Idaliina Friman

My bachelor thesis is a womenswear collection inspired by the life story of my great grandfather. Large part of my research material consists of personal archive pictures of my great grandparents venturing the Lapland’s fells and wilderness.
My great grandfather was born in the early 20th century into a prestigious Finnish Swede family. After the Finnish civil war broke and his family was killed, he had to flee to Lapland all alone. Because there was no going back to the old way of living - nor to the South of Finland, he had to stay and live in Lapland permanently. This meant for my 10-year old great grandfather building a whole new identity and abandoning his former privileges, family name and mother tongue. He learned to speak Finnish instead of Swedish and changed his name to a Finnish surname - yet no matter how hard he tried to bury his old self, he always carried it with him.
Inspired by the story of my great grandfather, I decided to develop a fictional story to my collection; a narrative of a 19th century noblewoman fleeing Lapland and through her journey her victorian clothing evolves into functional winter gear. At the same time she still tries to hold on to her former self and to the memories that are fading throughout this journey. This also indirectly reflects my own feelings of rootlessness that I have dealt with since moving from a small Arctic Circle village to Finland’s capital Helsinki.
I was inspired by the victorian era as a clothing because I’ve been intrigued by the flamboyant, yet impractical aesthetics, which have been foreign to me living with very pragmatic fashion and clothing restricted by the extreme weather of Northern Finland. The idea of pompous 19th century clothing represented something very new and exciting to me, rather than the functional wear that I grew up with. By combining these two clashing elements together, I tried to tell a story of the main character’s trip through Lapland in -40c° weather conditions in a way that the outcome would be credible to the story.
While studying 19th century clothing, I tried to avoid obvious historical references. I decided to execute classic draped silhouettes with functional drawstring fastenings, and used paddings and insulation instead of corset and crinoline bones. With these modifications and the choice of functional fabrics, I was able to create a contemporary look of the voluptuous silhouettes, also making it easier to combine products into different concepts as an everyday wear.
Creating a collection with ambitious shapes and showpiece products. I felt it important to use ecological substitutes for sportswear materials, and to make up for the excessive amount of fabric used for creating the voluminous pieces. The collection consists of eco-wadding made out of recycled plastic bottles, deadstock fabrics and recycled yarns. I also used ecological colours in the dying of the wool fabrics, as well as ecological heritage crafts such as needle felting.
Designing clothes is a form of storytelling for me. The clothing is largely linked to the character wearing them. The collection’s story, research and the clothes themselves were linked together by imaginary figures, whose personas work as a reference point in my creative process and design.

Photography: Juho Huttunen