Uhana rose to fashion fame, laid off almost everyone and survived its toughest crisis

When Sanna Marin appeared in Vogue photographs wearing a black merino-wool dress from Tampere-based Uhana, the relatively young Finnish brand suddenly found itself in the international spotlight.

The British edition of Vogue described Finland’s then-prime minister as “Cool, calm and collected” in April 2020. The photographs showed Marin wearing Uhana’s Mirage dress. It soon emerged that Vogue’s U.S. edition had also interviewed her.

International visibility did not make the years that followed easy for Uhana. The brand’s founders, sales director Mira Vanttaja and creative director Hanna Virkamäki, say Uhana has had to adjust its operations in many ways. The company also had to lay off almost all its employees.

Uhana is nevertheless unusual among Finnish fashion brands because it survived both the coronavirus period and the war in Ukraine. Its story is therefore not only about a moment of fashion recognition, but also about the difficult effort required to keep a domestic brand operating through successive disruptions.