MINNA PARIKKA

In ‘Featured Designer' we untangle designer minds through five up front questions. Our fourth designer under the spotlight is Helsinki-based shoe designer Minna Parikka, dreaming of opening a boutique in London one day.

1. What drives you?
- The passion to create sensual, beautiful and fun shoes and accessories. I have known that I want to design shoes since the age of 15 and I have worked for it ever since. Designing shoes is my mission in life. I am so lucky that I am free to design what I want and to run my own company.

2. Where do you do your best thinking?
- I do my best thinking after an inspirational trip to somewhere exciting. The best ideas come to me when I am totally alone in peace and quiet. I am very spontaneous and impatient, so conceiving new ideas entertains me.

3. Who would you love to collaborate with?
- I have just collaborated with illustrator Inka Järvinen on a project with silk scarves. Her prints will be a part of my S/S 2011 collection as well, which will include the launch of a new and exciting collection of bags. In the future I want to continue collaborating with illustrators to create more printed accessories. Collaborating with strong, independent, joyful people is what makes my job interesting. I have previously collaborated with Paloma Faith, Beth Ditto from the Gossip, Dita von Teese and Maja Ivarson from the Sounds and I am looking forward to more celebrity collaborations in the future.

4. What is the biggest challenge in today's society?
- It's important that people would not take themselves so seriously and to be able to be more playful with them selves and their image. There is too much of seriousness around in other aspects in life so why not take your image as entertainment.

5. Where would you like to be 2020?
- Now that my brand is celebrating it's 5th anniversary I am so happy that I have a great fan base here in Finland and that we are stocked in 13 countries internationally. I have a clear vision where I want to be and I am on my way there. In 10 years I would like to be an seriously established designer. In the end of this year I will be moving to London and one of my dreams is to have my own boutique in London one day.

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More info:
Minna Parikka

Where to buy:
Tatty Devine
Poste Mistress
Palette
Miss LA LA's