Marimekko’s approach to sustainability in products is reflected in timeless design, long product lifetimes and carefully considered material choices.
Marimekko products are designed to stand the test of time – both in use and in their prints, silhouettes and colors, remaining relevant from one generation to the next. Our aim is to offer aesthetically lasting design, use long-lasting materials and create future classics while advancing circularity.
Timeless design is at the core of our product philosophy
Our design philosophy is based on timeless, functional and high-quality products that bring joy to several users over the course of their lifetime. For this reason, timeless product design is the mainstay of our sustainability thinking. Sustainability considerations are embedded in the everyday work of all Marimekko teams and across different stages of the process, from design and product development to material choices and designing for combinability within and across seasons.
Throughout our 75-year history, our aim has been to create timeless design and future classics. One example of Marimekko’s approach to timelessness is our continuous collection, which consists of classics in ready-to-wear, bags and accessories, and home products. Products in the continuous collection are often available for years or even decades, such as the Tasaraita shirt, first introduced in 1968. A more recent example is the Marimekko Maridenim collection, designed in line with circular design principles.
Design, printing and product development work closely together
Finland remains an important manufacturing country for Marimekko: around one million meters of fabric are printed every year at our own textile printing factory in Herttoniemi, Helsinki. Our factory is one of the few industrial-scale textile printing factories in the Nordic countries.
Printed fabric and the expertise related to it have always been at the core of our business. New printed fabrics and the products made from them are created through collaboration between professionals from several disciplines, and it is important that our designers can work close to the printing factory. In addition, the factory serves as an innovation hub for our key differentiator – the art of printmaking – and enables active participation in research and development projects that improve our products and operations.
Material choices and preferred materials
Material choices are a key part of the sustainability impacts of our products. We increasingly use certified organic, regenerative and recycled materials, and we continuously develop our material portfolio while taking both environmental and social impacts into account.
We monitor the origin and impacts of materials in our value chain and keep improving transparency so that we can offer customers more information about our products.
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Circular economy and extending product life cycles
Ensuring circular value chains is one of the most important priorities for the fashion industry. At Marimekko, we aim to enable circularity through a wide range of measures implemented at different stages of the value chain. For example, we are increasing the share of recycled, organic and regenerative materials in our collections. As part of our design and product development, we also seek to choose materials and fabric qualities that can be recycled with currently available technologies.
By adopting material innovations, we can in the future move toward circular materials that can be reused several times without compromising fiber quality.
We have documented design principles that take the requirements of the circular economy into account, and, for example, the Marimekko Maridenim jeans collection was designed in line with these principles.
We want to help our customers recycle pre-owned Marimekko products. In Finland, our home market, Marimekko has the Marimekko Pre-loved marketplace for second-hand and vintage products, designed to help consumers extend the life cycle of Marimekko items even further.
Product quality, care and longevity
High-quality materials, careful design and manufacturing, and continuous quality control help ensure that our products stand the test of use and time. We monitor product quality systematically and continuously improve it together with our suppliers and partners.
Proper care and maintenance can significantly extend a product’s lifetime. We provide our customers with information and guidance on how to care for, use and maintain products so that they remain beautiful and usable for as long as possible. The use phase is an essential part of a product’s life cycle and environmental impact, and proper care can help reduce these impacts.
Read more about product quality, care and longevity ›
How sustainability is built into Marimekko products
Sustainability is built into the life cycle of Marimekko products – from design and material choices to manufacturing, use and longer-lasting value.
- We design our products to be timeless and long-lasting. The environmental and social impacts of materials guide our choices, and our design work takes circularity principles into account.
- In manufacturing, respect for human rights, safe working conditions and responsible practices are emphasized throughout the value chain.
- Long product lifetime, ease of care and repairability support the wise use of resources and help products move from one user to the next.