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Textile Industry and Design:
Kirsti Paakkanen Finnish to the
core
THERE'S ONLY ONE MARIMEKKO
“Marimekko’s reputation is bigger than the company,”
says Kirsti Paakkanen, the company’s president and owner.
The feelings that Marimekko arouses are such that sometimes
it seems to assume a human identity.
A look at Marimekko’s financial results is enough to
convince you that the company is in the rudest of health:
‘Marimekko’s sales increased dramatically. The Group’s
profit is excellent. The domestic market has exceeded all
expectations, but exports, too, have done surprisingly well
in spite of the economic situation. The company’s market
capitalization has almost doubled. Marimekko is producing
better results all the time ....’.
“Marimekko has never been in better shape financially,
operationally and spiritually than at present,” Kirsti
Paakkanen confirms.
When Paakkanen acquired Marimekko 12 years ago, the company
was not doing so well. During her time at the helm the company’s
profitability has never stopped improving, and the targets
set for the operating units have been exceeded. Product design
has made great advances, the designers’ standing has
been strengthened, the marketing improved, the organization
streamlined and the efficiency of the operations and quality
control improved at all levels.
“I wanted to create secure jobs. Our employees have
always been loyal, and they don’t readily leave here
for other pastures. We are strong: we’ve been able to
put Marimekko back on the world map and that’s extremely
important,” Paakkanen emphasizes.
Although to the outsider Marimekko is strongly personified
in the shape of Paakkanen, she herself talks in the ‘we’
spirit. Paakkanen, who loyally wears black and, very occasionally,
white and decorates her home in the same colours, is often
asked how she can work among the strong patterns and colours.
On the other hand, Marimekko is perceived as looking like
its managing director. So was Marimekko made for Paakkanen
or Paakkanen for Marimekko?
It is said that the similarity can be seen in values and
attitudes. Marimekko and Paakkanen are made for each other.
Design first and foremost
For those who do not know, Marimekko was set up in 1951 and
is the leading Finnish design company in the textile and clothing
sectors. The company designs, produces and markets high-quality
clothes, interior decorating textiles and accessories with
the Marimekko product brand in Finland and abroad.
The fountainhead of the operations right from the outset
has been creativity. Marimekko’s founder, Armi Ratia,
said that Marimekko’s deepest being is not the products
but the force of the creativity from which ideas are generated
which, in turn, are expressed in the form of products. Kirsti
Paakkanen has made design the most important function at Marimekko,
and the rest of the company supports and serves it.
“I believe that it’s Marimekko’s duty to keep
Finnish design strong and take it to the world. Finland’s
excellence must be seen in design. Nowhere else in the world
are there natural surroundings like those in Finland and nowhere
else can, for examples, such printed patterns be created than
here in Finland.”
Paakkanen says that Marimekko now has its best designers
ever. When a new designer comes to the firm, they go through
Marimekko’s rules, i.e. Paakkanen’s principles,
together, after which the designer is given a free hand. The
principles are crystallized in the words: feelings, respect,
truth, enthusiasm, discipline, rewarding, voluntary help,
overall responsibility and caring.
“All the designers have internalized Marimekko’s
being and essence so well that we’ve never needed to
go back to the rules.”
Illuminating everyday lives
Paakkanen’s management philosophy has aroused interest
elsewhere than in Finland. Numerous studies have been made
of Marimekko, its operating philosophy and its performance.
Companies have also been interested in the results of the
new marketing and organizational thinking implemented at Marimekko.
“Paakkanen has received considerable recognition for
her work, including being Woman of the Year, Businessman of
the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2001 the Helsinki
University of Art and Design awarded Kirsti Paakkanen an honorary
doctorate.
Paakkanen teaches that Marimekko is an example and itself
operates as it says. Paakkanen inspires, demands, develops,
ensures, commits herself, seeks something new, identifies
the truth and sees to it that everybody knows what is going
on. “The most important thing is respect for the customer.
A human being always takes centre stage. Our starting point
is still the one from which Armi Ratia began: we want to produce
joy and light, good, high-quality products that will illuminate
people’s everyday lives.
Company = life
Paakkanen’s way of thinking that a company is like life
is well suited to Marimekko’s human nature. Paakkanen
herself often says that people are divided into two camps:
those that do their work and those who live their work. Paakkanen
is one of the latter.
Marimekko has always lived a life of fluctuations. Success
at different times has been linked to how well the company’s
identity, operations and the image formed from them have corresponded
to reality. The world is never ready: it requires continual
adaptation. When Kirsti Paakkanen says that “ahead of
us are still many unused opportunities”, she says it
immediately afterwards in another way: “everything’s
still incomplete”.
“I’ve defined happiness in my life as being gratitude.
I’m grateful for those moments and things that each day
brings. Dark days are important, too, because then the other
days are brighter.”
Paakkanen does not use words that are mere word mongering.
Fairness, enthusiasm, caring, intuition, respect, knowledge,
feelings, a positive attitude, strength, joy and courage sum
up Paakkanen - and Marimekko.
Everybody knows Marimekko
Awareness of Marimekko has surprised Paakkanen. “Huge
numbers of ordinary people know Marimekko amazingly well,
in Finland of course, but also in New York, Tokyo or Madrid,”
Paakkanen says. “Marimekko’s a bigger celebrity
than you could imagine from the size of the company. The turnover
in 1992 was almost 50 million euros and there were 340 employees.”
“We’re conquering the world calmly. We’ve
grown every year and opened new retail stores after careful
consideration. Self-sufficiency is important to us and we
want to take good care of it. We’re going forward sensibly
and safely.”
Marimekko has 25 retail outlets of its own in Finland and
one in Sweden, in Stockholm. There are subsidiaries in Sweden
and Germany, agents and importers in 12 countries. Exports
account for about 27 per cent, the most important export countries
being Sweden, the USA, Germany, Japan, Russia and Norway.
Marimekko has also succeeded on markets which are generally
quieter, such as Australia, Great Britain and Spain. Marimekko
has about 800 retailers around the world.
Another Armi Ratia or herself?
Kirsti Paakkanen has a great deal of respect for Armi Ratia,
Marimekko’s founder. “Ratia’s business idea
is still brilliant,” Paakkanen says. “When I came
to the company, I gave a lot of thought to my role. I wondered
how I could respond to Armi’s legacy. Finally it became
clear that I’d continue Armi’s work and spiritual
legacy by being me. I take forward the work that she so splendidly
started, but as my own self.”
The original business idea combined a strong belief in the
future, the freedom of creativity, joyfulness and strength.
Ideas are generated from everyday life and reality. Ratia
said in 1978: “Marimekko was the first printed fabric,
because this opportunity was at hand at that time. The idea
could have found expression in the form of music, verse, architecture,
why not a new kind of bread, a textile, furniture, ceramics,
glass, jewellery, cars, a flower shop, ice cream or toys.
It’s good to know and keep in mind when you’re thinking
about the Marimekko of the future - and the present.”
“The company’s board of directors talks a lot about
figures. I myself often say that if there’s nothing else
to talk about, soon there’ll be nothing but those figures,
and they won’t be enough.”
When Paakkanen bought Marimekko
Life carries you, it is said. Paakkanen says that Finland
carries Marimekko. Without the spiritual and financial support
gained by Marimekko down the years Marimekko would not be
in existence now.
Conversely, it can also be said Marimekko carries Finland.
“Finland is to me number one. I’m so Finnish that
at Marimekko we don’t compromise Finnishness,” Paakkanen
enthuses. Some production had to be transferred abroad, but
Paakkanen shrugs it off by saying:“very little”.
Paakkanen believes that a world without Marimekko would be
terribly empty. “Everything that comes from the heart
lights up hearts,” says Paakkanen, borrowing from Socrates.
When Paakkanen bought Marimekko, the whole of Finland immediately
fell into paroxysms of ecstasy. Paakkanen recalls one man
who when news of the purchase was announced phoned and wanted
to cry on her shoulder: the man felt as if Karelia had been
taken back from the Russians.
Paakkanen treats people in a relaxed, friendly and fair way.
Maybe that is why she is easy to approach. When complimented
in a Helsinki street for her qualities as a member of the
opposite sex by a man obviously the worse off for drink, Paakkanen
simply replied. “Thank you. What women’s magazine
do you read for you to know about them?”
Only one Marimekko
“Feelings are the world’s greatest natural resource,”
says Paakkanen. Marimekko’s task is not to leave anybody
cold, but to make an emotional impact.
“People are proud of Marimekko and feel it’s their
own, saying, as it were, “this is our thing”. Marimekko
is a symbol of Finnishness. If there were no Marimekko, the
Finnish identity would be lacking something.”
“There’s no other Marimekko. Marimekko’s like
the boy or girl next door. We don’t rise above anybody;
we’re like a friend and pal - and you don’t leave
your pal.”
Photo: Marimekko’s and Iittala’s first joint
product family came onto the market in the spring of 2003.
The selection includes products ranging from crockery to aprons.
Published 2004
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