Young Designer of the Year 2025 is Enni Lähderinne
Young Designer of the Year, Enni Lähderinne, skillfully combines knitting, ryijy weaving (ryijy is a traditional Finnish woven pile rug), and jewelry made from recycled materials in her competition entry. Her work is a tribute to everyday fantasy, Finnish handicraft traditions, and intergenerational memory.
Lähderinne, who holds a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University, will be awarded a 5 000 e scholarship donated by the Finnish Fair Foundation and will be featured at the I love me event at the Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Center 17–19 October, 2025.
The competition jury was impressed by Lähderinne's strong and comprehensive conceptual thinking and the aesthetics she represents. According to the jury, Lähderinne has a coherent and bold world of her own, and her competition entry features a beautiful contrast between materials.
"In keeping with the spirit of the times, Enni uses recycled materials and combines them very skillfully. Her designs also reflect the history of fashion and its glamour, which she finds in Christian Dior's New Look as well as in the aesthetics created by her own grandmother", says Kristiina Raitala, chair of the competition jury and editor-in-chief of Gloria magazine.
Fantasy is present in everyday life
The theme of the Young Designer of the Year 2025 competition was Fantasy. Lähderinne approached the subject through personal memories.
“Fantasy is often seen as something cinematic and distant, but for me it is present in everyday life – in how my grandmother created magic for her family through clothing, even though life did not take her to the opera stage as a singer, as she had dreamed”, she says.
Her competition entry consists of a hand-knitted top and a ryijy-woven bottom, whose fringes refer to both the Karelian handicraft tradition and Dior's iconic New Look silhouette. The silhouette is a tribute to her grandmother, who copied it for her own wedding dress.
Lähderinne also uses recycled materials in her work, such as cotton blend yarn and monofilament, or fishing line, purchased from a recycling center, which add delicacy and structure to the outfit. Fantasy can also arise from the reinterpretation of materials that are considered everyday.
"My work also highlights how everyday components can be used to create something uplifting: something that looks like high fashion", the designer explains.
Jewelry is also an essential part of Lähderinne's work. In her master's thesis, she studied body-sized jewelry and wanted to continue in the same vein, but using more everyday materials—the jewelry that crowns her competition entry is made from old stainless steel cutlery.
The knitwear and jewelry in her master's collection have also attracted international attention. They have been requested for Lady Gaga's album photoshoots and loaned to Noah Cyrus.
Interest in understanding materials and making things herself
Lähderinne's rare Scheuermann's disease and the associated brace treatment limited her clothing choices until the end of middle school, but as a side effect, it sparked her creativity and interest in fashion.
"I couldn't wear the same clothes as everyone else, so I had to figure out how to dress myself. That was the beginning of me thinking about clothes in a different way", Lähderinne says.
She studied fashion and clothing design at the LAB Design Institute in Lahti and then at Aalto University, where she completed her master's degree.
Having won the Young Designer of the Year 2025 competition, Lähderinne hopes to gain an internship at an international fashion house, particularly one specializing in knitwear.
“Knitwear is a niche area, and couture knitwear is often subcontracted to artisans. I would love to design them at a fashion house – that's my dream."
As a designer, Lähderinne wants to bring new voices to the fashion world: different backgrounds, body stories, and perspectives.
"Fashion is a medium that everyone uses, even if they don't realize it. If a wide variety of people enter the field, it will affect how we interact with each other in everyday life. That’s the message I want to convey”, she reflects.
Young Designer of the Year is a competition for fashion design students funded by the Finnish Fair Foundation. The competition seeks out rising talents in the field and new, creative, feasible designs. The competition was held for the 31st time this year.
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