seychelles Footwear’s vegan collection, the jewelry is handmade by the Finnish brand Never Too Lake.

At the Paris Fashion Week, Ivana Helsinki launches a completely unseen, 2.0 responsible fashion concept, “Edition of 50 pieces”.

This is the first time at the Paris Fashion Week when a brand marches on stage  the entire production. Every single piece. Production divided according to the democratic sizing policy into sizes 34-50, very different kind of models can be seen on stage. The age range of the models is between 18 and 85 years.

Ivana Helsinki has always been interested in personalities, unique, individual styles and charismatic leaders. Trends have never been at the center of Ivana Helsinki’s universe.
From now on, every Ivana Helsinki item will only be produced in a 50-piece series. The idea comes from the world of art, where the original photographs and art graphics are seen in numbered series/editions.

Every item of Ivana Helsinki will from now on also be individually numbered with 1/50, 2/50, 3/50 etc. logic.
This commitment to production maximums is a sign of completely new kind of responsibility.

“I strongly believe that only by limiting the volume, we can truly be responsible. We have too much of everything in this world. Responsibility begins with responsible manufacturing, consumption and recycling. The numbered, limited edition clothes also return the value that belongs to them. This limited number of produced pieces also leads to an increase in their resale value. This will benefit the buyer who initially invested in our designs if he or she wants to resell the product, ”

Read more about the Ivana Helsinki resposibility program here:
https://www.sustainability.com/pages/

Ivana Helsinki has been a responsible brand in a holistic way ever since it was born. It has always sought new outcomes and insights into truly holistic, transparent responsibility and sustainability. Ivana Helsinki's departure from social media in spring 2022 is one concrete sign of the holistic responsibility.

Brand’s artistic director, founder Paola Suhonen has sparked debate about the reverse side of social media. “I don’t think I am as a person so interesting that somebody should follow me and my everyday life personally. I have never felt comfortable in the world of social media. However, our company Ivana Helsinki has been there and I have seen the change of the media and the world it represents very closely. However, I am no longer able to sign the values, practices, or visions of the companies behind the social media, or the visions they have for the future. I don’t want to encourage people to spend their time there, or donate their precious, unique lives to the grace of the algorithms created by the social media Giants. For these reasons, Ivana Helsinki can not be one of the companies to produce content to those platforms. The real root cause for social media's existence is also shopping lobbying. This, in its current scale, does not seem to fit in with my own values. I hope people only buy things that are meaningful for themselves. Unnecessary consumption should be avoided. Quality is more important than quantity.”




Ivana Helsinki has always looked to the future and made bold decisions, opposing the current trends. Values and holistic responsibility have directed the actions of Ivana Helsinki. Future responsibility is, in addition to materials and working methods, the appreciation of each individual, unique life, the increase of self-determination, the assumption of responsibility, the minimization of polarization and authentic presence. These topics will be further promoted in all our future activities. The conversation can take place elsewhere than on social media channels which take the focus off on the most important thing, life itself.

“As an artist, I feel that I even have the responsibility and privilege to challenge existing conventions, to arouse debate and to question the phenomena of our times. It would be lazy to be involved in phenomena just because others are doing the same. I have long been interested in natural sciences and want to bring facts to the greenwashing of the fashion industry. We have everything just simply too much. The volume matters.”

The “no social media” theme will also be strongly present in the show.
“In fashion, there is rarely anything new anymore, old is recycled and trends are mixed up. Ugly has been beautiful and beautiful ugly, silhouettes have been broken and different contexts linked together. This NO SOCIAL MEDIA is completely new and revolutionary. It is cool to wear a cap that reads this statement. Hardly any other slogan will get as much attention and open the debate than ”No Social Media”

Animal rights also play an important role. Ivana Helsinki is committed to be 100% vegan. In the future we will no longer see even wool or silk in the materials of our collections.

The show is produced in Paris by the legendary, one of the most prestigious press agencies in the industry, L’appart PR.
Their reference list you can find here:
https://www.lappartpr.com/references/

Ivana Helsinki has previously collaborated with L’appart PR for the Paris shows. The artistic director of the office describes Ivana Helsinki and the collaboration with the brand as follows:

”When we discovered Ivana Helsinki, 15 years ago, it was very different from "à la mode" fashion.
We immediately loved Paola's freshness and the breath of air her collections breathed.
The whole universe, the prints, the artistic aspect of the brand, so different from what was being done at the time, seduced us.
Long before anyone else, eco-responsibility was a subject, and much more than that, it was a way of living and seeing things, not a marketing tool but a real philosophy.
We have always felt part of the family and we’re always so happy to collaborate  on Ivana Helsinki’s exciting projects. After so many years, succeeding in maintaining such a DNA is a feat, and proof that Paola continues on her path and manages to seduce an audience.”


(Pascal Pache, art director, L’appart PR)

Ivana Helsinki has sales agencies in Japan, South Korea, China, the USA, Mexico and in various regions of Europe. Other events of the Ivana Helsinki anniversary year (autumn 2023 – June 2024) include the release of the Lone Deer Laredo band's third album, recorded in Nashville, vol 3/7 and the premiere of Paola's next long, full-length film, ”From Midnight Sun to Eternity".

Partners in the show:
Koli Tourism, Kouvolan Lakritsi, Never Too Lake and Seychelles Footwear

Additional information, interview requests:

Pascal Pache, art director, L’appart PR
pascal@lappartpr.fr

Paola Suhonen, artistic director, artist, Ivana Helsinki
paola@ivanahelsinki.com

Pirjo Suhonen, producer, creative agent
pirjo@helsinkidesignbrewery.com


https://photo.harpersbazaar.fr/paris-ivana-helsinki-defile-printemps-ete-2024-57138#-29494