page_title: Maija Isola
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Maija Isola / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Finnair, Airbus A340-300 OH-LQD 'Marimekko Unikko' NRT. The pattern was designed by Maija Isola.
context_page_description: Maija Sofia Isola was a Finnish designer of printed textiles, creating over 500 patterns including Unikko. Her bold colourful designs made the home furnishings and fashion company Marimekko famous in the 1960s. She also had a career as a visual artist.
  Undisputedly the most famous textile designer ... at Marimekko
  Isola exhibited across Europe including at the World Exhibition Brussels and the Milan Triennale, and in the USA. Retrospectives of her work have been held at the Design Museum in Helsinki, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Design Museum, Copenhagen, the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her prints continue to sell at Marimekko.
  She lived and worked for most of her life in Finland, but spent some years in France, Algeria and the United States. She was married three times. Her daughter Kristina Isola in turn became a Marimekko designer, for a time collaborating with Maija. Her granddaughter Emma also designs for the company.
context_section_description: Aav noted that "As the twenty-first century gets underway, Marimekko is experiencing a resurgence of interest and appreciation—a true revival. Maija Isola's Unikko pattern, designed almost forty years ago, blooms as never before."
  In 2011, Marimekko flew a hot-air balloon decorated with an enormous version of Unikko over Helsinki, showing that the pattern remains iconic nearly half a century later. Marimekko's marketing policy is to reissue "classics from its fifty-year back catalogue, notably a large group of patterns from the 1950s and 1960s by Maija Isola."
  Since 2012, Finland's airline Finnair has been flying an Airbus A340-300 to its Asia destinations sporting a blue Unikko print, while an Airbus A330 painted in an Anniversary Unikko has been serving its other intercontinental routes.
  Isola was described in 2013 as a style icon. Her granddaughter Emma Isola works for Marimekko as a designer, forming a three-generation tradition.
caption: A Finnair Airbus A340-300 flies painted with Isola's 'Marimekko Unikko' pattern in 2015.
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