“From the beginning our audience was a niche audience, but it was worldwide. Crafting community is a very wide spectrum of people who make stuff for themselves and who are happy to just try. It is so satisfying to have something concrete in your hands at the end – something that you made, that then exists there in the world. You connect through it, and we need that these days.
In 2021 Mila Moisio and Kaisa Rissanen transferred their sustainable clothing brand into a sewing magazine with a global audience. Mila Moisio shares what it takes to make a new physical imprint stand out in the age of digital.
It is so satisfying to have something concrete in your hands at the end – something that you made, that then exists there in the world.”
We launched our clothing company Tauko Design in 2008 with a focus on sustainability and reusing textiles. We traveled to different fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, Berlin and London. At fashion weeks we met a lot of people with similar brands – people trying to find sustainable ways to make fashion, but also struggling a lot to make it sustainable financially.
We always knew we would create a physical imprint. People are so overloaded with digital.
I began to think it would be great to offer a platform for sustainable brands and showcase their designs. At the same time, we realized that a big part of why our customers liked our designs is because they knew the story behind the brand. People are really committed to clothing and to fashion when they have a personal relationship to it.
We were inspired by a knitting magazine called Laine. They had established a network of makers and created this beautiful magazine. With their support and help, we thought we’d see if we could do a sewing magazine in a similar way. From the beginning, it was a communal project, where makers could tell stories about their relationship to clothing and readers could use patterns to make those clothes.
In November 2021, we released the first issue of Tauko magazine. Slowly after that, we made the magazine our focus and left the fashion brand behind. We always knew we would create a physical imprint. People are so overloaded with digital. We wanted something that you can have on your bookshelf and read time and time again. We thought about this with the printing. We wanted stitch binding so that the pages don't get lost over the years. And for it to be thought of as valuable, as a collectible that you will want to keep for a long time – and as a beautiful object as well.
Digital media is so fast in how it’s consumed. We wanted to take a step back and appreciate the slowness. The feel of the paper was important. We use a softer paper, which is relatively thick compared to normal. There is a quietness in its essence.
Digital media is so fast in how it is consumed. We wanted to take a step back and appreciate the slowness. The feel of the paper was important. We use a softer paper, which is relatively thick compared to normal. There is a quietness in its essence.
We looked for paper that is environmentally certified, that has the highest standards that you can have. My relationship with paper is very much linked to what I learned about mass production during the years we ran our fashion brand. Industrialized production has made almost everything disposable, and just like our clothing brand, our magazine aims to restore the value of materials. At the end of the day, it's all about valuing and acting on the environment's terms.”
As told to Daniela Walker
Photo by Tommi Aittala
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