I visited Vigevano town on shoe business, that is for the making of the men’s leather dress shoes for next summer. I found out that Vigevano, 40 km from Milano, was home to the first ever industrial shoe factory (1866), the first Italian footwear machinery manufacturer (1901), and produced the earliest rubber-soled tennis shoes in [...]

Don’t you love to have genuine, tasty ingredients from a near-by Chinese grocery? Or, original Chinese home food? If you live in Prato, Italy, you have an unusually large selection of Chinese options from which to choose, especially given that you are in, well, Prato, Italy.[i] In fact, this Italian city is home to the [...]

At the Milan Art Gallery, Sozzani, we had a look at some 30 photographs by Loretta Lux. The back drops were like stylized paintings and the children looked very stylish and mature, children that never smile. Loretta Lux, born in 1969 in Dresden, works digitally on the children’s photographs to reach an impression that the [...]

The Magnolia wooden shoes, which Carrie Bradshaw, a.k.a. Sara Jessica Parker, wore in a Sex and the City episode, were in our collection in year 2000 through 2003. If you want to learn how to make a pair by yourself, I have documented the whole process from pattern making to ready made shoes. Below, I [...]

White Moment street wear brand asked me to make a signature style design for their new sneaker line launched this summer. I was excited to do this collaboration, primarily because I am a heavy sneaker user myself. Also, it was nice to get back to where I started my career, with cool trendy sneakers. Leather [...]

I have worked with Hanna Sarén for about ten years now. We have always headquartered in a Helsinki-based design studio, in one form or other: Kamppi and Punavuori, two locations each, and Ullanlinna at the moment. We have maneuvered through wholesale, trade shows, public relations, fashion shows, design projects and retail, across various fashion capitals [...]