Now better sited in Orchard Road, with an adjacent café to entice the pastry hound

The new Marimekko store at ION Orchard

When it opened in 2015 at the Capitol Piazza, the Finnish brand Marimekko was thought to be able to inject some vibrancy to the retail scene dominated by big names from Western and Southern Europe. Capitol Piazza, at its inception in the same year, was supposed to revive this part of City Hall with less common retail offerings. But the mall, a component of the integrated development Capitol Singapore, never quite took off (the initial hotel next door, The Patina, gave way to Capitol Kempinski). Marimekko closed its 240sqm store, then dubbed the flagship, in 2018, barely three years after it opened. Industry chatter back then suggested that the headquartered-in-Hong-Kong distributor Sidefame, also operator of the Japanese label Anteprima (the brand is no longer here) “did not fare too well with Marimekko”, as one retail veteran told us. Moreover, the consortium-led landlord was planning to re-jig the retail space of Capitol Piazza, which by then saw many fashion brands move out.

Now, Marimekko is back—“back with an attitude,” announced Jay Chantarasakha, head of operations of Tanachira Retail Corporation—the lifestyle retail division of Thailand’s Tanachira Group—during the media preview of the store this afternoon. Mr Chantarasakha’s enthusiasm is understandable. The new store appeared poised to reintroduce the brand’s infectious visual vitality via its colourful prints to a retail market not quite fully energised, even when the offline shopping horde is seemingly back to pre-pandemic levels. Tanachira, the current distributor of Marimekko on our island, has had immense success with the Helsinki-based lifestyle brand, with an impressive 13 “concept stores” throughout Thailand. The projection is to operate two more stores here in the near future, according to the brand’s country manager Sharon Tay. “We believe the time is right for Marimekko to return,” she said with palpable confidence. The brand is also due to open their first Malaysian store at The Exchange TRX in central Kuala Lumpur in November.

Marimekko’s unmistakable prints and colour-blocking

The new Marimekko store now enjoys an Orchard Road site, specifically at ION Orchard, on B1, formerly Ratio Café and Gastrobar that took over long-time tenant Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Interestingly, Marimekko kept the coffee brewing with an eponymous kahvila (there is currently a pop-up café at Central Embassy and an in-store joint at The Emporium, both in Bangkok). In fact, as you approach Marimekko, the café fronts the store, which suggests that it would likely be the brand’s crowd driver. Immediately noticeable are the label’s vividly-patterned ceramic tableware and paper napkins used on the fair-wood tables of the 26-seater space, as well their patterned cushions on the banquette seating upholstered in Marimekko fabrics. While the menu in Bangkok is conceived by local F&B consultants, featuring Greyhound Café-style marriage of Asian and Western or Asian and Asian fare (think onigiri with Thai grilled pork moo ping), the offering here is neither fusion or Finnish. Rather, mini Danishes, savoury pies, and sweet tarts make the mains.

Although the café prominently takes up a sizeable part of the 167 sqm store (considerably smaller than its first establishment at Capitol Piazza), it is the lifestyle merchandise, including fashion, that would be a draw for shoppers, if the Thai experience is any indication. Tanachira has cleverly positioned Marimekko as the “best place to bring joy to everyday life”. And the Thais, connoisseurs of sanook (having a good time or, simply, fun), have embraced the Marimekko idea of joy wholeheartedly as part of their sanook way of life. The brand’s cheery prints of abstract, even naive, blooms covey that sense of keen pleasure, and corresponds with the Thai’s love of cheerful, almost cute, graphics, so much so that back in 2020 Marimekko had cleverly used its “iconic” Unikko poppies to dress entire Bangkok Sky Trains, augmenting the brand’s similar emphasis on sanook. It is possible that Tanachira will communicate the same ethos here.

Models in Marimekko’s autumn/winter 2023 collection at the media preview of the store

Whether we will take up the fun of Marimekko the way the Thais have is yet to be seen. The new store, unmistakable in its Kinfolk-ready Nordic design overtones, featuring well-defined lines, white walls, blond wood fixtures, and grey floor tiles, would attract shoppers who prefer somewhat minimalist interiors where merchandise that enlivens any room pop. This is significantly different from the first store’s more modernist and spacious interior. Fashion items such as garments and bags (including the best-selling Kioski Carrier Big Marimekko tote) sport the brand’s unmistakable graphics in pattern-happy co-existence. In the past, local shoppers, while loving the brand’s body-freeing designs, had pointed out that the sizing of the womanswear tended to be too large, even for the small. It is not known if the sizing is tweaked, but this time, Marimekko has included the Kioski line that has been described to us as “younger” (Marimekko considers it “playful”), which could mean that the unisex garments would fit smaller or petite bodies.

Despite its near four-year absence, Marimekko had not entirely loss its brand visibility or recognisability here. There had been several collaborations that kept the label’s unique aesthetics rather at hand and enthusiasm towards its designs in its favour: with Uniqlo in 2018 and 2019, Adidas in 2021 (twice), and Ikea early this year. The rhapsodic response to these collabs is all the more amazing considering that the 72-year-old brand had been without a freestanding store on our shores and that the graphics, while bold and cheery, have remained largely unchanged. It has been design strength rather than celebrity endorsement that Marimekko was able to remain highly retentive in consumer consciousness. With the current store—a veritable well of brio and joy—Marimekko might be around far much longer this time.

Marimekko is now open at B1-12, ION Orchard. Photos: Chin Boh Kay