Camilla Naukkarinen

The collection Salonkikelpoinen, eng. Salon Ready, reinterprets the artistry of hairdressing through fashion. It draws inspiration from Naukkarinen’s family background connected to the profession. Growing up in the backroom of a hair salon, the designer absorbed the rhythms and rituals of the trade—an experience now printed on her designs. Through seven looks, the collection transforms hairdressing tools, textures, and silhouettes into wearable forms, with the salon cape as a recurring motif. Adaptable and layered, the garments mirror the craft of hairdressing. Salonkikelpoinen honours the profession, bridging its aesthetics with contemporary fashion in a bold and personal exploration.

In her MA thesis collection, Camilla Naukkarinen explores the world of hairdressing through a deeply personal lens. Growing up in the backroom of a salon where her mother and maternal grandmother worked, she absorbed the rhythms, rituals, and unspoken artistry of the trade—an experience that shaped her approach beyond what visual research alone can capture.

While hair plays a prominent role in fashion imagery, the profession of hairdressing itself is rarely explored in depth within fashion design. Although materials like hair and fur are often used, the broader culture, tools and aesthetics of the hair salon remain largely unnoticed. 

– The stereotypes that are often associated with hairdressers don’t reflect the complexity and skill that go into the work itself. In this collection, I want to bring appreciation to traditional crafts like hairdressing and celebrate the techniques and creativity that lie beneath the surface.

The design process was driven by material experimentation, and the collection explores how hair and its treatments could be translated into design and textiles. Through printing, knitting and layering, Naukkarinen developed fabrics that mimic the look and texture of hair dye, bleach and frizz. The messy and tactile world of hair colouring became a key source of inspiration in a playful and bold way, with the hairdresser’s cape as one of the key elements in Naukkarinen’s collection

– At first, I only imagined having one look inspired by the cape, but it ended up being the most important source of inspiration. I shaped and layered the cape in many different ways on top of the human body to discover forms and layers. This new method took me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to explore something unexpected. For this collection, it was undeniably the only right way to work. After all, hairdressers also work directly on their clients’ heads, and I wanted to explore how many parallels I could find with my mother’s working methods.

This collection bridges personal history and speculative design. By weaving together observation, memory and material experimentation, it offers a fresh and affectionate take on an underappreciated profession and highlights the creative richness found within the walls of a hair salon.