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Wishes fulfilled

Lähderinne describes herself as a naturally positive person who has been a dreamer since childhood. She believes hope – what the future might hold – carries her as a person, not just as a fashion designer.

‘But many of my wishes have already come true,’ she says with a smile.
‘I got into the field I care about, fashion. I’m a clothing designer. I won the competition. I’ve already received recognition. My next hope is to work abroad as a designer.’

Among her achievements, Lähderinne mentions interest from international stylists responsible for dressing major artists. Her fantasy collection piece has already travelled to Spain, and stylists for Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan have inquired about looks from her master’s thesis collection. She values that artists with something to say choose to wear her work. Lähderinne’s design sensibility is, after all, a message in itself.

The beauty of a curved back

Lähderinne may never have become a fashion designer had she not been forced to think differently about clothing as a school-aged child. In early adolescence, she had to wear a back brace 23 hours a day due to Scheuermann’s disease.

The rare, hereditary spine condition is treated with a custom brace that forces the wearer upright during their growing years.

‘As a teenager, I couldn’t dress like everyone else. I had to scour thrift stores for men’s XXL clothes because the brace’s metal frame made everything extremely oversized. I wore it for four years.’

In her Aalto University thesis collection, she examined what kind of relationship a person forms with clothing when they have an atypical body. What does it mean when there is an extra layer between the garment and the body?

‘In that collection, I studied and used Dior again – his feminine ideal is almost poetic. I took, for example, a Dior evening gown silhouette and combined it with the shape of a Scheuermann’s back. I disrupted the harmony – I wanted to show that it is beautiful. I think I succeeded.’

She hopes her work offers something meaningful to people with different bodies or those going through medical treatments.

‘Doesn’t seeing a model on the runway wearing a garment that fits your own exceptional body create hope?’ she asks.

Understanding hard things creates hope

Polarisation can arise between two or more groups that, in the worst case, cannot tolerate each other. Research shows such groups tend to view each other as stereotypical and threatening. Polarisation can also be asymmetric, in which one group attempts to strip the other of rights.

It’s a grim topic, and one of Salloum’s data sources is social media. How does he find hope when he sees the content people post online?

He returns to the meaning of his work: ‘I’m privileged to be studying something socially important and to communicate its insights to the public,’ he says. ‘Knowledge increases understanding. Even a complex issue like polarisation feels less frightening when you can make sense of it.’

Salloum leans back in his chair. ‘Hope, for me, comes from the fact that as a species we strive to understand difficult things rather than panic and withdraw.’

Talking openly about polarisation is part of the solution, he adds. ‘Just recognising the phenomenon and understanding its mechanisms makes people more immune to the most extreme thinking patterns and the most harmful consequences.’

Knowledge – education and learning – strengthens that immunity. For Salloum, hope walks hand-in-hand with understanding the world. It is active: something individuals can build alone or with their communities. In difficult times, action itself creates hope.

‘Sometimes you just have to create hope yourself. And that becomes much easier when you understand how the world works and why people behave the way they do.’

Hope built on oil

‘The ability to hope is shaped by one’s surroundings,’ she says. What we understand as hope is in many ways a modern, Western form of hope – one built on a kind of self-sufficiency tied to fossil fuels. 

Finns, Ahola-Launonen notes, are a notably technocratic people. ‘Our optimism is based on trust. We deeply trust science and technology and assume that the progress they generate will serve us.’

She stresses that there is no single form of hope; there are many kinds. She speaks often about the content of hope and the directions it can take.

Where does a sustainability-transition researcher like Ahola-Launonen find hope?

‘Climate facts are still poorly popularised. We are in a moment where there is an enormous body of research that needs to reach people quickly. What gives me hope is the idea that knowledge could help humanity reach a consensus: that the most important thing right now is to bring material and energy flows down significantly.’

‘I hope my work can be one voice countering the illusions of technological optimism or at least putting them in proper perspective.’

She brings her thumb and index finger close together, showing how small a role technological solutions should realistically play in solving the sustainability crisis. Then she spreads her arms wide, illustrating how much more focus should be placed on reducing consumption.