3rd Christina Conference on Women’s Studies

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March 8th-10th, 2007

Gender and Representation Rebekah Rousi Masters of Philosophy Candidate University of Jyväskylä [email protected]

Marimekko: Women, Publicity and the Information Society This paper is about the study I have been undertaking for my masters research regarding the way that the image of the female producer (or Marimekko staff) and the image of the ‘model’ female consumer are constructed in Marimekko anthologies and publicity texts. During the presentation I will mention several key terms relating to Marimekko rhetoric and the theories being considered in this study. The Marimekko terminology that will be focused on includes the slogan “keeping with the spirit of the day” and the notion of the ‘Mari Girl’. Theoretical concepts that are employed include representation and articulation (Butler, 1990; Hall, 1986; Grossberg, 1992; 1986).

An underlying question that I would like you to consider when listening to this presentation is: “If Marimekko keeps with the spirit of the day then how does advertising construct and re-present the current status of ‘women’ in the Information Society?”

For those who are unfamiliar with the Marimekko Corporation, Marimekko is a multinational Finnish owned clothing and textiles design company which is known for its legacy of female leadership.

The company has often been considered a cultural institution and a symbol of

‘Finnishness’ rather than just a clothing manufacturer (Ainamo, 2003; 1996). The associations made regarding Marimekko’s female leadership and its exemplification of the role of the ‘Finnish woman’ (Koivunen, 2003) – i.e. a woman who is strong, independent, career-oriented yet nurturing – are frequent throughout media representations.

My research is an interpretive analysis on how this representational model fits into Finland’s industrial and post-industrial discourse, and indeed how this model has changed from one era to the next. Through Marimekko’s insistence on keeping with the spirit of the day I use the company’s advertising material to interpret the changes in the placement of the woman in Finnish social, professional and political discourse. In other words, Marimekko’s enthusiasm for keeping with the “spirit of the day” via appealing to and adjusting to social changes in Finland and abroad, may actually serve as an indicator towards the way that women’s societal placement is perceived. In this

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3rd Christina Conference on Women’s Studies

March 8th-10th, 2007

paper, my interest lies in the notion of ‘placement’. I am interested in following the social progression of the woman through monitoring placement in advertising, as this type of material provides a direct glimpse into the way societies (national and consumer) are attempting to mould and ‘sell’ the idea of where women ‘should’ be.

I will repeat once again Simone de Beauviour’s statement that woman “is not born, but rather becomes a woman”, emphasising that “woman itself is a term in process” (Butler, 1990, 33). If woman is a “term in process” then surely this process would follow a chronological path. The path I observe is Marimekko’s 1960s descriptions of the Mari Girl and how she seems to have either disappeared or changed in advertising material from the 1980s onwards. The Mari Girl may be seen as the Marimekko version of Helen Gurley Brown’s ‘Single Girl’. Both ‘Girls’ appeared during the 1960s alongside the Second Wave Feminist movements and the sexual revolution. Mari Girl was originally used by founding corporate head Armi Ratia to describe the ideal affiliate of the Marimekko Corporation, mainly the staff and loyal customers. The Mari girl is described as “a modern, liberally minded person with a sense of humor, commited [sic] both intellectually and artistically” (Sarje, 1986, 55). To cite another description, the ideal Marimekko consumer was a woman who did not have time to think about clothes due to being too busy thinking about families, careers and hobbies (Raikes, 2005).

A version of the Mari Girl, expressed by Sarje in 1986 (Rahikainen-Haapman et al. Eds.) established a narrative of her as an autonomous woman, whose life is at the mercy of sudden changes, and multiple roles [image 1]. The Mari Girl was told to be simultaneously a warm mother, “an excellent ‘home spirit’ skilled at cooking” in addition to being “a good mixer, mood creator” and “a keen fisherman” (55-56). Distinctions between Helen Gurley Brown’s Single Girl (Radner, 1999) and the Mari Girl lie in the importance of job selection, family and physicalities. Where to the Single Girl the main importance of working was placed on economic independence, to the Mari Girl a creative career position based on decision-making was important. Further, the Mari Girl, while being a professional in the first place, was also devoted to the family. Thus, emphasis is drawn away from a promiscuous figure of the sexual revolution and placed more towards the narrative of the ‘monument Finnish woman’, who has traditionally taken on all roles of the family as a result of the absence of men during wartimes (Koivunen, 2003). The last distinguishable feature of the 1960s and 70s Mari Girl was her description of being a woman of all ages, shapes and sizes, rather than serving as a renewed object of male sexual desire. All of these characteristics tie

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3rd Christina Conference on Women’s Studies

March 8th-10th, 2007

into the intricate connection between the representations of Marimekko staff, Armi Ratia herself and the Marimekko consumer.

Here the 1977 catalogue The Traveler (spelt that way) is used to demonstrate this relationship. This catalogue, which was designed in a series with another called Playtime, was printed in black and white format where the images were arranged in rectangular grids. The main ‘narrative’ of the catalogues appears in smaller, multiple scenes across double pages [image 2], while a double page at the beginning of each catalogue is designated to one image typifying the activities specified for the clothing. Text and images concentrate on defining particularly “The Traveller” as a competent professional, who is equal in all areas of society. For the 1970s Marimekko woman, travel was not just a means of pleasure but also an important component of career life.

Within the construction of “The Traveller”, or at least, the “Travelling Professional”, the Finnish business woman, is extended to the idea of an international business woman. The locally specific model of the Finnish female professional crosses national borders with her productivity. It is from this point onward, that the reader who is confronted by the Nordic characteristics of the tall, white blond-haired woman (looking surprisingly like Armi Ratia), and the bilingual (Finnish and English) names of the outfits, comes to understand that the Mari Girl, is a representation of a globally disseminating image of the Finnish female figure.

Crucial characteristics of both

catalogues are the actions of the models. The models are utilising the outfits through performing actions which reinforce the roles they have been designated.

For instance, in The Traveler several images depict the model reading and adjusting her glasses. In one image she seems to be checking a map, while in another image she is observing something unseen to the reader. “The Traveller” checks schedules and moves towards the camera as if to delegate responsibilities to employees holding the photographer’s position. On the large double page spread “The Traveller” is working in the back of a small plane, and in one of the smaller images, the pilot has changed positions and is sitting in the back peering out the window as “The Traveller” has taken control. This presents the image of a woman in such control that no position exists without her occupying it. The on-location images are so heavily detailed that the following images featuring “The Traveller” without a background, seem not to render her placeless. Her purpose and her position have been so well defined that both the reader and “The Traveller” know where she is and what she is doing even in the midst of no specific location. Neither the clothes, nor the models seem anonymous, both are characterised under the labels of the outfits. 3

3rd Christina Conference on Women’s Studies

March 8th-10th, 2007

This “name-calling” establishes a place for the Mari Girl (or Traveller) within the structure of language1 (in this case Finnish and English – international). Even the ages of the models within these brochures are varied they seem to be aged somewhere between their twenties to mid-forties.

In later versions of publicity material, mostly from the 2000s, a sense of context, or purpose, is eliminated. The models either have no background setting or are not engaged with this setting. Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that the models are industrially productive. For example they are not holding pens, planners or paper, and quite often they appear in an outdoor setting, to be merely captured in the moment of existing. Suddenly the busy workaholic has been turned into an early-twenties, slim, beautiful corporate clothes hanger, without place or purpose2.

In recent

advertising the female consumer can be read as a clothes consuming ornament, with the economic means to purchase quality designer clothes but not the occupation to support this budget. Examples of the non-functionality of the women wearing the professional wear can be seen specifically in the catalogues of the Ritva Falla Collection Autumn/Winter 2000-01, Matti Seppänen Collection Autumn/Winter 2004-05 and the Niina and Kallervo Karlsson Collection Autumn/Winter 2003-04.

In the above mentioned catalogues we are presented firstly with a young, beautiful woman whisking playfully through the architecture of Paris [image 3]. Solemn moments are captured where the model rests against a pillar, almost in camouflage of matching colours, as if a statue against the rectangular openings behind. She is there to be looked at, and not there to do. In the next images we have more snaps of the new form of traveller, this time sitting on their suitcases [image 4]. In both scenarios the suitcases are old. There are no signs that they are waiting for anything, and nothing to tell as to whether they are coming or going. The mood of the images is accessorisation, the clothing being displayed are mixtures of business and leisure attire, but apart from the earlier 20th century suitcases and golden background, there is no context.

Clearly there has been a separation, sometime over the last twenty years between the Mari Girl and the Marimekko consumer, as the profile of the ever prominent current corporate figure Kirsti Paakkanen, is anything but dormant. On this note I would like to draw your attention to the last example, and the one I fear most resembles the current positioning of women in the ICT paradigm [image 5]. In this example, the model is shown standing in front of relatively new steel 1

Butler (1997) talks of the negatives and positives of “name-calling” in her chapter of “On Linguistic Vulnerability” through drawing on Althusser’s theory of “interpellation” (2) and on Lacan’s description “the name is the time of the object” (29) – which thus moves closer to my own analysis. 2 Examples of this are demonstrated clearly within the Ritva Falla Collection catalogue (Autumn/Winter, 2000-2001).

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3rd Christina Conference on Women’s Studies

March 8th-10th, 2007

and glass buildings. These are the type of buildings which have been appearing more and more within the context of the information society. They are the buildings which can be viewed as being transparent, leaving the informational contents inside ‘open’ to the public. Upon looking at these pictures however, it is noticed that the woman model is not standing in front of the structures. Quite abstractly she has been Photoshopped onto the architectural backgrounds removing her completely from this current technological context. More disturbingly is that on the last page of the catalogue is an image which reveals the Finnish House of Parliament behind the corner of the Kiasma building.

Since the mid-1900s one level of Finland’s national pride and international rhetoric has been that it was both men and women who worked side by side, as equals to build the modern society (Koivunen, 2003, 146). When reflecting on the direction of representation of woman in advertising however, one cannot help thinking that post-modern and post-industrialist discourse has somehow left her out of the picture. ICT is where the world and industry is happening at the moment, but now, during a time when war discourse is not high on the agenda, women take on a more decorative role. At the moment when Mari Girl would be most suited with her creative and intellectual knowhow, in addition to her determined individuality she is nowhere to be seen.

References

Aav, M. (Ed. 2003). Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashion, Architecture. New York: The Bard Graduate Centre for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble – feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge Butler, J. (1988, December). “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”. Theatre Journal. 40/4. 519-531 Grossberg, L. (1992). We gotta get out of this place: Popular conservatism and postmodern culture. New York: Routledge Grossberg, L. (Ed. 1986). ”On Postmodernism and Articulation – an interview with Stuart Hall”. Journal of Communication Inquiry. 10. 45-60 Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage

Hall, S. & Donald, J. (1986) Politics and Ideology: a reader. Milton Keynes: Open University Press

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Rahikainen-Haapman, H., Kaarakka, E. & Vuorimaa, MT. (Eds.). (1986). Phenomenon Marimekko. Kiviranta: Marimekko Oy. Raikes, S. (2005, September 4th). “Brave new whorls”. Scotland on Sunday. Retrieved October 2nd, 2005, from: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/spectrum.cfm?id=1893902005 Slack, J. (1996). “The theory and method of articulation”. Stuart Hall – Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. David Morley & Chen Kuan-Hsing (Eds.). New York: Routledge. 112-127

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