Interview With The Minds Behind Vain- The Finnish Fasion Miracle

Vain is a brand that thrives on contrasts—minimal yet bold, playful yet dark, Finnish by origin yet globally relevant. Founded just three years ago by Jimi and Roope, the Finnish brand has already made waves in the industry, from their groundbreaking McDonald's collaboration to their innovative approach to upcycling and design. As they showcase their latest Fall/Winter 25 collection, we sat down with them in Paris to discuss their journey, creative process, and what’s next for Vain.

Hello internet. We're here with the founders of Vain. Please introduce yourselves, maybe to the readers that may not know of you.

Jimi and Roope: I'm Jimi. I'm the creative director, and I'm Roope, the brand’s CEO.

How are you feeling? How was the trip to Paris? Is it your first time? Probably not.

Jimi: No, it's not, we've been here multiple times. I used to come here a lot when I was younger, but now this is our third showroom, and I think the seventh or eighth time in the fashion week as a brand.

That's impressive. What year did you start officially? When did you have your first show?

Roope: We launched the brand three years ago, and our first show was in Pitti Uomo in January 2023, we later went to Copenhagen fashion week for a few seasons.

You’ve been around for a while. Starting out it must have been intensive to produce full on collections.

Jimi: It is hahaha, we kind of started this from nothing. We didn't have almost any connections. There's not that many brands in Finland, meaning fashion brands of course. There’s Marimekko, which is a pattern and home textile brand, mostly. But we kind of, all we had was me and Roope. Roope used to be my photographer. He took all the E comms and all the campaign pictures and all the other stuff, and suddenly we, just three years ago, decided to join our forces and make a proper, full-on  brand.

Vain the name, is it in english? Is it an anagram for pain? What's the story behind the name? 

Jimi and Roope: There's so many meanings behind the name. Because vain in Finnish means “only” or “just”, indicating limitation.almost nothing. In a way, it means nothing. Quite a contrast compared to english. We like to play around this contrast in our brand as well. We are kind of cute but dark at the same time. 

It must be around two years ago already, you had a collaboration with the Finnish McDonald's, how did that come about?

Roope: Yeah, their guys in the Chicago headquarters, they know about the collaboration, they have the clothing in there, they are super excited that it happened cause it turned out to be a huge success.

Jimi: Initially, they wanted to make some kind of influencer marketing campaign, we then had a meeting with them. We told them and their PR “Sorry, we are not doing anything that you wanted us to do, but, but we have an idea which will work if you let us do it” and they trusted us, and we made everything ourselves. We upcycled the collection from all kinds of old McDonald's workwear, did the campaign ourselves, as well as the memes and stuff, we shot them all in one day. We just kind of had this idea of collaboration and when we were presented with the opportunity we pitched it to them. 

You think they saw the vision from the get go?

Jimi: I think they kind of saw it, but they didn't want to trust us at first. But we eventually got them to agree to it. 

It turned out amazing. Looking back, that rollout had an insane impact, so many people know about this McDonald's collab. The week/month it came out it was everywhere. Shortly before your collaboration with McDonald’s, the Finnish rapper Cledos had a collab/his own meal with McDonald’s as well, correct?

Jimi: Yeah correct, we did the graphics for that too, for the Gladys collaboration. 

It was crazy at the time, especially when comparing the influence and global popularity. McDonald’s usually collaborates with some A-list celebrities like Travis Scott, but this rapper in Finland at the time had around 25,000 followers on Instagram. That's shocking. So McDonald's, such a well known global corporation, had a collaboration with a comparatively small rapper from Finland. 

Jimi: Thing is, there's only around 5 million people in Finland. So if you have 10,000 followers in IG, you're famous. It’s a whole different world in that regard.

Do you get a lot of feedback, especially back home?

Jimi: Yeah we do. And, of course, there's a lot of fans and a lot of haters, like always in everything. 

You mentioned that you have haters in Finland, that’s funny, what do they hate you for? We didn’t expect you to say that, is it a Finnish thing to be critical?

Jimi and Roope: People are like that in a way. In Finland, for most of the year, it's dark and cold, people don't want to talk to each other, it's a land of vampires. So there's a lot of opinions that aren't necessarily based on anything as well. Working people don't like things of that nature because they don’t get it. 

Understandable. Eastern Europe is in some shapes similar, especially like with the older generation and their mentality. Young people, they just want to get out of there and just live elsewhere in Europe. 

Jimi: Everybody asks us if we want to move out from Finland or want to live in Paris or in the States or in Asia, which is a big market for us. But as long as I can I want to live in Helsinki, because I love the calmness. I love that you can just focus on your own craft and have peace of mind. There's so many pros and to live in Helsinki, so it works for us.

You love your home country, and you feel comfortable there. It's always interesting to know which phenomenons of Finnish culture you like and feel inspired by, that you link, you connect to your creations.

Jimi: Well, we love Finnish melancholy. We love the darkness. I don't even know if  there's a lot of finish elements shown in our designs, because we’re minimalistic, I think it comes out naturally. 

Looking around now, there's belts, glasses, pants, everything. A long way from the moment you started. Congratulations, firstly on that, but the question remains, did you learn just along the way, as you went or did you study somewhere as well?

Jimi: I have studied sculpturing and cartoon animation when I was kid but at this point, I just wanted to create stuff, and I just had to go for it. Both of us are self-taught, there's so much information on the internet and we manage, learning every day, and of course, it's rough and complex at times. As I said, there's not that many finnish brands, so that's like, one of the reasons we want to make jewelry, we want to make jackets, we want to make leather goods and experiment further. 

You want to set an example and represent?

Jimi: Yeah. We want to make a proper, respected brand in Finland that makes all this stuff that people can buy.

Did you get to a point where you see some kids in the streets of Helsinki rocking your clothes and getting recognition?

Jimi: Yeah, of course. And even before I had the proper brand, I got a lot of roses from random people outside. 

Would you say that the younger generation was raised and taught on the internet?

Jimi: Yes, but we have one of the best fashion schools in Finland like Aalto University. The unfortunate thing is, we have so many great designers. Every single year there are so many great new designers, but there's no culture around brands. So they don't even dream about starting their own brands. They just want to work for Margiela, LV or whichever they prefer. Many Finnish people still don't want to be perceived as different, they still want to be a part of the mass and prefer not to stand out, integrating into the existing fashion industry.

Since we're here to talk about the Fall/Winter 25 collection you made, what is maybe a piece from here you would highlight that was considerably more experimental or challenging to create?

Jimi: Something I haven't done before, there's the bags. I love the bags. I've been using the black one ever since we got the sample in hand. I love it a lot.

The heart-shaped one, right? 

Jimi: Yeah, I like to design accessories as well. The puffer jacket with the heart hood is amazing. The leather pants with this white undertone, that gets a dusty look when you wear them in. The black jersey zipper hoodie, I have had this one on my table for so long, and there's so many ways to style this. Also pieces from our other line. These are all upcycled. Is made from textile waste from Finland. We're working on the production of the boots. I made the sample, like, three years ago, four years ago or something, and ever since, people have been messaging me asking me to release them. Until recently we haven't had a proper production line for them but now we're working with a manufacturer in Italy.

How do you go about creating a piece? Elaborate on your creative process.

Jimi: I listen to a lot of music. That's one of my go to things. I listen to a lot of dance hall. I've been listening to it since GTA five came out. That's the one Tommy Lee Sparta song that I fell in love with. Listening to music, I gather some references from, from dance, hollow trap or punk. The whole brand kind of started from mixing trap and punk references, because everything was DIY when I started. 

You also say that for as long as you want, you'd like to stay in Helsinki. Is there a place you really want to go that you haven't visited yet? 

Jimi: We’ve been traveling a lot. We've been in Korea, and I've been in Japan. I would like to go to the States more. I've been to New York and Washington, DC. Overall I’d like to travel all 5 continents.

What place in or outside of Finland inspired you greatly?

Jimi: I love Atlanta. I've never been there, but I have a lot of friends, like internet friends from there. Of course, Playboi Carti is a big part of my career, so I appreciate him a lot. Young Thug is one of my favorite artists. PeeWee LongWay and Gucci Mane, I've been listening to them for so long. 

We strongly agree.

Jimi: Ever since Young Thug’s trial began, people started appreciating his music more. There are older 2015, 2016, 2017, tapes he made that are trendy at the moment. 

What’s your favourite song of his? If it’s easier, choose a project.

Jimi: Not sure If that makes it easier. Slime season two is legendary. Slime season one is legendary. I've been listening to a lot of those unreleased mixtapes. He also just dropped some new projects recently. Out of all my favorite songs is Givenchy.

Could you highlight some of the challenges for starting a clothing brand?

Jimi: There's a lot of challenges coming from Finland and trying to make it in fashion. For us it’s mainly finding balance because we often try to do everything at the same time. We were doing collaborations, we were doing runway shows, we were trying to create another product line, and managing our online store.We had to cut off some of the things we have done before over which we've had mixed our thoughts. But at the moment, I think maybe that's still our biggest challenge.

That's very relatable. It's a challenge to many, especially creative people.

At the moment, we just want to focus on the product. We want to focus on the making great products and having great marketing. Simpler things since during the last few years, we have had a million projects on the table which blurred our vision in a way. We are focused on our own store in Helsinki and our online store.

Tell us about the first days or week of opening your Helsinki location.

Jimi: It was a mistake in a way. We had a small office in Helsinki, but we ran out of space. We had to get storage room for all the stock. And then Roope started looking for a new space, and suddenly we found this 300 square, massive old flea market space which had an underground level. The store itself is 50 square meters and we got 250 square meters of space underground. 

You said you have already worked with a few people, but if there's anybody else that you could pick right now on the spot that you could work with, is there a name that comes to mind?

Jimi: Of course there is, as I said, I'm fan of dance hall, so I would like to work with Tommy Lee Sparta,  Vybz Kartel, all the Gaza guys,but also Gucci Mane is one of my, like, childhood favorite artists, so I would like to work with Gucci Mane. The thing is, I don't want to push that too much. That's a Finnish thing as well, because we don't like to push ourselves to connect with other people, we aren’t persistent in that regard. Big stars or artists, they don't care if we reach out. So all the retailers, artists and collaborators come to us, and then we decide what we want to make. So I just, I'm just waiting for Tommy Lee Sparta, Young Thug, to someday reach out to work with us.

Hopefully they will. To round this off, what can your supporters and fans expect in the future? 

Jimi: The boots are one thing that all the people are waiting for. So we will get like two different versions of them, one with laces and one with zippers. Overall we got a lot of new clothing to release.