Catharina Eden has a beautiful name and an international background. She has been lucky with many other things as well – she launched her debut collection Catharina in London in January 2006, less than a year after graduating from the Design Institute of Lahti University of Applied Sciences.

Luck is not the only thing that has taken her to this point. Hard work and good self-esteem have also given her the opportunity to work for Alexander McQueen and Ben de Lisi, as well as for the British tabloids The Sun and The Mirror. These experiences have widened her network and prepared her for her own collection.

”Working for Alexander McQueen was extremely instructive and it widened my insight about what it’s like to work in fashion in London,” she says. “I worked for the creative laboratory, which develops experimental things the way the designer wants.”

“For example, McQueen might want a bird print. After seeing the concrete print on a fabric he might say that the birds don’t seem mean enough,” Eden says with a slight laugh. “Then the staff makes the birds look meaner.”

”Working for McQueen wasn’t as glamorous as I thought. On the first day my job was to create a Victorian jacket, from making the patterns to sewing two prototypes, in one single day. I didn’t have a clue about making a pattern for a collar like that. I even had to ask how to thread the sewing machine. I finished the job in time, but I was totally exhausted,” Eden shakes her head. “I was later asked how long it took before I cried. It’s said that everybody cries on the first day.”

Luxury for an independent woman

Catharina Eden has been working as an assistant for fashion houses, an assistant of the fashion editor in the yellow press, a designer for a company that makes clothes for TopShop and other high-end retailers, and as a sales assistant at Harrod’s. All these have settled Eden’s mind about her own target group.

“You recognise the Catharina woman on the street. She is independent, cares about her appearance and appreciates beauty and quality, but she’s not necessarily a career woman.”

Eden’s target group can actually be described with the same adjectives as the collection: clear, high-quality, feminine, elegant. The collection is, due to its quality, priced to a high-end market.

”When I design, I think about the needs and desires of my target group. In that way my collection is commercial. In my mind the collection combines commercialism and artistic points of view.”

The collection, which was in Finland for the first time at the PopFashion event at the beginning of September, is the first collection for Eden. The next collection for spring and summer 2007 has already been sold to boutiques in London.

Heart and mind wide open

Slender and stylish Catharina looks like she could model for her own collection. She was born 24 years ago as the youngest child of an English father and a Finnish-Swedish mother. Eden, who has lived all of her life in Finland, attended a summer course at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London during her high school years. One of the subjects of the course was fashion, which became a real moment of revelation to her. She had found the right field for her.

Later on, she applied to the Design Institute of Lahti University of Applied Sciences to study fashion design. The university opened the doors for her on her first try.

The idea of establishing a company was born and developed during her studies. Eden gives much credit to her teachers, who supported her in creating her own collection and company.

“You just have to find the courage to do it. You can’t take the negative feedback into your heart,” she says and presses her fist to her chest to reinforce her message. “I cannot say that having a traineeship in a great fashion house would be easy, because it’s not – but if you try enough, you’ll make it. It’s possible to end up where you wish by pulling the right threads, piece by piece.”

”I visited my old college, the Design Institute, last spring. Many of the younger students asked a lot about my traineeship at Alexander McQueen. You cannot be afraid of trying – if you don’t ask, you don’t get. I hope that both designers and students will get more courage to try.”

Eden sums up, “The world won’t eat you, and you’ll make it back if you want to. The flight to London takes only three hours – it is less than the drive from Helsinki to Tahko, [a popular skiing resort in Finland], which is not far away from anywhere in Finland.”