Helsinki street fashion on display in Belgium

The Hel Looks – street fashion from Helsinki – exhibition is on display at the Designcenter De Winkelhaak in Antwerp, Belgium from 14 October to 30 November 2011 as one of the international events linked to World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

Hel Looks is a street fashion blog that has become an international phenomenon and which documents interesting styles from the streets of Helsinki. The blog was set up in 2005 by freelance writer Liisa Jokinen and internet entrepreneur Sampo Karjalainen. The website that started from the couple’s photography hobby has now expanded into a changing exhibition of photographs.

Hel Looks is a tribute to creativity and experimentation, and to people who are inspired by surprising things and who create their own way of dressing. Most of the people featured in the blog dress either in second-hand clothes, clothes they made themselves or creations of local designers. The blog was selected as The Fashion Blog of the Year by Elle Finland in 2010.

- The people of Helsinki have the skill and courage to make their own versions of international trends. Helsinki has some wonderfully unfashionable dressers, and the city is fortunately not so trendy that it is trendy. You don’t need to fit in with the crowd and look the same as everyone else. If everyone were trendy, photographers of street style would suddenly have nothing to photograph and the city would lose its interest, says Liisa Jokinen.

In addition to photographs, the exhibition also contains a pop-up shop selling clothes and jewellery made by Finnish fashion designers. These include Nene Tsuboi’s Mitsumaru wooden shoes, classics by Vuokko Nurmesniemi and knitwear by Aino Vainio.