Krista Virtanen

GREY MARKET

We change, decompose and regenerate. The exhibition features pieces of Virtanen’s material-driven collection exploring ageing, resilience, and transformation through older women’s perspectives. It reflects how the body and spirit endure societal expectations, gender roles, and personal growth. Each garment honours the wisdom of lived experiences, blending themes of ageing and regeneration. Grey Market challenges beauty standards and emphasises inclusivity. Blending biomaterials with glass, the collection symbolises impermanence and strength, embodying growth, decay, and renewal cycles. These materials push fashion’s boundaries, highlighting resilience. The work focuses on tactile sensations and memories, translating them into artistic expressions beyond visual representation.

We all, at some point, arrive at the edge of transformation — where endings quietly become beginnings. This MA graduate collection explores ageing, resilience, decay, and renewal through the lens of womanhood. It draws from lived experiences and the personal stories of older women, blending feminist thinking with the beauty of impermanence. It challenges fashion’s obsession with youth, speed, and surface perfection. 

– Ageing as a woman in this society feels scary, having to face so many changes and choices. Will starting a family lessen my chances of having a career in fashion? Will other people’s perception of me and my work change as I get older?”

Grey Market is a material-driven collection which focuses on biomaterials and their lifecycle. These biomaterials don´t last forever either, they get old and change. The garments are created through hands-on, experimental processes using bio-based materials developed in the lab — recycled paper, egg cartons, and plant-based ingredients. Glass appears as a decorative and symbolic element — a fragile permanence against organic. 

The entire collection is naturally dyed with black and green tea from Natural Indigo Finland, showcasing the potential of plant-based dyes to create rich, deep tones. Some pieces also include mycelium leather developed by Forager, continuing the exploration of living, regenerative materials in fashion. 

This is not a mourning of age, but a celebration of change. As garments today are worn on average only five times before being discarded, this collection explores how clothing can be meaningful without needing to last forever. Rooted in Earth Logic, it follows a slower rhythm, honouring regenerative cycles and challenging extractive systems. It envisions a future where fashion protects biodiversity instead of exploiting it.

– I  aim to dissolve the patriarchal constructions that have for long marginalised women’s voice in art, fashion and social discourse. It is an ode to female artists, who before me have paved the way for other women in an industry still mainly run by men.