When? 11th of April 2019, 10:00–12:00

Where? Undergraduate Centre, Lecture hall A1
Otakaari 1, 02150 Espoo

The lecture is aimed for the students and staff in Aalto ARTS and for other professionals working in the field of design, textiles and fashion. The lecture is open event for everyone interested in pattern and surface design and in high end fashion.

Mr. Minagawa will talk about his fashion work and creation of the brand ‘minä perhonen’. He will also elaborate on his design philosophy and define why pattern and surface design are important components in it.

The event will be in English.

YOU ARE WARMLY WELCOME!

Please register beforehand: https://link.webropolsurveys.com/S/565E30E822ACB567

Akira Minagawa

The designer and the founder of ‘minä perhonen’, born in 1967, Tokyo, founded ‘minä’ in 1995 (the name was changed to ‘minä perhonen’ in 2003). With the imaginative creative process and detailed drawings, he has designed numerous textiles for his own brand and the other manufacturers such as Kvadrat of Denmark, KLIPPAN of Sweden. His creation goes beyond fashion and also towards lifestyle, on which he sees a wide range of possibility to design. He offers illustrations for Asahi Shimbun Newspaper and the NIKKEI Newspaper, and some other picture books.

In Finland, Mr. Minagawa collaborated with Artek designing a durable interior fabric for Artek’s Three-legged stacking Stool 60. As well, he held the ‘minä perhonen’ pop-up shop in Artek’s store during the Helsinki Design Week 2016.

‘minä perhonen’

The name of the label ‘minä perhonen’ has originated from Finnish language, as the designer Minagawa sympathized with Scandinavian culture when he first visited Finland at the age of 19. Minagawa has a strong personal relation with Finland and visits us annually for connecting and collaborating with other designers and brands while promoting his own world-famous fashion and textile brand.

”Minä means ‘I’ and perhonen is ‘butterfly’ with a wish to make many beautiful designs like those of butterflies’ wings. Our design process begins with sketches, which are made into story-telling textiles. Also, we aspire to develop new materials and techniques, collaborating with many production centers at home and abroad. We create a dress not for a special day but for every ordinary day.”

https://www.mina-perhonen.jp/en/

The New Children’s Hospital Chapel in Helsinki received new liturgical textiles designed by Terhi Laine, a master student at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. The design and execution of the textiles was the subject of her master’s thesis. Thesis advisers were professor Maarit Salolainen and textile artist Katri Haahti. The textiles were woven at Lapuan Kankurit, a company that wanted to support the New Children’s Hospital. The chapel will be consecrated on December 6th. 

The key concept of the design was comfort. The collection aims to convey solace and comfort, be welcoming as well as delightful and bring colour to the lives of the little patients, their families and the hospital personnel. The collection is based on a repeat pattern named ”By your side” which consists of several different motifs. 

The motifs are related to the concept of comfort and Finnish nature, and they also contain a deeper symbolic meaning. Users can pick the motifs and messages they find comforting at that particular moment. The designer took into account the chapel’s diverse range of users, especially children.

”One of the main goals of the work was to emphasize a child’s perspective in the space. Children will surely see and experience the textiles differently than their parents”, explains Laine.

Designing the textiles was challenging given the exceptional group of users of the chapel. Moreover, the chapel space is also used in secular purposes. A third challenges was combining the designer’s own visual expression with the traditional liturgical textile art form. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, who commissioned the work, specifically sought out to find a young designer who could bring fresh ideas to the ancient art form.

”Traditionally, liturgical textiles have had certain tone and style, and they haven’t always been designed with the most modern touch. Laine’s collection of textiles succeeds in not only renewing the entire art form but also conveying comfort by using themes found in nature”, states Virpi Sipola, a Leader Advisor in Pastoral Counseling from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

The final collection consists of an antependium, a pall (chalice veil) and a stole, all three in four liturgical colours, a funeral pall in three sizes and ten floor cushions for children.

Photo credits: Eeva Suorlahti

Additional information:

Textile Designer & Master student Terhi Laine
Department of Design, Aalto University,
ilonasidesign@gmail.com, p. 040 5710 619

Professor Maarit Salolainen
Department of Design, Aalto University, maarit.salolainen@aalto.fi

Leader Advisor, Pastoral Counseling Virpi Sipola
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, virpi.sipola@evl.fi