Tuomas Merikoski is known for his fascination with Finland’s teen spirit, but this collection – titled Uusi Fantasia (Finnish for New Fantasy) – felt more grown-up. Not that the designer has gone all twin-set and pearls on us. Instead, a suburban dressy side came to the fore – roomy but fluid tailoring with utilitarian patch pockets and ruched dresses in iridescent two-tone velvet.
With their bucket hats, techy Windbreakers, shirts and drawstring pants, there was an urban-girl-goes-camping feel to the latter section, an outdoorsy theme that evoked Finnish countryside in the springtime but still had plenty of fashion cred.
The cute headgear was a nod to the label’s latest collaboration, based on “The Dangerous Journey,” a tale from cult Finnish comic-book series, “The Moomins.” This was explored through a range of customized vintage garments from the line’s limited-edition artisanal art capsule: A grunge shirt was spliced with some Moomin action, a beaten cropped biker jacket had a hand-painted monster at the back and a sweater artfully frayed and reupholstered with tone-on-tone patent leather panels and embroidery had a certain lost-youth sweetness to them. But it didn’t always gel. Handiwork aside, the asymmetric dress with supersize asymmetric bow and garish green Moomin print was overkill, even for the most die-hard of fans.