Salut de Paris – Metropolia Fashion & Clothing students launched a children’s wear collection in Playtime Paris

Marjatta Viinikainen, Fashion and Clothing Student, Metropolia

Photo: Niina Räisänen ©

Metropolia Fashion & Clothing students created a children’s wear A/W 2013 collection for school-aged kids featuring indoor wear, a few accessories and jackets. The collection was a collaboration with a Finnish children’s brand, Aarrekid. All the designs and marketing material are made by the students, who also handled the production process.

The long-awaited and highly anticipated Aarrekid Junior collection was launched in the Play Time Paris trade show at Parc Floral on January 26 – 28th by the students, and visited by two Metropolia teachers. Playtime Paris is an international trade show dedicated to the children’s universe and it was buzzing with more than 400 international brands and close to 7000 visitors from all around the world.

The work at Playtime started with putting the stand together on the day before so that everything would be ready when the doors opened for visitors the next morning.

Photo: Niina Räisänen ©

The students were working at the stand every day and during these three days the collection was embraced by the press, featured in blogs and it was a well-liked choice for buyers. Altogether almost 3000 international buyers visited Playtime Paris, which made it the biggest one ever. Aarrekid Junior was also one of the few collections whose items were featured in the Playtime trend spaces, what was just the icing on the cake.

To sum up, the atmosphere was very uplifting not only at Parc Floral but also the whole city was full of inspiration just to wander around during free time.


Aarrekid Junior collection will be available next fall 2013 at Aarrekid and selected stores.