Do you find that nightlife and the party scene in Helsinki influence R/H? In the whole of Finland people are really laid back and they dress really relaxed and kind of mellow, but I think Helsinki has a really different atmosphere. I think people put a lot of effort into dressing up. They’re going out, buying fashion and wearing it and showing it off and supporting the Scandinavian brands. It’s definitely a part of people wanting to show that they know about things. There’s a really crazy club scene also, really strong gay culture in Helsinki so that I’m sure if you would come here you would see that as well. If you go to Stockholm, everyone’s really nicely dressed up, but not too much of anything. It’s really casual and also really simple. In Helsinki you can see a lot more details and crazy stuff as well— all of this kind of goes into the line.

So what’s the reception been like? The reception has been just so overwhelmingly good. We’re just so happy about it because we’ve only been around for a year. This was our third collection, and it’s only the beginning. It has been amazing to see so many people interested in R/H In Scandinavia, it’s not typical for a Finnish label to be getting this much attention. It’s usually the Swedish or the Danish ones that get all the press and everything. And I’ll give it to them, because their designs are beautiful and they have so many good labels, and we don’t have that many. We’re being carried in great retailers like Wood Wood in Berlin and we’re now in Henrik Vibskov’s shop in Copenhagen as well. But also just press and bloggers from everywhere writing about us. Just seeing people at the festivals this summer for example, we saw so many ordinary girls wearing our dresses, which is the most important thing. Regular girls, like us, buying the label, it’s not just like an art piece that you go and look at at a shop, you also want to wear it.

Do you feel like you’re putting Finnish fashion on the map? Well, we hope so. There aren’t that many labels coming from Finland everyday so that’s why it’s an easy task. If you do fashion and you’re from Finland someone will mention it. The Swedish press are usually really interested or maybe even suspicious about fashion if it’s from Finland. There are so many really talented people from Helsinki and Finland doing really creative stuff. We Finns have a really good background in design and also like prints and colors and that kind of stuff that has been going around since the ’40s and ’50s and that’s why it would be nice to be part of the new generation of Finnish fashion.

Photography John Francis Peters. Styling Deidre Dyer. Model Javana Mundy. All clothes by R/H. All shoes by Minimarket.