History
It was the year 1986, as a few industrial design students woke to the fact, that not all was well in the University of Art and Design (or as it was known in Finnish, TaiK). The teaching of design felt neglected, and the staff kept changing almost annually. These students agreed that the best way to make a change was to found a student association to take care of the students and watch over their benefits. Not a long time had passed since the golden days of punk, and those times were also the inspiration for the name of the association: Nuoret Designerit (Young Designers), NuDe.
Form follows function?
Even though NuDe is already over 30 years old, the history of the association is full of more or less active years. It wasn’t before 2008, that NuDe started to form a more organized association with representatives from almost all fields of design at the university. NuDe is still taking its form, and new traditions are made almost every year. Some of them stick around, some of them fade away - and a great example of this is the student uniforms.
The birth of the Vappu Jacket
In the year 2013 NuDe tried ordering around a dozen grey overalls, but even though the longing for belonging to the traditional Finnish student culture that the overalls represent was lifting its head, the rejection for the mass culture was stronger. Therefore the overalls never rooted, and no one ordered a second batch. A couple of years later the idea of design student uniforms came up again, and this time someone thought of an artist’s jacket with a print fabric. This idea felt more NuDe, and that’s how our unique Vappu Jackets were born.
