Karhu shoes are part of Finnish sporting and design history
Today’s Karhu with its Dutch-American owners uses Finnishness as selling point
By Hannu Pöppönen
A group of shoe enthusiasts keep commenting with obvious pride in their encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject, while standing next to some footwear hanging on the wall.
A young man approaches Jukka Lehtinen, shows him his shoes, and asks if the same Harlem basketball shoes from the 1980s will be coming on sale again.
That is the plan, but not this year, is Lehtinen’s reply.
“Take good care of them”, Lehtinen adds as a parting shot.
For decades, the athletic shoes and sporting equipment made by the Finnish manufacturer Karhu, who this year celebrate their 95th anniversary, have been as much everyday reality for the people of Finland as Iittala’s Teema dinnerware or Marimekko shirts.
Especially from the 1970s many can still remember the brightly-coloured running shoes, the heels of which were decorated with round reflector stickers.
In 2008 the Karhu brand went into Dutch-American ownership. In addition to new models, the label has also introduced a small collection of retro products of yesteryear: shoes, T-shirts, and woollen caps.
The idea is to broaden the collection in the future. For this purpose the "Karhu Originals" brand manager Jukka Lehtinen has toured the length and breadth of Finland, visiting small sports stores and looking for some vintage shoes, for Karhu has not archived its products.
From his findings, Lehtinen has compiled a small exhibition in Helsinki’s Punavuori.
The premises also operate as a pop-up shop for Karhu Originals.
Apart from Finland and Sweden, old Karhu products have their devout fans especially in the Netherlands and in Spain, Lehtinen explains.
The Karhu Originals retro collection was first launched during the Milan Design Week in April.
This speaks of the target group Karhu is now pursuing: the trendy and the brand-conscious.
Many Olympic medals have been run, wrestled, and skied in Karhu footwear.
The golden years were the 1960s and the 1970s, when nearly every Finnish athlete - with the prominent exceptions of distance-running legends Lasse Viren and Juha Väätäinen - competed in Karhu footwear.
Finnishness and Karhu’s long-time tradition as a sporting goods manufacturer are the weapons that the company relies on when selling its reintroduced vintage models abroad.
The Karhu saga is a rather typical Finnish design story.
The company ultimately failed to capitalise on its strong and interesting brand.
Something very Finnish is also in the story - not familiar to many even here - about the old symbol of Karhu trainers.
Karhu used the three stripes motif before Adidas, which was not founded until 1949.
In 1952, representatives of Adidas came to the Helsinki Olympics and noticed that Karhu, too, had three stripes as a logo on its athletic shoes.
Adidas founder Adi Dassler later purchased the right to the symbol for a sum that equals EUR 1,600 in today’s currency, plus two bottles of Scotch.
Today Karhu footwear’s symbol is the letter M.
This originates from the name of the Mäntylä brothers, who worked as designers for Karhu in the 1960s.
The M-motif can be seen clearly on the shoes worn by two sporting Finnish heads of state, Urho Kekkonen and his successor in the post, Mauno Koivisto.
The Karhu exhibition and the pop-up shop are open Tuesday through Sunday 12:00 till 17:00 until June 22nd.
The address is Pursimiehenkatu 5.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 5.6.2011
Links:
Karhu Originals
Karhu
HANNU PÖPPÖNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
hannu.popponen@hs.fi
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| 7.6.2011 - THIS WEEK |
Karhu shoes are part of Finnish sporting and design history
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