Marimekko and Me

Big poppy.

I don’t really like florals, which is strange because I love flowers. Even in the most humbling environments, like a garden patch ridden with trash and chicken bones underneath the J train. You won’t often hear me scorn such classic design elements, but florals simply set my eyes wandering elsewhere.

The florals I do find myself drawn to are few and far between. I’ve tried, for the sake of this post, to parse out my floral type, but I think it’s an “I know it when I see it” kind of thing. Some things are for your brain to know and for your mind to guess at.

Here’s what I do know. I’m averse to frenetic floral patterns like the ditsy and liberty varieties, that feature tiny, overcrowded florets that blend into a multicolored tv static. I prefer my clothes to have a good amount of tonal clarity, and I find patterns like this to read as muddied and ambiguous when observed from more than a few feet away.

Liberty floral pattern

For some reason, the same delicacy of small flowers that enchants me in real life reads as prudish and stuffy when rendered as clothing. The bigger the flower, the more I seem to respect it.

It makes sense then, that this linear function summits at a certain Finnish flower.

Marimekko’s Unikko Poppy.

This bold, cartoonish flower is the antithesis of the dusty, matronly florals I disdain. Far from stuffy, it has a comical element to it. Flowers are small beings, typically associated with delicacy and purity, while this one is audacious, un-blinking and larger than life. It is a little creepy, like a sunflower, its abyssal HAL eye gaping at you as you try to discern its intentions.

It comes as no surprise to learn that this design has a rebellious origin story. In 1964, Marimekko’s CEO Armi Ratia had declared that her avant-garde design house would never create a floral print. Like myself, she considered them overused and un-modern, and banned her designers from producing any of the sort. In protest, artist Majia Isola secretly painted Unikko (meaning poppy in Finnish). When Ratia saw it, she adored it, and the rest is history. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that works of art born out of protest become some of the most timeless.

Why do I love Unikko so much? Do I identify with it? Yes…but not because I think I’m reinventing the wheel or something. It’s more so that in its design, I see reflected so many of my values and aesthetic preferences. Boldness without obnoxiousness, simplicity without flatness, richness without indulgence, edginess without exclusivity.

Or maybe it just comes down to childhood nostalgia.

My mom loved the Unikko poppy and featured it as bedsheets, table runners, and on her five year old. I can confidently say I would wear this dress today, sans Yayoi Kusama wig. It made me feel like one of my beloved polly pockets, who dressed in bright colors and drove flower cars. Looking at it now, it reminds me of Sandy Liang’s look that she wore for the drop of her red satin ballet flats (iykyk).

One of my most prized clothing items, and certainly my most worn, is my green Unikko mini skirt.

My Unikko mini skirt and bedsheets, styled with my Miu Miu SS 1999 kittens

I stumbled upon it on Depop for $40 and was immediately won over by nostalgia for my parents’ home and the soothing olive colorway. It’s been Frankensteined as hell since it arrived in my possession. I shortened it myself several inches as soon as I got it because it was dangerously close to pencil skirt territory, had it taken in professionally, and then mended it myself again after I tried to squat in it - a faux pas for 100% cotton mini skirts.

It took me a moment to sort out the best styling option, because its design is so proprietary to the 60s that all my modern tanks and tees just looked wrong with it. I studied up on what mini skirt maven

Viv Chen

does, and found that she stays true to the decade - polos, button downs and other classic shirt styles.

About the skirt, people always remark “oh yeah, you love that skirt”. Meaning, they don’t like it very much. There are seemingly endless styles and “-cores” that would be considered trendy right now, and 60s mod definitely hasn’t been one for a while.

We didn’t think the scorned y2k style of the early aughts would come back, and it did. So, I don’t think a twee/mod revival of the late aughts is off the table either. I will be here waiting with my big poppy skirt.

Thanks for reading.