The Fashion Elite

This article was originally published in Finnish on Longplay.fi on September 17, 2019.

Fashion designer and lecturer Tuomas Laitinen at Helsinki’s Aalto University has been humiliating and laying into his students for years. The fashion division’s faculty keeps deliberately ignoring his actions.

EACH AUTUMN, with the academic year commencing, fashion students at Aalto University are whispering about whom lecturer of fashion design Tuomas Laitinen will be picking as his favourites over the next years of study. Those chosen ones are known as “ladies-in-waiting,” “cloak-bearers” and “silver-spooners.” They receive special treatment and are favoured over others who face a tougher slog.

For this article, Long Play has interviewed ten current and former Aalto fashion students. They have been studying in the programme between 2009 and 2019 and describe the requirements as “violent” and “inhumane.”

A notable amount of criticism is directed at the actions and behaviour of the person running the bachelor’s programme, Tuomas Laitinen, which are called “arbitrary,” “continuous grey-area operations” and feature “inappropriate use of power.” Several students say they have been afraid of being singled out by Laitinen. For example, Laitinen has been publicly humiliating students who have been unaware of certain foreign fashion gurus or been unable to pronounce their names correctly. One interviewee explains how Laitinen had shown their work to everyone else in the class and stated: “This is the kind of crap you mustn’t do.”

He has also refused to teach some students and told them not to contact him.

Long Play is publishing Laitinen’s name because the international success of Aalto University’s fashion programme is personified, particularly, in him. (Laitinen did not respond to Long Play’s requests for a comment.)

The majority of those students interviewed wished to remain anonymous. Their accounts of Laitinen’s behaviour and the fashion school’s issues were consistent. The exception was one person, who in the final stages of studies, said the atmosphere in the programme was “extra good.”

Since 2017, a student wellbeing survey has been conducted among all students of Aalto University. In comparison to other fields of study at the University, survey results from fashion students have been exceptionally poor.

Fashion students say that the name of the game is made clear right at the beginning of the first year. An event is organised for new students where sparkling wine is served and Laitinen and his chosen older students explain what it is like to study fashion.

“He said that we will only become humans in our second year of study. In the first year, Laitinen will not greet us in the corridors and we must not get in touch with him,” relates one student who started in the prestigious programme in 2016.

According to that student, Laitinen teaches the first-year students the lay of the land by repeating that they should forget about their boyfriends and social life for the next five years.

IN TERMS OF media visibility, the subject of fashion at Aalto University is in a league of its own compared to any other Finnish institute of higher learning.

Its students have been awarded countless prizes at prestigious international design competitions such as the annual grand event judged by top designers in Hyères, France, and the contest for young style-makers held by LVMH, the luxury brand conglomerate.

Foreign fashion magazines are raving about young Finns, and Finnish journalists are getting all excited in response. In a survey carried out among students of various fashion schools this year, Aalto’s bachelor’s programme was chosen as the best in the world. (Laitinen had only sent the survey to selected students; he advised respondents to bear in mind their own future benefits as Aalto alumni.)

The school’s success is largely attributed to Laitinen. He has completely remodelled the programme: previously, the school oriented itself towards the Finnish textile industry, now its focus is international high fashion. Laitinen has been awarded in the Hyères competition back in 2006. In his day, he graduated from the prestigious London fashion school of Central Saint Martins with distinction. He has said that he has also adopted his pedagogy from that venerable school’s professor, the late Louise Wilson, who was held to be a fashion guru.

According to the students interviewed by Long Play, Laitinen does not hide his preferential treatment of his inner circle. It is common for information regarding the school and studies to be restricted. Either mailing lists are distributed selectively, or emails state that their contents must not be discussed with others. Laitinen arranges internship positions using his international connections and hands them out under the counter to his favourites.

“There was this situation where we were in the middle of fittings. Tuomas casually asked one of the older students acting as a fitting model if they would like to do their internship at Givenchy: ‘Would you like to go there?’” relates one current student. (Givenchy is a major French fashion house.)
Hierarchy in the fashion programme is built around Laitinen’s favour. The students consider it significant if they get an Instagram like or other praise from Laitinen. Or if they notice that he has been to view the collection of someone they know.

Laitinen’s chosen ones take advantage of their position in relation to the other students. They suck up to Laitinen and, when he asks them to, hand out “disciplinaries” difficult students.

“In the autumn of my first year, I heard from older students how Tuomas had been talking about how this person in my class is arrogant and lazy. That we should give that person a lesson on the order of things at this school,” relays one student.

“That’s when I was like, that’s fucking strange. He talks shit about the younger students with the older ones. What is this?”

Dean of Aalto University’s School of Arts and Design Tuomas Auvinen says that the information on Laitinen’s inappropriate behaviour comes as a surprise to him.

“This kind of message has not reached me. There has been discussion about the workload of fashion studies, but I have not heard such clear accusations of inappropriate behaviour. If they are true, they will naturally be investigated and taken extremely seriously,” says Auvinen.

THE YEARLY HIGHLIGHT of the fashion programme is the fashion show organised in May called Näytös. It is visited by the fashion world’s greats from around the world. In the last two years, the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle has broadcast the event from Helsinki’s Kaapelitehdas live on Areena.

Näytös is Laitinen’s creation, and he is also the one to choose whose collections are good enough to be included. He tends to announce his decisions two days prior to the beginning of Näytös. Years of design and sewing work may have been put into each collection.

“For some, the rug is pulled from under them in as humiliating a way possible. All collections are made in line with Laitinen’s personal taste, and then, at the last minute, they aren’t good enough after all. Others, he provides with his full appreciation and support.”

Ahead of Näytös, students are spending all their nights and weekends at the school preparing their collections.

“It didn’t matter what time of night you went in, there was always someone there sewing or crying,” recalls one student.

One interviewee says that when finalising their bachelor’s collection, they did not sleep in their own bed for two weeks: “At worst, I stayed up four nights running. After that, I started to hallucinate.”

Another person says they had seen each of their 11 coursemates crying at the school.

It often costs thousands of euros to prepare a collection, and the students pay the expenses out of their own pockets. Laitinen assists his favourites, though, by buying and donating them materials or giving them his own garments to copy patterns from.

Laitinen also supplies the students he considers suitable with prominent materials sponsors. These include Finnish family-owned clothing brand R-Collection and Swarowski, for instance. These deals are valuable: from Swarowski, for example, the selected student may order as much crystal as they please. The works of these students are always accepted into Naytös, as the collaborative partners must receive their visibility.

Fashion students have regular tutorials organised in Laitinen’s office approximately once a week in which they present their works to him.

“Tuomas wants to bring his own talent into the students’ collections. The school is a fashion house run by him. He administers all collections and essentially makes all decisions about them. He wouldn’t have that kind of power even as the head designer of a fashion house,” says one current student.

How the tutorials go depends on what mood Laitinen happens to be in. At times, he is rolling his eyes. Sometimes, he’s only flicking through his phone or computer and barely even glancing at the students. If something has not been done as per Laitinen’s instructions – regardless of whether the change is even technically possible – he gets snappy.

“The level of feedback is like, ‘This looks like Ivana Helsinki even though it should look like Céline,’” describes an alumni. “Tuomas goes through the garments one by one and says ‘no, no, no, no.’”

In tutorials, Laitinen has also been bashing other students and the department’s staff to the students. The students and teachers of the textile design unit, which was combined with the fashion division in 2013, are called “peasants” and “felters” by Laitinen, who says they have children early on.

The class of pariahs also includes master’s students from elsewhere who have not completed bachelor’s studies taught by Laitinen.

If Laitinen is not happy with a student’s work, he tends to begin to smoke them out: he might, for example, stop answering their emails, give them completely random feedback or demand massive changes to their collections at the last minute.

 IN MAY 2018, Riikka Peltola and her 23-year-old work partner, who does not wish to be named, were just about to finish their joint collection. They had been working on it throughout the academic year. The collection had cost around 3,000 euros. They had both taken out a student loan for this purpose and, in addition, Peltola had asked her mother for some money.

The final styling took place three days prior to the announcement of which collections would be selected for Näytös. This was when Laitinen had remarked that the silk overall made by Peltola and her partner looked like “a drunk at a street party had vomited all over it.” As per his orders, several garments were dropped from the collection. Laitinen did, however, suggest they go get shoes for the models. The shoes were purchased, and everything was supposedly fine: Peltola and her work partner assumed that their collection was to be included in Näytös.

According to them, there was an unwritten rule in the programme about the work of second-year students not being dropped.

Laitinen announced his choices by putting up photos of the selected collections on the wall of the collection room. The students rushed in all at once to see them. There were no pictures on the wall of the collection by Peltola and her work partner.

“It came as a surprise, really out of the blue, that we’re not in Näytös. It was really confusing, as we’d kept getting all this feedback saying it was going well,” says Peltola.

Peltola and her work partner sent Laitinen an email in which they asked for separate written feedback.

“We would like to develop as students and understand where we have gone wrong,” they wrote.

In his reply, Laitinen announced that there were no mistakes in their collection as such and promised them the best grade for the course. In a meeting organised the following autumn, he said he had made a mistake by not including the collection of Peltola and her work partner in Näytös.

To make up for it, Laitinen promised to “do everything he could” so that Peltola and her work partner would get compensatory visibility for their collection. He said he would arrange for a photographer to take similar portfolio samples of their garments as those photographs that had taken for Näytös participants.

A date was set in October for the photo session. The model turned up, the photographer did not. Laitinen said that photos taken with a mobile phone would be good enough, after all. Peltola took the photos with her own camera.

“They were by no means equivalent to professional photos,” says Peltola’s work partner.

Their collection was excluded from the magazine of fashion and textile design students, and despite several requests, Laitinen never sent Peltola the instructions for participation in a contest he had especially recommended for her.

 THERE WAS an attempt to clear up the strained relations in a meeting arranged for this purpose at the end of January. In addition to Peltola and Laitinen, the meeting was attended by head of the study programme of fashion Kirsi Niinimäki, HR manager Hanna Nurmela, Aalto University head of student services Leena Koskinen and the Student Union’s two harassment contact people.

Peltola had wanted her work partner and two advocates from student organisations to be brought in as well. The request was denied. Koskinen and Niinimäki’s argument was that the meeting was about matters between Peltola and Laitinen.

Peltola also attempted to get one of Aalto’s study psychologists to come and support her. This did not work either. According to Peltola, Aalto project manager and study psychologist Merita Petäjä said on the phone that notice was too short and that also, the study psychologists “feel like they are already involved with the situation” with the fashion unit and, therefore, cannot attend the meeting.

When asked by Long Play, Petäjä denies this. According to her, both study psychologists were engaged elsewhere, the other one on a work trip. “In this situation, two harassment contact people went there as support staff because the event was arranged at short notice,” she says. She emphasises, however, that the study psychologists represent the students of Aalto University and cannot act as impartial mediators.

“This is what I was trying to explain to the student,” says Petäjä.

Since January 2019, Riikka Peltola has kept a journal in which she has recorded her communication as well as what was said in meetings at Aalto University. Peltola says she had mentioned in the January meeting that some of the students are afraid of becoming singled out by Laitinen. According to her, the teachers were laughing about this. Laitinen said that he has had no critical feedback on his actions in the more than ten years he has been teaching at Aalto.

In the meeting, another student’s suicide talk was also addressed, behind which were the high demands of the programme’s studies and their strained atmosphere. Kirsi Niinimäki disregarded the suicide talk by remarking that “students just say all kinds of things.”

During the meeting, Niinimäki accused Riikka Peltola of blackmailing Laitinen.

“As far as I can tell, it had to do with me having been asking Tuomas for the opportunities he had promised us to showcase our collection. It seems this had been interpreted as blackmail then,” says Peltola.

(Kirsi Niinimäki refused to comment on her remarks to Long Play. She hung up the phone after the first question.)

Later that same day, Laitinen posted a picture on his Instagram account of the devil tearing a small man out of the carcass of a troll hanging from the gallows. The hashtags at the end of the image:

#oneofthosedaysorweeksormonthsoryears and #judas.

Before this, Laitinen had blocked Peltola and her work partner on Instagram. Laitinen’s account, however, was still public.

“Once I’d mentioned in an email that I wished I weren’t branded as a judas, the image was removed instantly, and Laitinen made his account private,” says Peltola’s work partner, adding: “I was really close to getting to the inner circle just then. Apparently, Tuomas felt that I had betrayed him.”

THE NEXT DAY, Riikka Peltola’s work partner was heading to Tuomas Laitinen’s office for a tutoring session they had booked. Laitinen was not there, but he directed the work partner by text message to come to a different workspace.

The head of the fashion programme Kirsi Niinimäki was waiting there alongside Laitinen. Head of the department of design Tuuli Mattelmäki was also invited in “to wrap up the discussion.”

The work partner describes the meeting as an interrogation and an ambush. Niinimäki claimed that the students “had blown matters out of proportion” and said that this had caused “some very negative consequences for many individuals.”

Laitinen agreed. He said that his mental wellbeing was already “in the gutter” due to the situation.

He referred to his lawyer father and remarked that “certain things would qualify as bullying.”

“I should not be treated like this in my own workplace, and neither should anyone else,” he said.

Laitinen explained the Instagram block through having to protect his and his significant other’s lives from Peltola and her work partner. (The significant other has taught a class on the history of fashion at Aalto University. Laitinen and his significant other also run a fashion magazine, SSAW, together. Both the significant other and the fashion magazine have, like Laitinen, blocked Peltola and her work partner on Instagram.)

“Following my father’s advice, I’m forced to limit all access to any personal matter of mine: my life, my partner’s life, anything else,” Laitinen said.

Once Tuuli Mattelmäki noticed that Peltola’s work partner was recording the discussion, Laitinen announced that he can no longer work with them.

“I’m very sorry. This is more than I can take,” Laitinen stated and left.

After this, Mattelmäki made the work partner remove the tape. She did not spot the other recorder, however.

Niinimäki and Laitinen returned to the meeting once more, and Laitinen explained that he had confirmed with his father that the audio recording was “very much against the law.” (Mattelmäki later told the work partner in her email that she had been told by the University’s lawyer that no laws had been broken.)

Laitinen also repeated his request of not getting in touch with him. “All communications will go through Elina or Anna-Mari [University teachers], I don’t want any direct emails nor any kind of communication whatsoever,” he said.

When the work partner later asked the head of student services about this, she replied that the work partner should not be sending any messages to Laitinen.

TWO DAYS after the work partner’s meeting, a discussion event was organised for the students of fashion and the department’s staff. There were post-it notes available on which people could anonymously write about their concerns. The Student Union’s harassment contact people had also been invited to the event. Those present say that not many critical utterances were heard. Instead, concern was expressed over the right to teach in peace.

The most successful favourite students of Laitinen held lengthy defensive speeches to the staff and reminded listeners that in foreign fashion schools, there are steep tuition fees and the work is much tougher in other ways, too.

“The tone in which the criticism was challenged was painfully aggressive,” describes one person who was there.

According to attendees, Laitinen seemed offended and indifferent. He was flicking through a computer throughout the meeting and barely said a word. No time had been allocated in the agenda for writing on the post-its or addressing the concerns.

 
IN LATE JANUARY, the head of fashion Kirsi Niinimäki recommended that Peltola change her tutor. Laitinen outright refused to teach Peltola’s work partner.

No one was tutoring their thesis work for two months, even though these were the most critical weeks for designing the collection. Laitinen began to systematically avoid facing the pair.

“If I’m walking down a corridor at the school, I can see Tuomas walking behind me and when I take another look in a bit, he’s gone,” the work partner says.

In addition, two of their best schoolmates, both in Laitinen’s inner circle, have stopped talking to them.

“They have cut me out of their lives pretty much completely,” says the work partner.

In April, Peltola asked Laitinen by email why she had not received an invitation to the “emergency meeting” he had set up for select students.

Laitinen replied as follows: As I am certain you have been informed, all communication regarding your thesis, studies or the show must take place either through your thesis tutors or, if necessary, through Leena, not me. Kindly direct all future enquiries to them.

In the meeting he had assembled, Laitinen had mentioned having heard rumours about someone planning to sabotage the upcoming Näytös. He asked the students to monitor their classmates’ behaviour with special care and to report to himself or Kirsi Niinimäki, using an anonymous piece of paper if they liked.

“The reason he gave for this request was that he was so paranoid himself,” says an attendee.

WHEN THE POOR results of fashion students in the student mental health survey came out last spring, the Finnish Student Health Service FSHS convened its own emergency meeting.

This meeting was attended by the head of the fashion unit Niinimäki, vice dean Rasmus Vuori and several student and learning services representatives from FSHS.

In the meeting, Niinimäki said that the amount of mental health issues is not so much due to the school but the students’ sensitivities. She suggested that future entrance exams might also test the students’ mental health abilities more efficiently than thus far, in order to have less issues in the future. Niinimäki also stated that it would be good if the school were informed of the students who seek treatment from FSHS.

FSHS medical director Päivi Metsäniemi says that medical records regarding individual students can never be revealed to any outsider without permission.

Professor emeritus of labour law from the University of Turku Seppo Koskinen sees Kirsi Niinimäki’s comments as contrary to patient legislation and as “awful.”

“The teaching must be changed in a way that the students aren’t suffering. The premise is that simple. A student must also be able to get by with a reasonable workload,” Koskinen says.

According to Koskinen, it is only acceptable for a teacher to refuse to teach certain students if they bring on an acute threat of violence, for instance. Across his career of 45 years, he has never before heard of a “restraining order” like the one declared by Laitinen on his students. The university system is bound by the principle of equality, Koskinen says.

“A university operating primarily on public funding must take care of everyone. This means you cannot favour those who are good, even if you would also gain some of the fame and glory yourself,” says Koskinen.

 
TUOMAS LAITINEN has been threatening to leave Aalto in front of students for ten years already.

“It’s become one of those jokes, like yeah yeah, he’s landed this position again as the head designer of Diesel or something,” says one current student.

Some of the students are afraid of Laitinen leaving. If you happen to end up in Laitinen’s good graces, a lot of doors can be opened in the world of fashion.

Also, the management of Aalto University wants to keep a tight grip on Laitinen. A year ago, he was appointed senior lecturer, and there is a new promotion ahead this autumn, with Laitinen being appointed professor of artistic practice.
 

After Long Play published the Finnish-language version of this article on September 17th, Aalto University announced that it was postponing Laitinen’s professorial appointment.