The New Vanguard: Finnish Designers VAIN and vitunleija® Take New York Fashion Week by Storm

We love what we do and trust our intuition with doing stuff. Not trying to impress others and being as genuine as possible, getting inspiration from daily life and culture. Subtle cultural references have always been present in our designs. It’s also about focusing on our brands core which is providing an alternative aesthetic for love. Love doesn’t look the same for everyone and is most definitely not pink heart balloons and chocolate. Doing your own thing always pays off.

We’ve always been doing upcycled items and when McDonald’s asked for us to design a collection for them, we instantly though that it should be done from their old workwear. The old workwear has familiar colors, designs, logos etc. so it was fun to play with the silhouettes as the McDo brand was always following the final design. We played with the idea of McDo being strong brand on the rural areas of Finland where we grow up and McDo was the one thing overseas that was present. It was also a place where we hangout with friends, and we have many memories associated with McDo.

VAIN challenges the conventional perception of love, from pink heart balloons and chocolate, presenting it in all its beauty and harshness providing an alternative aesthetic for love. Love doesn't look the same for everyone and shouldn't be earned; it should be ever-present. With SS25 we’re focusing on our own brand and its core. Not taking a stand on industry this season but just standing strongly behind our own mission of bringing heart into people’s lives. Every product we make has a heart in it. We believe that every heart we put out on the world brings something good with it.

We’ve been doing a lot of stuff but the fashion as a medium of course gets the most attention. I think we’re going to focus on that for the next seasons and see what comes after.

Genuine content and cultural references, there’s no silver bullets and the only right answer is interesting stuff that people are eager to share with friends. We play with a surprise effect a lot and trying to do things that the community is not always expecting.

Since inception, social media has become one of our biggest tools. We’ve grown in social media and with it being such a huge part of the brand, we’ve learned to adapt to the fast trend cycles of it. We never had any outside financing or paid marketing, so social media has been the platform for us to reach our audiences.

We approach social media quite impulsively to keep the raw feeling and connection to our audience. Often, when we’re shooting new lookbook photos, they’ll be online within two hours of the shoot. Everything is done in house, so everyone involved has a great understanding of the brands identity. While we work fast, we work super surely.

The classic fashion week cycle, collection based creating has never really been our focus. Alongside our already established classic pieces we’re presenting the vitunleija® ’lo Capsule Collection. It pays homage to our deep roots in streetwear and hip-hop culture. The capsule collection reimagines the items like the traditional polo shirt, transforming them from their origins with a more conservative audience to a key piece in contemporary youth culture, influenced by figures like Chief Keef.

Music and Streetwear really go hand in hand and quite naturally. Whether it’s our design team or the rappers performing at our live shows, we’re all friends at the end of the day. It’s mostly about “what we could do together”. The events are where our whole brand ethos come together. We do this for the community. Followers on social media are one thing, but seeing everyone come together in the same place at the same time is unmatched. It’s amazing to create lasting memories for people by bringing their favorite artists together in a manner that can’t be seen anywhere else. Also, we do a lot of stuff for free to give back to the people. We used to be the kids in the crowds.

We believe the best things happen quite naturally. You could call us coming here a market study, we’re poking around and seeing what our place would be in the international stage. The scene we’ve got going on in Helsinki is really vibrant and special. While we’re pushing our own agenda, vitunleija® is also a front for all of Helsinki. For a long time, streetwear in Helsinki used to be really similar to what people were doing here in NYC, but at a tiny scale. What we’ve done at vitunleija® is take it to the next level and push it to the mainstream from the underground. We gave the market what wanted, and others have followed in our footsteps.