Fashion designer Paola Suhonen challenged herself in honour of IVANAhelsinki’s ten-year journey. She decided to use elements she just doesn’t like in her latest collection.

However, the colours, materials and forms she shuns became a very IVANAhelsinki-like collection – sensitive as a fresh morning in the autumn, but also coarse as an old-time Finnish lumberjack.

IVANAhelsinki was now presenting its collection in the official Paris Fashion Week show schedule for the first time. The collection freshly differs from other collections with its personality. Paola Suhonen has become an internationally interesting designer, who renews, once again, in her collection for the autumn and winter 2008–09. Many elements familiar for the Finns are transformed into boundary-breaking fashion.

IVANAhelsinki’s collection Bird Ring includes plenty of black and grey, brightened with flaming orange, canary yellow, electric blue and glowing shades of coral. Isseymiyake-like forms, lumberjack checks and parrot patterns are toned down with sexy little black pieces and dresses made of stripped fine patterned cotton. The collection doesn’t include a single coat, which is quite surprising for a collection made for autumn and winter.

The show, accompanied by a cult band Au Revoir Simone from the Big Apple, gathered more than 400 visitors to Hotel Westin in Paris. Black environment and colourful light cables created an urban background and tension to the collection.

The show was opened with a short film Bird Ring, directed by Paola Suhonen. The film is all about the atmosphere of the collection and it’s currently available at IVANAhelsinki’s website.

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Also read and take a look at:
FF Gallery 8 October 2007 – IVANAhelsinki in Paris: Odd but Stylish
FF Phenomena 12 March 2007 – Evolution of an Art Brand