Young Designer of the Year 2026 Camilla Naukkarinen has built her winning work around an idea that is both simple and unsettling: something familiar can look completely different when its material, history and meaning are changed. A graduate of Aalto University with a Master of Arts, Naukkarinen won this year’s competition with a fashion piece that combines historical craft, unusual materials and a deliberately striking visual language.
The competition, now held for the 32nd time, was themed “What a surprise”. Naukkarinen’s response takes the theme beyond the obvious. From a distance, her work resembles a richly textured fashion piece. Closer inspection reveals that its surface is made from hand-braided flowers constructed from hair fibre and metal wire, with each flower sewn individually onto the fabric.
The idea began with a question about what would actually be unexpected in fashion. Flowers, Naukkarinen says, seemed almost too familiar. They appear regularly in fashion collections and have long been used as decorative motifs. She began wondering how the idea could be turned into something less predictable.
Her research led her to the Victorian tradition of creating flowers from the hair of deceased loved ones and arranging them into memorial wreaths. That discovery gave the project a different direction, connecting a familiar fashion symbol with an unusual material and a much older cultural practice.
The dress also draws on fashion history. Its silhouette is influenced by the Victorian period, while Naukkarinen looked at a range of fashion references during the design process, including the work of Alexander McQueen. The result brings together historical references and contemporary craftsmanship without relying on a straightforward reproduction of the past.
The material choice also has a personal connection. Naukkarinen grew up around hair through her mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as hairdressers. Hair-related themes have therefore been part of her life since childhood, and she has also explored the subject during her master’s studies.
For the competition jury, that combination of personal history, research and craftsmanship was central to the work’s appeal. Kristiina Raitala, editor-in-chief of Gloria and chair of the competition jury, said the element of surprise develops gradually. The work first attracts attention through its beauty and visual impact before revealing questions about its material and history.
That gradual discovery reflects Naukkarinen’s broader approach to design. She is drawn to materials, shapes, techniques and combinations that make people reconsider something they think they already understand.
“I am interested in things that you don’t expect,” Naukkarinen says. “It could be a new technique, a surprising material or some detail that makes you look at something familiar in a new way.”
That interest is visible in her approach to colour as well. Naukkarinen describes colour as a source of joy and a way of creating moods and emotions. She is equally interested in unusual surfaces and combinations of materials that might not normally be placed together.
Playfulness is another important part of her process, although she is careful to distinguish it from a lack of discipline. For Naukkarinen, being playful means having enough freedom to experiment and reconsider an established idea. The finished work can be carefully constructed while still retaining a sense of curiosity.
Her influences include Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier, designers known for pushing fashion beyond conventional ideas of shape, material and presentation. Naukkarinen is particularly interested in the dramatic and sometimes fantastical fashion of the 2000s, with its strong textures, unexpected materials and theatrical visual language.
She hopes to eventually design for people who are equally willing to make their own choices.
“I would like to dress someone who doesn’t care what others think, but makes their own choices boldly and in their own way,” she says.
Naukkarinen’s route into fashion was not entirely direct. Creativity and making things by hand were already part of her childhood, but she had not settled on a career in fashion while at school. Japanese popular culture eventually played an important role in changing that. She became interested in distinctive cuts, layered clothing, storytelling, bold colours and prints, as well as the idea that being different could be an advantage rather than something to hide.
Because she could not easily find the same aesthetic in Finland, she began making her own clothes. She initially applied to train as a seamstress, but a place became available in millinery studies instead. Learning to make hats proved to be an important turning point.
Her studies later took her to London for an internship, where she was able to observe the development of a hat collection in an international setting. It was there that she began to see fashion as a possible career rather than simply an area of personal interest.
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“In London, I first felt like I wanted to do this for a living,” Naukkarinen says. “I got to see the collection process up close, and that’s when the idea came that I wanted to be part of the fashion world.”
After graduating from her earlier studies, she continued to develop her tailoring skills before gaining a place in Aalto University’s fashion degree programme. She graduated with a Master of Arts late last year. Rather than narrowing her interests, the programme appears to have strengthened her desire to experiment across different areas of fashion and craft.
Today, those interests include clothing design, headwear and the creation of distinctive surface materials using traditional and contemporary craft techniques. Naukkarinen does not see these as separate paths that necessarily need to compete with one another.
“I haven’t had the feeling that I want to do just one thing,” she says. “I’m a curious person and I’m interested in many different things. I want to try different things and build my own path.”
That approach may become one of the defining features of her career. Rather than committing herself to a single discipline, Naukkarinen wants to combine different skills and interests as opportunities emerge. The traditional expectation of choosing one direction and following it throughout a career does not particularly appeal to her.
For winning the Young Designer of the Year 2026 competition, Naukkarinen will receive a 5,000 euro scholarship donated by the Finnish Fair Foundation. She will also have a stand and programme at the I love me event at the Helsinki Fair Centre from 16 to 18 October 2026.
Her work will also continue beyond the competition. Naukkarinen is involved in the design of MIELI ry’s Mielinauha 2027, which will be released next spring. The campaign will mark the Mielinauha campaign’s 10th anniversary, while MIELI ry will celebrate its 130th anniversary in 2027. Proceeds from the national campaign support mental health and crisis work in Finland.
The Young Designer of the Year competition is intended to identify emerging fashion talent and ideas that combine originality with practical potential. The 2026 jury was chaired by Kristiina Raitala and included fashion artist Ritva Falla, fashion ambassador Taru Marjamaa, fashion designers Hammi Miettinen and Teemu Muurimäki, clothing designer Katri Niskanen, stylist and fashion editor Nina Nuorivaara, fashion designer Mert Otsamo and clothing designer Mari Talka. Enni Lähderinne, the 2025 Young Designer of the Year, joined the jury as its rotating annual member.
For Naukkarinen, the award recognises more than a single dress or an unusual material. It reflects a design process built around questioning familiar ideas, researching where they come from and seeing what happens when they are approached from another direction. That curiosity is also what she appears most determined to carry forward, wherever her many paths in fashion may lead.
