LIFE STYLE







Officer and WifeThe status of officers' wives was ambiguous at best. In military law, the wives were camp followers because they were civilians, whereas, laundresses had a legal standing in military law insofar as regulations were concerned. There were no restrictions on officers marrying as there were in some European armies.


The social caste system in the old Army was very rigid. The women often divided themselves into social groups. Some of the women who inhabited officers' row were refined and cultured. Others were just simple-mannered and warmhearted army girls who knew no home but the regiment. There was always the would-be fashionable, frivolous kind as well.

• 2009-01-14 :
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Start with Style

On a busy weekday afternoon during Helsinki Fashion Week, restaurant Kuusihokki – one of the few remaining 50s-style Helsinki eateries
where cigarette smoke is still allowed at lunch hour and a pint costs a few euros – is packed. Models wearing the spring 2005 IvanaHelsinki collection, Rouva (Lady), saunter up and down the aisles as invited guests and the press are treated to an old-fashioned homestyle lunch of mashed potatoes and sautéed beetroot. Music from a bygone era fills the dining room.

The Hemma line brings IvanaHelsinki's trademark cotton prints to bedding and housewares.

If you follow fashion, chances are you've heard of Paola Suhonen, 30, founder of the IvanaHelsinki label. Currently one of the hottest names in Finnish fashion, Suhonen blurs the division between fashion and design with her practical line of printed cottonwear, which is sold in more than 20 countries. Since starting her family-run company in 1998 (sister Pirjo handles publicity and marketing), she has become a local media darling, expanding her own label to include homewares while freelance designing for other Finnish brands including the venerable tricot house, Nanso.

"I am much more a designer than a fashion designer,” says Suhonen adamantly, her fresh-faced Scandinavian features framed by a blonde fringe. “For example, at the inaugural Helsinki Design Week this September IvanaHelsinki will have a much stronger presence than during Fashion Week."

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