My Story
Welcome - I’m Anne-Mari
I am a Finnish fashion designer creating considered design where art, craft and emotion meet.
Timelessness is a philosophy I live and breathe, both in life and in my design practice. I design with care, believing in permanence and the profound connection between a design and the person who wears it.
My work has been present at some of life’s most meaningful moments - at weddings, the Golden Globe Awards, the Nobel Prize Ceremony, Finland’s Independence Day reception, and exhibited in institutions such as the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki.
For me, fashion is never hurried. It is a dialogue between human experience and time - shaped by light and shadow, movement and silence.
Art - Crafting Design that Lasts
Throughout my career, I have been drawn to designs that endure — not only in form and material, but in meaning. I seek to create pieces that withstand time, celebrating permanence, care, and intention. Every choice I make - from silhouette to fabric, from detail to finish — becomes part of a considered story.
I am inspired by harmony, by structures that bear the marks of life, and by materials that carry history and soul. I cherish the traditions of applied arts and crafts, always exploring new ways to bring them into contemporary design.
Over the years, my bespoke creations have accompanied some of life’s most significant moments — from the Golden Globe Awards in Hollywood to the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Sweden, and Finland’s Independence Day Reception at the Presidential Palace. They have also been featured in exhibitions both in Finland and abroad, including at the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki.
These experiences have reminded me that fashion is always a reflection of humanity - a dialogue between a unique individual and the world.
Ateneum Art Museum 2025, Photo Angelina Ilmast
Experience and Growth
From 2022 to 2025, I worked as Head of Design at the Finnish design brand Samuji - a chapter that deepened my commitment to sustainability and to designing thoughtful collections with care.
My background also includes formal studies in Fashion Design (BA, 2007) and years working as a Costume Designer in television - experiences that taught me immensely and shaped the designer I am today.
After graduating in 2007, I embarked on an extensive entrepreneurial journey, refining my craft and cultivating a deep, multifaceted expertise through the stewardship of my own design ventures - a journey whose culmination is this very moment.
“Sumuiset vuoret” Yidan Chen -26 for Anmai
Photos Lotta Kankaanpää
Anmai – The Vision
In October 2025, I returned fully to my own vision with the launch of Anmai.
Anmai was born from a desire for slower, more meaningful fashion - and from a lifelong relationship with material, craft and form. My roots are in South Ostrobothnia, where open landscapes, silence and a culture of practical making shaped the way I understand design. Growing up as the daughter of an upholsterer, I learned early to value structure, repair, longevity and the quiet care behind objects made to last.
The Anmai world also draws inspiration from Japanese aesthetics and my long-standing admiration for Italian craftsmanship - a love that began during my studies in 2006, when I had the opportunity to work in Venice, Italy. These influences come together in a refined, beyond-Nordic minimalist expression.
Anmai spans from everyday designs that bring ease and clarity to sculptural, made-to-measure designs for life’s most significant moments.
Each design is created in collaboration with skilled artisans and selected Helsinki-based atelier partners. The more sculptural designs are shaped like works of art, and I often form these elements myself by hand - through the body, material, proportion and movement.
Every collection and unique design is created with the wearer in mind: your body, your life, your rhythm. My work is here to support, refine and give form to something deeply personal - a design you can return to, again and again.
Design as Dialogue
Anmai is built on timeless design, sculptural simplicity, material memory and quiet emotional luxury.
Each design lives between art and clothing - shaped through the body, movement, material and time. From everyday forms to ceremonial moments, the work begins with a belief that clothing can hold meaning, care and presence.
For me, design is always a dialogue: between the person who wears it, the material it is shaped from, and the life it becomes part of. Anmai is a world to return to - a place to ask, to discover, to feel inspired and to find designs that bring you closer to your own rhythm.
Thank you for being here.
Anne-Mari Pahkala