With a new Spring/Summer 2025 collection shown at Copenhagen Fashion Week, Rolf Ekroth is the former social-worker-turned-professional-poker-player – and now designer – with a quietly confident aesthetic vision
- Who is it? The eponymous clothing label of Finnish designer Rolf Ekroth
- Why do I want it? Striking aesthetics that ensure the continuity of traditional Finnish craftmanship via contemporary silhouettes
- Where can I find it? Rolf Ekroth is available to buy through The Wasted Hour, Germany, and Nighthawks Japan
Who is it? A former social-worker-turned-professional-poker-player, the game soon had Finnish designer Rolf Ekroth “banging his head against the wall,” unable to see a future in the field. So, on a friend’s advice that he pull at the thread of his interest in fashion, Ekroth enrolled in sewing classes at his local community centre. “I didn’t read the description, and I turned up and there were like 20 grannies there,” he laughs, “I tried to run away but someone yelled after me, ‘Are you the lone man who signed up?’”
The patient encouragement of his community sewing group meant that when Ekroth was later accepted into the renowned Aalto School in Finland, where he studied under Tuomas Laitinen, he had a quiet confidence in his technical ability and aesthetic vision. While still completing his undergraduate program, he was named Young Finnish Designer of the Year and was a finalist at the 2016 Hyères International Festival of Fashion, where he took home the Galeries Lafayette Prize. Such explosive success attracted the attention of investors looking to reboot Finnish heritage brand Terenit and also support Ekroth’s namesake label. “We decided to launch both at the same time [at Pitti Uomo in 2019],” he reflects. “Looking back, it was realistically too much for me as I was straight from school. But the collections are what they are, and they got me here.”
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the investors decided to hit pause on Terenit alongside their support for Ekroth’s own label. “I abandoned my label for a while, but during the pandemic, Finnish arts and crafts were one of the things that I really fell in love with again,” he reflects, “and although I’ve now been doing the brand independently, it wouldn’t have been possible without collaborating with local businesses.” In his latest collection entitled Lavatanssit – named after the curious Finnish tradition where “people dance stone-faced to romantic music, like they’re having the most miserable time ever” – he collaborated with local yarn supplier Novita. “Over 20 per cent of the Finnish population know how to knit, it’s a very popular pastime,” the designer explains, “so we’ve produced knits for the show and then people can buy the knitting patterns straight after.”
Why do I want it? Finland may not be known as an international fashion powerhouse, but to work quietly outside of mainstream fashion cycles has allowed Ekroth to precisely articulate his material dialogue between Finnish craftmanship and more contemporary, global aesthetics. Dowdy floral textiles are given a loud lift through his now-signature painterly print which is then tailored into perfectly cut suiting. Heritage garments like aprons, knitwear, and folkish skirts, are neatly structured through a streetwear lens – an apt nod to his country’s love for the outdoors. Each collection is a jubilant assertion that the analogue crafts of Finland’s past can continue to penetrate future trends.
Ekroth’s vision is not just on a local vertical: he collaborates consistently with diverse businesses across Europe out of an acute awareness that fashion cannot exist in a silo. When he relaunched his brand at Pitti Uomo in 2021, he worked with Finnish energy company Fortum to develop a recycled textile made from straw. For this season, he has worked with Novita, Happy Socks, and Puma, as well as continuing his relationship with Kalevala – a Helsinki-based jewellery designer who works exclusively with recycled materials and donates 30 per cent of profits to charities worldwide.
Ekroth continues to participate in Copenhagen Fashion Week’s New Talent program and has recently begun showing with Sphere Showroom in Paris. And herein lies the humble magic of Ekroth’s work: by working within so many international markets, yet remaining anchored to his Finnish heritage, he is a curious, active promoter of preserving ancient arts and crafts within contemporary technologies.
Where can I find it? Rolf Ekroth is available to buy through The Wasted Hour, Germany, and Nighthawks Japan.