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Here’s Finland’s new rising designer name to watch
We speak to Tuuli-Tytti Koivula after winning the ALPHA award 2023.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
21 Mar 2023

During Copenhagen Fashion Week, Nordic talent incubator ALPHA presented 10 strong graduating fashion students’ collections: Desirée Bjurinder Fritzon, Elma Leminen, Hanna Hanhela, Hedvig Ljungström, Julie Lundgaard Christophersen, Kaapo Sinervo, Marie-Louise Guldbæk Andersen, Samuel Westerberg, Sasha Heinsaar, and Tuuli-Tytti Koivula. The designer lineup showed innovative fashion that balanced the experimental and the functional, focusing on hand-crafted details and voluminous shapes as well as technical and tailored silhouettes.

— The designers invite us to think, reflect and dream, ALPHA director Ane Lynge-Jorlén said at the award ceremony after the show. Their compelling, beautiful, odd, responsible and thought-provoking work draws up an exciting future of Nordic fashion.

The ALPHA Award — including a cash prize and a study trip to UEDA College of Fashion in Osaka in Japan — was presented to Tuuli-Tytti Koivula.

— Tuuli-Tytti impressed us with her ability to bridge fantasy and function, reality and beautiful storytelling. Every detail is thought through. Her range as a designer across silhouette, material and categories is exceptional. Tulli-Tytti shows maturity beyond exception. The collection is coherent and eloquently shows development of ideas into finished pieces, says Lynge-Jorlén.

Backstage, after the show, we asked Koivula to describe the collection.

— It’s adventurous, playful, detailed, and sustainable.

Tell us about your background. And what do you do today?

— I’ve been studying at Aalto University, where I did my MA and BA. I have a background in alpine skiing, I was racing until I was 25, and the inspiration for the whole collection came from the alpine skiing world. Currently, I’m a design assistant at courrèges in Paris, and in the future, I plan to create my own brand and expand my creative world and visions.

Quite a good start here and now!

— Yes! For me, it all started when my mum was sewing and she had a lot of siblings and when they all met, I was surrounded by handcraft during my childhood. So, that was the seed.

Also, tell us about the fabrics.

— All of the prints are drawn by me. There are a lot of hand embroideries inside the fabrics and I made them by hand. The inspiration for the prints came from the view I saw when I was training in the Alps. I saw the glaciers melting and then, at one point, I saw flowers growing through the snow. So, it was bittersweet but beautiful. The collection also includes a pressure-knitted top, where the shape of the sleeves is from the traditional Austrian costume, which is now part of Unesco’s tangible heritage, Koivula concludes.