Helsinki is becoming super-trendy and even has its own top model agency. Gordon Sander pays it a visit.
Laila Snellman, founder, and owner of Paparazzi, Finland's premier model agency, is in a flap; sorry, she can't talk, things are just too crazy.
“Angelika needs a babysitter," she exclaims, referring to one of her top international models, Angelika Kallio, who has just flown in from New York to do a Marimekko shoot at the design firm's Helsinki headquarters.
“And those posters. Just look at those posters," Snellman continues, pointing to the agency's latest, lovingly produced circular, wherein Angelika, Pipsa, Ninja, Saimi, and the rest of her exotically named, exotic-looking valokuvamalli (fashion models) pout and tout their wares. The posters look spot-on to my civilian eye, but Snellman insists that one or two of the photos are botched. “I have to send them back.
At the center of Paparazzi's bustling command room in downtown Helsinki, head booker Nina Tavela is on the phone, reassuring an overseas client anxious to know the whereabouts of their newest superstar. At 17, Ninja Sarasalo's intriguing, Innuit-like looks are already familiar across Europe as the face of Jean Paul Gaultier. “Yes, I know you want her." Tavela, herself a former model, interjects.
"Everybody wants her." This is Scandinavia's hottest model agency on a typically hectic afternoon. What was, not so long ago, a rather sombre, if soulful, Baltic harbour city where, as Bertolt Brecht once put it, people were "silent in two languages", Helsinki has, seemingly overnight, metamorphosed into a hip, happening and hospitable metropolis. The "Europeanisation" of this capital city began five years ago when the Finns voted to join the EU, soldering ties with the Continent. Over the past 12 months, the city's coming out has accelerated as Helsinki has geared up for its duties, which began last month, as host city for the EU presidency and, following that, a European City of Culture 2000.
The worldwide popularity of the "Finnish look', as exemplified by Paparazzi's girls and boys, is perhaps the most glamorous aspect of this coming of age. "It is a sublime moment for me, says Snellman, during a relaxed moment at TTK, the restaurant she opened with several other partners last year. "Everything I've worked for seems to be coming true."
To be sure, it has been a long climb for Snellman. She started Paparazzi, the city's first model agency, way back in 1983 when Finland still hovered in a kind of twilight zone between East and West. At the time, there were fewer than 100 working models in Helsinki alone. Sixteen years later, there are more than 20 model agencies spread out over this sparsely populated country of 5m, and more than 1,000 working models. The “Finnish look” is hot.
“The funny thing, of course, is that there isn’t one definitive “Finnish look,” Snellman says. “But if I had to define it, I guess the best way would be to say what it isn’t. It isn’t Swedish and it isn’t Russian. It’s somehow in-between.”
Whatever it is, it is in demand and embodied by the singular-looking Sarasalo. The raven-haired sensation from the city’s suburbs was discovered by Snellman three years ago and has since caused a sensation in Finland with her outlandish behaviour and comments. She has become a role model for Finnish teens.
"Ninja definitely breaks the mould," says Snellman, both with her look and her behaviour. She's not afraid to rise above the crowd, unlike so many Finns." She is now based in Paris, where she has become a prominent member of a posse of models known as "the Finnish mafia"
"I love it there," says Sarasalo, who is visiting Paparazzi. "But it's always good te come home. Besides, Helsinki is just as cool as Paris these days.”