And Ivana Helsinki got on the Paris fashion week!!!
Destination: Paris 1/2
IVANAhelsinki’s journey to the catwalks of Paris Fashion Week has required ten years of learning, working and networking.
By Heini Lehtinen / Photos by Kristina Lampila
IVANAhelsinki presented its collection in an official fashion show at Paris Fashion Week on 2 October 2007 – it was the first Finnish new-generation fashion label showing at the fashion week. The ten-year-old label has clearly become more international in the past few years. IVANAhelsinki stands out and stirs a debate.
The idea of having an official fashion show at Paris Fashion Week didn’t come up overnight. “We have attended the showroom at Hotel Ritz for five times, and started to negotiate about a fashion show with the organizer of the showroom a year ago”, says
Pirjo Suhonen, the marketing manager of IVANAhelsinki. “We started to make actual preparations for the show in May this year.”
“However, the fashion show in Paris is not the first one we have had abroad. It’s about the tenth – the previous ones have been seen in Tokyo, Manila, Germany and London, for example.”
Stepping to a new level
”We have been working for IVANAhelsinki for ten years now. If you want to reach a certain level, you have to show in Paris, London or New York fashion weeks. We have come up with Paris Fashion Week – it’s the place to be seen for us.”
”We have created a wide network in the past ten years. This network partially enabled our show. For example, support of the federation [Fédération Français de la Couture, du Prêt-à-porter, des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode] has been very important for us.”
”Every showing label has to have a local PR agency with a good reputation and special knowledge in fashion show PR. A mandate from the right agency will attract attention in the media”, says Suhonen.
”We visited several PR agencies in Paris. The agency we chose were recommended by many people we know and also the chemistry between them and us seemed to work. We also have a longer deal with them, and they will take care of borrowing clothes to shoots in the future, as well as our relations with the French and international press.”
Big invest to a small company
It’s obvious that a fashion show requires plenty of resources – and that the expenses run high. Pirjo Suhonen won’t reveal the costs of the show, but she admits that it’s a six-figure number. Kauppalehti Presso (weekend paper of a Finnish economical newspaper) wrote on 24 February 2007 that the costs of even a short fashion show at the New York Fashion Week easily climb up to 100 000 dollars. The costs of IVANAhelsinki show are probably quite much the same – in euros.
”We haven’t really done free work for the fashion show, but all our family members have helped a lot, of course”, tells Suhonen. “Also our cooperating companies have had a big role”, she says indicating to companies such as Blue1 airlines and Smurfit Kappa, the company behind the invitations.
”We haven’t compromised anything in the show due to costs or any other things. The production, music and visual image of the show have been made uncompromisingly according to [the designer]
Paola [
Suhonen]. The only compromises have been made in details irrelevant to the appearance of the show. This mainly means issues such as delivery dates”, she continues.
Personality and originality are essential
A fashion label needs to be original, individual and different to stand out from the flood of labels. IVANAhelsinki has taken stories as their tools from the beginning – who wouldn’t remember the match factory owner
Ivan Paolovski from the early days of IVANAhelsinki?
Diamond, Stripes and Revolver, the IVANAhelsinki collection seen in Paris, is built on the base of ’traditional’, slightly melancholic love story. Instead of a traditional rectangle invitation, IVANAhelsinki sent international media and guests a disarming 27 cm tall bambi-shaped invitation, which enchanted the PR agency, media and guests.
The invitation didn’t just enchant, but also worked – twice as many people as expected came to see the show. Dozens of people were left outside in the drizzle in front of Hotel Ritz – also many international journalists.
Even though they missed the show this time, they have another chance to see IVANAhelsinki on catwalk at Paris Fashion Week on March 2008.
”One fashion show doesn’t really make it”, reminds Pirjo Suhonen. “The next show will be held in a completely different location in Paris in March. We have already taken a look of some suitable locations, but we haven’t done the final decision yet. We can’t take Suomenlinna Fortress Island (off Helsinki) to Paris, but our next venue will remind us more of Suomenlinna than Ritz”, she smiles.
www.ivanahelsinki.com
source:
www.fashionfinland.com
Anyway here are some photos of that ss 08 collection:
http://www.fashionfinland.com
