pink

one thing that i love, is pink. another thing that i love is finnish design.

the stars have aligned, dear readers, and if you could only step into my office...

so let me tell you a story.

once upon a time there was a finnish textile manufacturer called marimekko, which had its inception in 1951. perhaps you have heard of it. back in 1964 they employed a designer by the name of maija isola. probably you have not heard of her. however, you most certainly HAVE heard of her most famous design (well, you probably haven't heard of it, in that it is a finnish word and would mean nothing to most of you, but you have undoubtedly seen of it). it is called unikko. it is basically big stylized poppies. crate & barrel recently did a series of towels and shower curtains and whatever have you in this design, which is where i suppose most of you to have seen it.

anyway.

the original design, as i said, was released in 1964. it was red on white, and blue on white. over the subsequent years, due to the design's unprecedented popularity, it was released in black, camel, green, yellow, purple, red-on-red, blue-on-blue, etc.

now we're getting to the good part.

maija isola died in 2001, but her daughter kristiina isola continued to work for the company. as they say, she now designs printed fabrics and other interior decoration products for marimekko, while also being responsible for the new colour schemes and adaptations of maija isola’s fabric designs.

ah ha!

so it is now 2006, and it has been 40 years since maija came out with the unikko design. you would think, wouldn't you, that they would want to do something celebratory for the occasion? well darlings yes in fact they have. they released unikko in pink.

(brief pause whilst we observe the heavens opening and the songs of angelic choirs floating down)

i'm smitten. i'm addicted. i can hardly stand it.

i bought some, of course. three fabric panels in the small pink print, one large (i mean, this sucker is HUGE) panel in the original light pink print. they hang in my office. well, the three small ones do. the big one, well, it's big. it's 48 inches square. right now it sits on the floor leaning against the wall. but soon, it will also hang.

people come into my office now and say 'wow! pink!' actually, what happens is, they walk past my office, glance in, take another step, stop, come back to the door and stand there, and then say, wow, pink.

i love it.

anyway, just to assuage your curiosity, here is what it looks like:



i love it, i truly do.

(for those of you who are really paying attention, i must edit some of the above statements, in the interest of professional accuracy. marimekko claims to be issuing the pink design in honor of their 50th anniversary. but i can't figure out the math on that one. so i made up my own.)