At Matter and Shape, the design salon running until 9 March at Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, Marimekko is doing something unusual for a fashion and lifestyle brand – it’s opening its print archive. For the first time, the Finnish company is publicly displaying more than 3,500 designs spanning 75 years – including newly developed prints from its current collections – allowing visitors to see the fabrics, swatches and artworks that underpin the joyful and optimistic visual language we all know and love today.
Founded in 1951 by Armi Ratia, Marimekko built its reputation on an idea that textiles could be vehicles for art. But rather than treating pattern as decoration, the company invited artists put their own stamp onto the canvas, resulting in a recognisable graphic vocabulary of bold florals and abstract compositions that came to define the brand. Over the decades, the house has collaborated with designers such as Maija Isola, who produced more than 500 prints for the house until the 1980s, and textile artist Fujiwo Ishimoto, who designed around 400 prints between 1974 and 2006. Each helped establish Marimekko as a pioneer of print-led design.
Central to that identity is the company’s textile printing factory in Helsinki, where many of its fabrics are still produced. Unlike most global fashion brands, Marimekko retains much of the process under one roof – colours are mixed in an in-house ‘colour kitchen’, printing screens are engraved for each design and fabrics are printed, steamed, washed and inspected metre by metre by hand. Around one million metres of fabric are produced there each year, which is a scale that sits somewhere between industrial production and atelier craft.
For Rebekka Bay, who joined the company as Creative Director, that physical process is inseparable from Marimekko’s identity. And while many patterns are created and circulated digitally in the modern age, the brand continues to frame printmaking as something that links generations of designers working in different styles and media. That dialogue is what the installation at Matter and Shape sets out to show. As the presentation launches in Paris, Anima speaks to Bay about why the archive still matters, how a Marimekko print moves from artwork to fabric and why the physical craft of printmaking remains central to the brand’s future.
Why did it feel important to bring Marimekko’s print archive to Matter and Shape this year?
Our overarching theme for 2026 is the art of printmaking, highlighting different aspects of what it means to be a thought leader in the art of printmaking, celebrating our lifelong commitment to the craft. We opened our first ever Paris flagship store in Le Marais in late 2025 with a store concept that took inspiration from the architecture of our textile printing factory in Helsinki. Our printing mill is the heart of the Marimekko brand and where our bold prints and colours come to life. We wanted to offer visitors at Matter and Shape the opportunity to engage with our archival designs and showcase them alongside entirely new prints that are launching in our collections this year. To me, looking ahead always begins by looking back – allowing the past, present and future to coexist in our work.
Can you walk me through how a new Marimekko print is made – from the original artwork to the finished fabric in Helsinki?
We continuously revisit our archive of more than 3,500 prints, to rediscover and resurface prints from past decades in new and exciting ways, whether that be color or scale, new placements, materials or entire new techniques, essentially proving the timeless essence of our prints. At the same time, we continuously engage and work with a new generation of artists and print designers who work in varied styles and techniques, similar to how Marimekko designers have always approached the art of printmaking. Some work painting by hand while others cut shapes from paper to name a few.
The process of translating an original artwork into an applicable print starts from working closely with the print designer and our artwork studio to identify all the different elements in the print: colours, shapes, and the perfectly imperfect human imprint. We mix custom colours in our own color kitchen, engrave either cylinders or flatbed screens depending on the artwork and after all elements exist, we start the printing itself, followed by steaming, washing, inspection and quality testing, all under one roof.
What happens inside the textile printing factory that people might not expect?
We not only print around one million metres of fabric each year with every single metre of fabric being inspected by the human eye to detect any errors in printing to ensure the high integrity and premium quality of Marimekko products. But we have also hosted cocktails, dinners and concerts in the printing mill and more importantly utilise our printing mill as an innovation lab and home to our artist in residence programme.
With more than 3,500 designs in the archive, how do you decide whether to reissue a historic print or create something entirely new?
To me, the dialogue between archive designs and entirely new prints sits at the design philosophy of Marimekko. The timeless essence of our prints translates to the very idea that you are rarely able to pinpoint the exact time of a prints’ creation. We always work under an overarching theme for each year and evolve the idea seamlessly from early spring to late winter. Our print archive serves as both an endless source of inspiration and a constant point of reference for our collections alongside new designs that build the future archive of Marimekko.
Is there a particular favourite print of yours?
There are many! It would be impossible to choose one, but if pressed for an answer, my favourite archival print would have to be the diagonal Basso stripe by Maija Isola and my favourite new print that we are celebrating this year is one of our newest floral print design Kukasta kukkaan by Erja Hirvi that will also be the focal point of our activation during Milan Design Week.
In a digital design world, why does the physical process of printmaking still matter to you?
The art of printmaking is our unique DNA and what makes us different from any other brand. It’s a living craft that continues to showcase our point of differentiation and allows us to stay true to what established Marimekko as a world-renowned lifestyle design house 75 years ago. To me, it is extremely important to protect and nurture our lifelong commitment to the art and science of printmaking and continue evolving this craft into the future.
Our prints are not only about the pattern itself; our prints are our reason to be in the world, our reason to continue to learn, to collaborate, to be in dialogue with the arts.
Marimekko’s archive is on view at Matter and Shape, held at Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, until March 9, 2026
