Samuji (Q9085)
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Samuji is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Samuji |
Samuji is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Samu-Jussi Koski’s latest collection had traveled to Paris without him where it was being shown to buyers and, evidently, an editor or two. By text and by phone, he explained that the collection was inspired by the Ingmar Bergman filmSummer with Monika—less the nudity and domestic tension than a sense of the Swedish coast and a return to basics. “In the archipelago, the clothes need to be functional, multifunctional, actually. They need to survive the storms yet carry beauty and femininity,” he observed, noting how this essentially encapsulates his intention for the brand.To that end, there were linen shirts and ribbed knits in a natural shade of oatmeal that revealed bandeau underpinnings, plus pants cut comfortably wide and/or tapered. Femininity was nicely expressed in a fitted black skirt and a one-shoulder corresponding top, and the skirt was so versatile that it repeated across several images. Koski seemed proudest of the “super-staple worker jean,” which was only featured here in jacket form. He noted that, like other pieces in the collection, it is meant to have a long life span—a realistic consideration toward sustainability in the absence of more extreme measures.On the livelier side of basic were the print pieces, which included fruits that appeared spontaneously painted, figurative flowers, and the semblance of a wave pattern—which is to say, nothing too literal. The geometric motifs were dynamic without being overpowering. Flashiest was a hooded silver foil coat, which was nonetheless designed to withstand inclement summertime weather—throughout Scandinavia and beyond.
2 October 2018
If last season’s collection was all about a sophisticated Parisian socialite for Samu-Jussi Koski, then this season was about finding her weird, rebellious sister. The Samuji designer spent two months in Tokyo last winter while he was designing his Resort 2019 lineup. While exploring the city, Koski became enamored with its street style scene and subsequently decided to base his new outing on the striking and odd combinations of clothing he observed. He wasn’t focused on Harajuku or the hypebeast kids, but instead, he looked to the way that everyone, young and old, puts their clothes together. The Japanese mix colors and prints and textures in a way that is very far from anything he’d seen in New York or Finland. On top of Japanese street style, Koski was also looking at old photographs and paintings of clowns from the middle ages, which informed some of his proportions and color schemes.The best pieces were the ones that had a humorous and costume-like feel to them, like the oversize yellow coat made with a metal-lined bendable fabric. The odd mash-up of Tokyo style and clown culture also resulted in a green metallic top with puffed shoulders, a silver turtleneck with too-long sleeves, and a pair of lavender corduroy trousers. Though plenty playful, the clothes were all very wearable for customers who love a dramatic look and others who are fans of more low-key fashion. Koski could have left out the sweatshirt embroidered with a big Samuji logo. Otherwise, this Resort collection had a little more pop than usual and it was a pleasure to see Koski move in that direction.
14 June 2018
Samuji isn’t exactly a socialite’s label of choice in 2018. Those young women tend to favor cap-toe boots from Chanel and ball gowns by Rosie Assoulin. They aren’t in the market for a minimalist suit or a subtle staple sweater made with great care by a talented Finnish man. Despite the odds against him, however, Samu-Jussi Koski decided to try to find a touchstone in this elite, overtly trend-forward world. His starting point for Fall was a Polish painter from the 1920s named Tamara de Lempicka, who came from money and was married to a very wealthy man. Her work was mostly comprised of Art Deco portraits, highly stylized nudes, and the contents of her life. It was rich in every sense of the word. So, too, were the lives of many other artists, writers, and creatives living in Paris duringla vie bohème, a period with which Koski became fascinated and used to challenge himself as a designer. Instead of going that always-appealing-to-the-eye, architectural, and minimalistic route, Koski went big—big silhouettes, heavy fabrics, and sumptuous textures.Everything was polished. Velvet overcoats and suiting felt much richer than any Samuji looks have appeared in the recent past, as did the fluffy fur stoles and fur-trimmed hats. A marigold corduroy suit and a wool ruffled-hem ball skirt looked as though they were ripped right from De Lempicka’s canvas. The structure of some of the coats and jackets nodded to her Deco work as well, especially the thick wool jacket with visible seams and stiff, exaggerated shoulders. Koski’s work this season was certainly a departure from his sleek Scandinavian aesthetic, but the detour was well worth it. Looking at one extraordinary woman of great means and talent from the past, Koski turned today’s idea of classic socialite style on its head and that certainly felt like a breath of fresh air in a moneyed fashion world that can sometimes still come off—try as they might with flash—as a little stuffy.
21 February 2018
There was a lot going on in the Spring 2018 collection from Samuji. Designer Samu-Jussi Koski chose to follow his instincts this season, and instead of honing in on a single theme, he cherry-picked a few of his favorite, most inspiring people, places, and things. To start, he looked at the home and studio of architect Alvar Aalto, which is located on the same small island in Finland where Koski resides. Then, there were elements of Art Deco buildings in Cape Town, jungle animals and fruit, New York City subculture in the 1980s, and the work of Henri Matisse. Yes, it’s a lot to take in and try to fit together, but the fact that Koski’s Spring clothes came together so succinctly and beautifully is a testament to how adept he is at taking something abstract or esoteric and making it wearable.This season felt playful and perhaps a bit experimental, especially considering the core print of the whole offering—a painterly, pop-y, parrot print on tunics and tops. A hot pink short-sleeved dress and colorfully patterned bell-sleeved jacket and matching mini were also fun departures for Samuji. The knockout piece was a strapless black ankle-length dress with an A-line skirt and raffia fringe at the waist and bust. Aside from the strong ready-to-wear, Koski continues to expand and highlight his accessories, including the oversize circular shoulder bags, basket-weave top handles, tiny coin purses that looked like smooth stones, and a silk scarf with a painting of fruit by a local artist in New York. It was a robust collection which you couldn’t quite pinpoint to a specific origin, which is okay with a thoughtful line like this one. Sometimes randomness can be the most fashionable thing.
14 September 2017
For Fall,Samu-Jussi Koskiwas inspired by two very different women: Irish furniture designer and architect Eileen Grey, who was a pioneer during the early modernist movement in the 1920s and—skipping ahead several decades—Madonna during herBlond Ambitionphase.“I saw this documentary calledTruth or Dare, and I thought it was very moving,” the designer said. “I remember seeing the concert when I was a teenager and feeling really empowered by it. There is something there that feels somehow fresher than our own, crazy time right now. It somehow felt less judgmental back then.”The two influences mingled in interesting ways. Grey’s most famous creation is probably the chrome and glass side table that bears her name, and it undoubtedly informed the silver embossed pieces here; these were some of the coolest in the collection, crafted with a tinsel weave and left to fray in graphic lines. Other items, like the velvet flares, minidress, and a long black dress stitched at the waist to evoke a corset, certainly owed more to Madonna. And then there was pure Samuji: The designer cut his teeth at Marimekko and he hasn’t lost his taste for bold prints, all of which he creates himself. Those showed up on full skirts, floor-length dresses, and, perhaps most beautifully, on a belted coat. Outerwear is an important category for the brand, and this collection did not disappoint: Some of the strongest looks featured the kind of roomy, cooler-than-thou outerwear the designer has built a following with.
1 March 2017
It all started with a postcard. Samuji’s pre-collection designer, Jenni Väänänen, received a handwritten note with a portrait of Swiss journalist Annemarie Schwarzenbach, and just like that, she had a new muse. She pored over photographs of the traveler and writer from the 1930s, finding uncanny parallels between the androgynous adventure woman and the effortlessness and simplicity that are at the core of Samuji. Väänänen’s Pre-Fall lineup was an homage to Schwarzenbach’s streamlined, tomboy look, but one that was softer and just a touch more feminine. Instead of pleated trousers, the designer showed linen high-waisted, A-line pants in a smooth, light brown shade. In place of a straightforward trench, she created a dense linen overcoat and paired it with a matching miniskirt. Where there could have been structured men’s shirting, there was a sheer white and blue shirtdress. Oversize silk pajamas that Schwarzenbach might have donned during her globe-trotting days were reinvented with painterly dots and dizzying Art Deco motifs.Those original hand-painted prints, as well as the pops of lime green and orange, made for a lively break in the modern, minimal repertoire of Samuji. So too did the accessories, including an oversize, loosely woven straw sunhat and oblong clutch made from white and tan yarn. In her third season, Väänänen seems to be making slow but steady progress in putting her own smart, subtle touches on the Finnish label’s staple clothes.
9 December 2016
Never wanting for an arty inspiration, this season Samu-Jussi Koski turned to Oskar Schlemmer’sTriadic Ballet—colloquially known as simply theBauhaus Ballet.Its costumes lent themselves in particular to Spring’s painterly, geometric prints, but also imbued the season’s lineup with a kind of balletic grace. See: crinkled silk dresses in a lush palette of goldenrod, terra cotta, and cornflower blue that conjured up bucolic summertime pleasures; Koski said he was also mulling the idea of the ultimate Moroccan summer holiday. There was plenty of carefree appeal to pieces in spongy raffia, or a camisole in natural-hued leather, laser-cut to the point of being supple and feather-light. Patterned jersey pieces were poised to be tossed into a weekend bag and forgotten about; ditto a riff on traditional, wrap-front Thai fisherman’s pants.Samuji offerings continue to be notable for their unfussy, timeless appeal. The woman who covets the label’s clothing will covet it always, and not a piece from the new season would look out of place styled back to an ensemble from years past. New Yorkers can plan to shop Koski’s latest wares in person soon when his forthcoming Nolita shop opens. Spring’s spare sky-blue mohair, silk, and wool wrap coat is an investment buy if ever there was one.
10 October 2016
Much of fashion may be decamping to Tulum for summer holidays, but over atSamuji, an eye was turned to a more rustic type of retreat; specifically, the vacation home of writer, artist, and Moomin creator Tove Jansson on an archipelago in the Gulf of Finland. The rocky landscape and simple pleasures of Jansson’s spare seaside home informed the palette, but also underscored what the brand saw as a quintessentially “Resort” sensibility at the purest level: the idea of resetting oneself in the natural world.This lineup marks the second outing for Samuji pre-collection designer Jenni Väänänen; it’s an interesting infrastructure that the brand has implemented, given founder Samu-Jussi Koski’s full plate with the main collections, as well as his home goods range, Koti. Väänänen eschewed thinking about the garments here in terms of full looks, instead zeroing in her focus on the individual parts. Wardrobe staples are of perennial interest for the label, and indeed, there were plenty of classic styles rendered here in hardy, unfussy, and generally easy-to-care-for fabrics. To wit; substantial wool dresses, thick Breton striped tops, alpaca outerwear, and even a nice tote in oiled French canvas. The most playful pieces were a handful in custom prints that nodded subtly to organic motifs like lily pads and waves. If Finnish women have already fallen for arty, offbeat patterns like the aforementioned (it wasn’t long ago Koski showed a dress covered in zaftig, banjo-strumming mermaids), then their ranks are sure to get a bit more international in the months to come: the company will open its first stateside boutique on Prince Street come fall.
15 June 2016